That would be simple. He would be too far away to hear me.
Wadax Reference Dac and Server arrive
- Thread starter Mike Lavigne
- Start date
Mike only wants to improve the sound signal before the server gets it. Maybe you also know the better sound signal will give the better SQ. Every systems will have better SQ if we can improve the input sound signal. Your Taiko is also like that. You will see your Taiko will be improved with the tweaks even which is cheaper than Mike's tweak. I'm sure when Emile releases his switches and routers, you will not say these words.
Well my words are certainly not thinly veiled criticism as I'm sure Mike knows. I guess what you're saying is akin to putting better petrol into your car which I concur with. My question posed was where it stops and I guess we all subconsciously know that answer which is it doesn't. Having inexpensive tweaks that improve SQ significantly is not much of a heartache anyway!
It stops when:
> Your budget runs out
and / or
> You come to personal realisation of the upgraditis affliction and actively make the decision to pull out of the madness
or
> You die
my plan was to improve my interconnects for the Wadax as i had been using a BNC with the MSB i had for the Playback Designs (from 2005), add the RevOpods due to the unique Wadax chassis shape, then find a good quality network switch plus LPS, and later get the Server power supply when it came out. then i happened to upgrade my Sablon Ethernet cable, and now the Qpoints. turns out the system seemed to react strongly to each step.
as far as inexpensive tweak mattering.......my biggest all time tweak for my system cost about $400......the cloth and thumb tacks i bought to treat my reflective wall surfaces 6 years ago. the Qpoints are a little serendipitous for sure. seems too easy and simple.
i guess we wait a month to see what happens when i remove them and listen.
Steve? leave it alone? avoid? really? after 6 figures + of racks + $50k + of CMS footers + 6 figures + of cables. even if you count my Tana platforms i'm not half invested in those things as he is. OTOH Steve is a guy who does want to just listen and not stress about going further once he is happy. but he has certainly done his share of optimizations. but most of it was a few years ago. and i'm not being critical of Steve, i respect his path.
once i pushed my chips into the middle of the table with the Wadax i have determined to follow the optimization path to the end......i've gone too far to stop now. the Qpoints were not planned. but after buying the Nordost Qsource linear power supply and learning about the Qpoints and their modest investment and that they can be inserted into my system simply just to try, it seemed silly not to.
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Mike, for the sake of clarity, could you please make a list of every item in your digital front end from the wall outlet right up to the input on the back of your preamp? For a non digital guy like me, I want a better sense of what it takes to optimize a SOTA digital source. I had thought my vinyl source was complicated (with compressor, hoses, converter, power supply, two arms and various cartridges)and that digital was simply a player, DAC + transport, or DAC + streamer plus some cables. This is sounding much more involved than that. I am also trying to understand what each of these devices does for the playback, not sonically, but functionally. I guess I need a primer on what could potentially be involved. Thank you.
We are all enjoying your journey Mike.
Elliot G.
Industry Expert
your room and the dedication to excellence was truly inspiring when I visited. It led me to doing some additional small tweaks to my acoustics and I am thrilled with the result. I think that bringing the noise level down without overdamping the room works wonders. Finding those small reflections that hinder the overall desired effect really brought me closer to the music.
I am always surprised that as far as I go there is always more to the journey. The Nordost gear was something I never expected to even try but I am glad I did. Who knew a switch ???
today the two more "step ups" arrived. the first one (technically two pieces) has been playing for about 45 minutes now. it's the Nordost Qsource Linear Power Supply. with a 2 meter Qsource DC power cable plugged into the Nordost QNET switch. this is a very solid and heavy little bugger that i have sitting on my wall shelf behind my rack where my 2 EMIA SUT's sit. as it's not cheap, i was kinda hoping it would not move the needle. but of course it did.mostly more of everything good. more intense tonal density, greater ease and less stress, yet greater dynamic grip and contrasts. on my typical demo tracks i'm hearing more focus and sense of fingers on strings, voices more 'there' and 'expressive', words more intelligible on tracks i thought i knew exactly. now i know them more exactly. these are little things that all add up to a more real, less reproduced performance. it's doing what a good, well thought out, LPS should do.
and this is out of the box first impressions. not sure if this one breaks in or not. i guess i will find out.
bravo to Nordost for these (QNET switch + Qsource LPS + Qsource DC cable) network goodies. not spent the time to investigate the competition, but these have all delivered big time to my ears. and i have no plans to go down that 'compare' road, although i'm happy to A/B other units someone might send me.
i'll listen a little more and then try my last little 'step-up' bon-bon and see if there is any digital world's left to conquer.
