Agreed with DIY, you can get great bang for your $ but IME it also only goes so far. I haven't heard any SOTA components that are DIY. BTW, I thought seriously about either a Technics redo with a DIY Panzerholtz plinth or a Teres TT.
Audio quality per source components' cost comparison
- Thread starter sbo6
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Isn't Lampi in effect the world's greatest DIY product? Not that the customer puts it together, but it's origins and ethos as time goes on?
Watch out Marc, i have the image of cult members with pitchforks in mind right now
One of the most cost effective sources is a highend FM tuner like the Magnum Dynalabs, particularly the 109T. Obviously. it only makes sense if you have access to good quality FM stations as we do in the UK, notably the BBC and Classic FM. Their classical programming is outstanding and Radio 2 has some good programmes of earlier rock and pop music eras.
My 109T gets switched on when I get up and is on most of the day and a fair bit in the evenings.
Good used 109s come up for sale qute regularly at around £4k and if mated with a good external roof mounted aerial they deliver top class sound. You can, as I am doing, improve them further by replacing the stock valves with better NOS valves at around $300 a pair.
I think I am in something of a minority, but if you have access to good broadcasts an FM tuner is a very cost effective buy.
My 109T gets switched on when I get up and is on most of the day and a fair bit in the evenings.
Good used 109s come up for sale qute regularly at around £4k and if mated with a good external roof mounted aerial they deliver top class sound. You can, as I am doing, improve them further by replacing the stock valves with better NOS valves at around $300 a pair.
I think I am in something of a minority, but if you have access to good broadcasts an FM tuner is a very cost effective buy.
I don't know any of the parts your using. But I bet what your doing sounds good for the effort.
Thanks, I wouldn't have even thought of an FM tuner. Many years back I had a SAE FM Tuner that sounded quite good but ultimately it couldn't match the quality of my Phase Linear Series 8000 linear tracking TT but was great for radio tunes.
OK, we can also apply DIY to digital - you can get great kits to assemble at less than $1k, fit a few exotic components costing about the same, some silver wire and you immediately have a DAC that "kills" all the competition.
DIY products are unique, listened mainly by their creators/builders, and can not be compared with commonly available products. But I really appreciate diyaudio.com and lencoheaven.com and I think that audio DIY is a great hobby - I have considered going this way several times in the last years, as I have built a lot of equipment in my twenties, but lack of free time kept me away of it.
I'm unaware of any DIY DAC that is amazing. But I'm also unaware of any commercial DAC that blows me away in such a way I'd take it over analog.
It's true a lot of DIY stuff is meh or ok or whatever. But I've heard enough stuff to know that some of it competes with anything on the planet, too. It's not hard to equal or best a lot of commercial stuff because a lot of commercial stuff sounds horrible.
How would you know the parts I'm using? I don't recall you coming for a visit.
I'm aware of some very good DACs that toast analog, but I guess different strokes. For example I'd take the TotalDAC TD12 over just about every analog I've heard except a few >$50K setups. I bet if you AB'd blindfolded you'd change your mind..
I think the problem is it depends what you're listening for, and for me digital cannot yet compete for what I enjoy. Some day I'll work on designing a DAC to like digital more.
@Folsom I hope you do!
I'm all vinyl. Won't argue whats best. But if you have decent records you will want a TT imho.
The reality is for certain recordings this is a non-issue. Some are best on vinyl. Some digital. Master quality tape was never widely available...
I'm all vinyl. Won't argue whats best. But if you have decent records you will want a TT imho.
The reality is for certain recordings this is a non-issue. Some are best on vinyl. Some digital. Master quality tape was never widely available...
And your love of owning and trying all that exotic and expensive equipment Francisco
I appreciate trying equipment and listening to it - ownership is just a way of doing it. Equipment enters and leaves without regrets. I will move house in a short time and a new listening room is underway, no fair offer is being refused.
Really. Now your DAC expert and with a little clay going to outclass all the others in production. Come on. Comments like this give me pause to believe other statements.
