Not crazy at all!! Ihad the same issue with the DAVE with my Utopia's - it's an amazing DAC, but the headphone amp didn't play well with some headphones. for me, the Utopia was one of these. It always felt a little undergunned - tons of detail but no dynamic 'fizz'........ The Utopia faithfully...

I'n the past, I've used distribution blocks from companies like MCRU - they are pretty well made and all the internal connections are well-soldered and use high quality connectors. Any well-made distribution block shoudl do it, and can't be any worse than the original wall plug connection....

Nice one - gotta love a set of ghosties :D How are they for feel - I've only ever been able to find faily hard ABS caps of this type...

plus, its a good excuse to audition some other things at the same time :L3000:

A quick (and in retrospect, entirely obvious) thought on power cords..... I was testing a few recently - the ones I had on test sounded much better than the (pretty decent) one I was using already......quite a bit so. So, in a flash of inspiration, I gave the old one a good cleaning...

Oh, I see - thanks. I always use Balanced into the 'phones these days...

I've tried a few networks setups now, and (bizzarely), cable seems to make the biggest difference for me, as opposed to clocking, switching and fibre links. After much messing about with borrowed fibre bridges and etherregen, the simplest (and for me , better sounding). solution was to hang a...

that much of a difference between XLR and RCA on the output from the Bartok then?

+1 - looking forward to getting another demo of the OOR+Hypsos with the Bartok....

I had both Dave and Bartok for a while, and the amps are much of a muchness. The DAVE sounded excellent, provided you liked the SE with your headphones. For my Meze's and LCD3, it was lovely, but for Utopia and Susvara, I always went through an amp (HPA 4). The Dave Amp just didn't have the...

+1 on the summary thread idea. Otherwise, the industry is doomed :D ......."Susvara needs a speaker amp, Focal Utopia drivers will always break, 1266 is too heavy/fiddly/ugly, HD800 is too bright, LCD5 is too dark....etc etc"......if we beleive everything we read , nobody would ever buy TOTL...

ah c'mon. Everyone knows that Engineering is just a simplified set of models, designed for folk who need to do stuff, but can't cope with Physics :dt880smile: (only joking, but couldnt resist...sorry)

On a slightly different topic (although the lightning tale reminded me why I bought the Niagara!!) - After a month or so of hiFiMan ownership, I'm very happy with how the Bartok works with the Susvara - although I'm sure there are gains to be had with more $$ into amplification, I'm incredibly...

I've been doing some informal analysis, and it's hard to see a fail rate in Utopias that is distinctly higher than other brands. For any high-end Headphone, repair costs are going to be savage, especially for drivers where the bulk of the actual manufacturing costs lie. The risk is broadly the...

I went for the Zenith 3 and a Phoenix USB to use with a DAVE - worked very nicely. Upside is that you can sell the Phoenix if you don't need it at some point (i just changed to a Bartok, so no need for USB now...). Downside, is you need an extra USB cable in the chain - doubles the cost...

signed up - looking forward to getting to a CanJam again - it's been a long time :D

After a good, long listen, I'm enjoying DSDX2 + F3 with Map 3 - a marked improvement in soundstage for me. How about you folks?

I tired this for a while, before my DAVE went in PX.....short answer is not much, not really, and yes, it sounded better for me. I used both an HPA4 and a Nimbus US5 with it, connected with chord Signature XLR. The HPA was a 'pass through' experience (unsurprising, given the HPA's design) - if...

+1 to that. Staging is improved for me, and a little more detail here and there, but that might just be because I'm actually listening for change :D Thumbs up to DCS for the update, but very inconsiderate of them to release this in the week when I have cans on loan for demo..... :D

Just get a set of Kii 3's and let the DSP + mic do the setup - no effort at all :D I'm with you though - mucking about with speaker placement, managing modes and acoustic treatment is too much faff......also, not having speakers/wires means more $$$$ to spend on other shiny things....

Hey folks - I'm looking to add a tube amp to my rack - so, an open question for all dCS owners - if you plugged up to an external valve amp what did you use? XLR or RCA? which cables? which amp? I'm mainly using focal and Meze cans (Utopia, Empyrean, Elites) and fancy some tube action as an...

Not sure I agree with the premise. ... All of the kit regularly talked about here finds it's way into speaker-based setups as well, especially Chord and dCS, but also holo, rockna and Lamp. totalDac is also very commonly used in room setups, as is Dena. Playback Designs is a great company, and...

(TL/DR - the Pallas has been briliant and a massive "thank you" to AC for great service and a fab product) It's been a year or so since I bought the Pallas for my Empyreans - illness, work and other things got in the way of doing a write-up for it, and now AC has moved on to the new "Opera"...

Hugo, although I'm using the AK standalone more, now that I upgraded from a 120MkII to an SP1000M.

It'll be interesting to see the full product details. 'portability', or 'situational audio' is a rapidly evolving market. It's a well-served market as well, with multiple choices at various price points that delvier incredibly good audio. I love my Bartok, but I love my portable gear as well...