The whole current line of Nordost power, cleaning and grounding tweaks is extremely interesting and really effective in tuning a system.
Yesterday we tried a QB8 power distribution base with a Nordost power cable in a friend system and the effect was very noticeable and overall superb, particularly in focusing instruments and voices die to the suppression of artifacts, enhancing their presence and power in stage. I was particularly sensitive to the much better articulation of the bass strings of Rebecca Pidgeon "Spanish Harlem" . Surely, as my friend is not a classical music lover, we did not focus on the atmosphere of different concert halls, but on the aspects that make hist choice of music more enjoyable, such as articulation, presence and soundstage. The QB8 is now part of his system.
My main personal reluctance to these interesting Nordost accessories is the diversity and quantity. Trying all of them needs a lot of time and it looks as it can be a dangerous game, as their effect is cumulative. But as I often say, stereo is a never ending game!
For me it is the second one, a bit infused with the first one
Peter, once you have settled on a path trending closer to reverse engineering or starting fresh with building blocks. Consider including the set of problems posed by current SOTA digital and those off in the distance, at the appropriate early point. By removing personal associations and relationships you may find a fuller horizon and the final frontier open up to be viewed.
Don H.'s series could be helpful in some way.
Don's Tech Series
This post is simply to consolidate my technical posts into a table of contents, mainly to make it easier for me to find but hopefully it will help others as well. With luck and time, the list will grow. I would also be glad to entertain suggestions for other articles, whilst realizing we have a...
www.whatsbestforum.com
Peter, you never ask easy questions.
1---copper LAN in my house and barn, broadband cable into my home.
2---2 Synology mirroring 'file backup' NAS's, 30tb each, one in the house, one upstairs in the barn--same for MSB and Wadax. neither of these is in my signal path, as my files are resident on my Wadax server, as well as were resident on the Extreme server.
3---Netgear ethernet switch upstairs----with the MSB i also used fiber optic interface (with 2m Sablon Ethernet cable) which plugged downstairs into my Extreme server until the last few weeks when (Emile then suggested) i used copper CAT6 to go directly to both the Extreme and Wadax servers from the upstairs switch.
4---now with the Wadax'--Nordost QNET switch with Qsource power cable and Qsource LPS, Sablon 1.5m Ethernet Cable + brand ??? Ethernet cable also being demo'd, this now into the Wadax server.
5----Wadax Ref Server and Wadax Ref dac w/dual power supplies + the Akasa Optical interface; all this sitting on RevOpod footers + Taiko Daiza's. using Stage III Gorgon XLR interconnects from the dac to the dart pre.
6----Nordost Qpoint synergy devices + power cables plugged into the Nordost LPS under each Wadax chassis.
i do have 4 power cords plugged into my 'clean' Equi=tech power related to my digital; two for the power supplies of the dac, one for the server, and one for the Nordost LPS.
the music management software (Roon) resides inside the server, as do the streaming sources, in my case, Tidal and Quboz.
an i-pad or phone is typically used to navigate the music management software. analogous to a CD player remote.
objectively step by step.
broadband---->modem---->switch----->in-home network---->switch--->ethernet cable--->maybe another switch + linear power supply --->ethernet cable---server---> interface cable (USB/Optical/?)--->dac---->interconnects--->analog preamp.
some people use wifi to source their ethernet, it's not hard wired.....many steps above can be skipped. OTOH some people 'stack' network switches to increase the effect.
keep in mind most network stuff is cheap, cheap. even nice switches are modestly priced relative to our analog gear. it's only dacs and servers where 5 figure price tags come into play.
not sure all that helped with clarity.
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it's ordinary cloth you would find in a fabric store, purchased to blend aesthetically, cut and thumb tacked to the wall or ceiling. i took 9 months of effort to test every surface of my large room. so priceless amounts of sweat equity and testing, but pennies of purchases.
the idea of the cloth is that it eliminates slap echo and reflective hash, but does not rob much energy or change tonality. it took so long because i did not want to lose the life of the music with over damping. my room is very large so i did not need aggressive treatments other than a few places. you can see the cloth in my room pictures linked below.,
if you are interested i can locate the threads where i got into detail about my process from 2015 and link them.
