About Europe: I just saw it mentioned on the website of Audiophonics.fr for €3k. That is including VAT, which is a decent price. https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/dac-without-volume/laiv-harmony-black-p-19276.html It's not available yet but we knew that. I never ordered in France from them. It's...

And by presentation you mean how lifelike the musicians or venue is presented before your eyes (ears)? That's what I currently miss from the digital part of my setup. For instance when I play 'Get lucky' by Daft Punk from lp it's like there's a living breathing Pharrell Williams in my room...

Ok, but I already edited my post and removed my out of place remark. My apologies. There are so many people just shooting from the hip with one quick remark. I spend quite some time trying to explain (finding the right word in English oftentimes takes looking up) and then one person pulls the...

I just did.😋 But maybe you shouldn't talk to me like that. I understand I was rambling about statistics. Not everyone understands it so I tried to give a snap conclusion. But you blew that out of proportion with one quick snarky reply you didn't put any effort in. I was just trying to explain...

Lol 😁 Yup! Thank you for the amp. If you still want the Ares, just ask. I thought it was you. But we all like our avatars to have a little bit of anonymity.

You Just jumped to the (deliberately dumbed down) conclusion and pulled it out of context. What I meant to explain is that neither Holo Audio nor Denafrips use 0.005% tolerance resistors. I'd like to see your implication of an R2R dac made with high precision wirewound resistors. Bring a lorry. 😁

Geen kritiek op jou, wat je zegt doet me ergens aan denken. I bought my Gato amp150 (pure analog) from someone who thought it would be an upgrade from the Dia250s. But he didn't hear that much difference so he sold it off (lucky me). We had some more discussion about it later why and if this...

Don't forget that the 0.005 % you mention is done by software and parallelling 4 (?) resistors. That means the actual tolerance per physical resistor is 0.005/2⁴= 0.08. That's just an estimate because tolerances follow a Gauss or bell-curve. By handpicking resistors you decrease the standard...

I just watched a video by an older guy who has been in the business for decades, and reviewing for years. Je knows all the luxury brands and the people behind it. Notice the discrepancy. He just discovered SMSL. I think this is the reason 2ndH "chifi" does not command as much. He was even...

Correct. Denafrips has the same warning. It is a load issue. What I learned from working on my TDA1543 DACs is that it needs a certain resistance to ground. That's the most basic I/V stage possible. That's your output resistance. The value has a very large influence on the sound. Compare it to...

Ok, I have (or had) a different understanding of the word chifi. Look, I'm not a native English speaker so I tend to interpret words on face value (or etymology). Is hifi derogatory as well then? Compared to 'high end'? Hifi is just an old standard that doesn't mean much anymore. What I do know...

What you talk about has nothing to do with chifi. It was like that in the 70-ies and up with every year a complete new line from Sony, Akai, JVC, Philips, Sansui, Onkyo, and all the big brands. I kind of understand Jay Lee, but don't agree with him on that. I have been in Chinese audio for 15...

No need to be condescending. He does it as a hobby. And he is honest. I'd rather have someone who is overly enthousiastic than one that is dishonest. On those windows: he listens with the shades down. Do you really think he's an idiot? For shooting Video you need light. I have more issues with...

I don't disagree, but I like to nuance that a bit. And pull some definitions straight. On 1: Your hearing is not your ears. Perception is done by your brain. Your ears are just the receptors. The enjoyment does not rely on the ability of your ears. I know of a man who is totally deaf who...

No need to throw it away, just glue it. It's easy. All you need is some good glue and something flat 1" thick. A block of wood or a box. Put that on the platter, put the empty mounted headshell on it and push it flat. Then it's perfectly flat and parallel to the platter. Glue it in place like...

That's nice. I hope you have the azimuth straight. I have a couple of those same wood headshells and they are not glued very well. The DL103 is famous. But its 1.5x the price of that gold one I pictured above that tracks like a champ, has a very even sound, deep bass and airy high because of...

First: just enjoy your find. It's not easy to find an old optical player that still works well for beer money. That's like finding an old jazz record in near mint condition. Not one of those 'best of' but an original. So, it works, and you enjoy it. That's a good place to start. Then comes the...

I just bought a pair of Fosi ZA3 amps and I'm back to using the SP400 as a preamp. And I bought a programmable full alu remote from AliExpress instead of the flimsy plastic remote. That's fine in itself but I lost one of these remotes. But the new one... Like a small brick with super responsive...

I suppose it's because you speak American and not English. 😄 It's quite a step up. Look at the movie Snatch (Guy Ritchie movie, try understanding Brad Pitt doin his pikey slang). When cousin Vinnie returns home the officer at the airport asks him "Anything to declare?"... "Yeah! Don't go to...

The thing is, you can't process DSD. It's designed just for storage. Not to do calculations on, filters , mixing, DSP etc. If you have a DSD master that you want to 'remaster' as in remove hiss, equalise etc you have to convert to PCM first. All your information is in that DSD. Upsampling that...

Let's face it, there is enough overpriced stuff that people buy that is not nearly as good as the price suggests. Not every component of the same price performs equally well. Those are easy to beat. @all Among them are always well know brands. I remember a very expensive Swiss Goldmund...

Yes, slow filter is better. Cartridge recommandations? I use plenty of AT3600 that can sound awesome. Lp-gear have a great upgraded version with a carbon cantilever and an elliptical stylus for around $50. Or an Nagaoka MP110 (never had it but yeah). Just don't buy a standard Ortofon OM or...

Tnx. It's after years of hunting for 'detail' I bought a cheap Chinese tda1543 dac after reading that's what 47labs and Audio Note used (both highly regarded by me) and stepping in to a free acoustic concert in our local 12th century church I that had an epiphany. The €45 tda1543 dac sounded a...

One does not exclude the other. As tassardar says: it depends on what you compare it with. An R2R sounds more natural than most sigma deltas artificial detail. Compared to Denafrips it's more lively and detailed because the Denafrips are more rounded and warm (I disagree with slow). Compared to...

I even saw someone comparing DACs wearing an actual blindfold on the thumbnail... That looked really dodgy. 😁