The JVC table seems to have a lot of followers. It may be a good under represented secret. I was reading something about servo arms on certain models that fail. Is there anyone who can fix it?? Can you get parts? But i guess for $300 you use it for parts and get another.
I don't know about servo arms. I would not personally recommend the Y designation that comes with the servo arm.
And please stop making shit up. I didn't claim to be a DAC expert (yet). And your senile if you think I'd try to use clay as an electrical component in any of my circuits. And for context I said a DAC I'd like. But just FYI I do have some initial concepts for the topology using pre-existing chips. R2R might be fun but we haven't deep dived into whether we want to play with that especially if we can't do something interesting like having a PCB made with laser trimmed resistors impregnated on it.
I believe I can make a better DAC for me (what I've said now 3x times), once I get to it. But I should qualify with I think Folsom can. I don't work alone, developing anything requires lots of work, preferably not by a single person.
I'm not active on AudioKharma, but occasionally I see posts when looking up vintage gear. So that's news to me. Although I'm pretty sure the shim mod is solely me - and not a soul on earth seems to have tried it. Still though I don't know where you get fixated on me and what I do/do not whatever. For instances I don't own a Salas phono personally. I just named off how to make a darn nice analog setup for very little.
What makes you think I want to use a Burr Brown chip? I don't care at all about them. The likelihood we'd look at anything with an internal filter is pretty low. Using a pre--existing chip that's somewhat of a blank slate (no filters, no conversion etc) puts you in a position where your cost and development time is lower, and you're using technically higher precision "parts" under normal circumstances. Could you go discrete with something like I talked about before with laser trimmed impregnated resistors for R2R? Yes, would it sound better? I don't know, but it would be FAR FROM CHEAP or easy to get (for anyone).
Honestly I'm not sure what your fascination is with trying to put down Folsom/me. And while we haven't started on a DAC yet, it wouldn't be the first one we've done some sort of work on for a commercial product.
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I deleted my post shortly after putting it up as I felt it stupid to get into.
My facination is your stating.
IMO with a little bit of DIY you can spend circa $1k in vinyl that can’t be touched at any price digitally
Then you go on and say your going to develop a dac that you like. Well that implies a dac that is indistinguishable from analog. That would be one hell of a dac. Probably considered better than all other out there. Its just too bold and brash for me to accept at face value. So stupidly I barked. But hey. I have no idea who you are. You could very well be deeply involved with dac design for years. Maybe on the cusp of a breakthrough of sorts. I hope you are. I like both my sources. Spun about 6 album today. Now have some digital going and rather pleased at how dam good it all sounds. Especially when I drag my speakers way out into my room.
My facination is your stating.
IMO with a little bit of DIY you can spend circa $1k in vinyl that can’t be touched at any price digitally
Then you go on and say your going to develop a dac that you like. Well that implies a dac that is indistinguishable from analog. That would be one hell of a dac. Probably considered better than all other out there. Its just too bold and brash for me to accept at face value. So stupidly I barked. But hey. I have no idea who you are. You could very well be deeply involved with dac design for years. Maybe on the cusp of a breakthrough of sorts. I hope you are. I like both my sources. Spun about 6 album today. Now have some digital going and rather pleased at how dam good it all sounds. Especially when I drag my speakers way out into my room.
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I find it interesting almost noone commented on R2R. It may be the best source >$10K from what I've seen in terms of a used deck in very good shape + a head preamp.
Is it fair or unfair to begin to consider the media cost though? I know vinyl is more than digital, but there are still a lot of inexpensive wonderful albums. I don't know if that could be said for R2R? I have never tried buying random R2R albums off eBay or anything like that.
Good point. When I attempted getting back into vinyl about 5 years back I found the cost a mixed bag. as you said I found some LPs used cheap and some sounded great some not so much. then I started buying a few new reissues which were a bit expensive but sonically rewarding. As for R2R, I'm unaware of any used tape market and new is very expensive but they sound fabulous from what I recall at RMAF some years back.
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