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Peter, you never ask easy questions.
1---copper LAN in my house and barn, broadband cable into my home.
2---2 Synology mirroring 'file backup' NAS's, 30tb each, one in the house, one upstairs in the barn--same for MSB and Wadax. neither of these is in my signal path, as my files are resident on my Wadax server, as well as were resident on the Extreme server.
3---Netgear ethernet switch upstairs----with the MSB i also used fiber optic interface (with 2m Sablon Ethernet cable) which plugged downstairs into my Extreme server until the last few weeks when (Emile then suggested) i used copper CAT6 to go directly to both the Extreme and Wadax servers from the upstairs switch.
4---now with the Wadax'--Nordost QNET switch with Qsource power cable and Qsource LPS, Sablon 1.5m Ethernet Cable + brand ??? Ethernet cable also being demo'd, this now into the Wadax server.
5----Wadax Ref Server and Wadax Ref dac w/dual power supplies + the Akasa Optical interface; all this sitting on RevOpod footers + Taiko Daiza's. using Stage III Gorgon XLR interconnects from the dac to the dart pre.
6----Nordost Qpoint synergy devices + power cables plugged into the Nordost LPS under each Wadax chassis.
i do have 4 power cords plugged into my 'clean' Equi=tech power related to my digital; two for the power supplies of the dac, one for the server, and one for the Nordost LPS.
the music management software (Roon) resides inside the server, as do the streaming sources, in my case, Tidal and Quboz.
an i-pad or phone is typically used to navigate the music management software. analogous to a CD player remote.
objectively step by step.
broadband---->modem---->switch----->in-home network---->switch--->ethernet cable--->maybe another switch + linear power supply --->ethernet cable---server---> interface cable (USB/Optical/?)--->dac---->interconnects--->analog preamp.
some people use wifi to source their ethernet, it's not hard wired.....many steps above can be skipped. OTOH some people 'stack' network switches to increase the effect.
keep in mind most network stuff is cheap, cheap. even nice switches are modestly priced relative to our analog gear. it's only dacs and servers where 5 figure price tags come into play.
not sure all that helped with clarity.
Thank you Mike. That post took some effort and I appreciate it. Reading this thread, I lost some of the sequence of items and specifics. This does make sense to me, and I understand that it can be reduced to the essentials, but I keep reading that as you add stuff, the sound continues to improve. This gives a good sense of what is involved if one's intention is to explore the edge of SOTA.
I know you mentioned somewhere that you are thinking about the vinyl chain again. I don't want to temp you to share these thoughts now or hear, but just want to write that I look forward to reading what you decide to do in that area. I suspect you will reduce the choices you now have and simplify just a bit. As with digital, there are some vinyl choices at the very top, IMO.
you are welcome.
in the end i have come to appreciate my three tt's and vinyl choices.....but did decide to make some strategic upgrades as mentioned below a month ago.
vinyl upgrades; Dava, FCL tone arm, EMIA silver Phono Corrector, MC Trio
i've finished my digital push....and been working on a few odds and ends to fine tune my vinyl. had my 3 tt's for 3 years now, thought long and hard about consolidating the 3 into one 'big-boy' tt, but at the end of the day have decided that the three tt's cover state of the art vinyl rotating...
www.whatsbestforum.com
Thanks Mike. I missed that thread explaining your vinyl changes. I look forward to the photographs and report when everything arrives and is settled in.
Peter,
You will get different perspectives from different people. But IMHO the main difference is the listener attitude, independently of media. In this hobby almost anything implies a difference. We use these differences to feed our hobby, according to our preferences.
I had great times with simple digital. The Forsell CD / DAC combo, the top Metronome's. Even the Audio Research CD8. The dCS Vivaldi stack is simple - just connect it according to the included extremely clear drawings and use the recommended settings.
IMHO we can have the edge of SOTA with great simplicity. But this is a subjective hobby and complexity can be part of the enjoyment. Remember that as I have said more than once, in this hobby we are the lawyer, the jury and the judge. And particularly we even select the cases we want to analyze.
The more complex part of this hobby is our perception and mind!
Clearly you have a passion for Audio.not sure all that helped with clarity.
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