Help The New Guy, I'm Almost There!

That looks pretty good to me. I like the SMart di/o idea because it is tweakable. Hey, it may not sound any different, let alone better, but just tweaking it makes you feel good like you've squeezed every last drop out. I've heard the NEC's are pretty decent, I wish I had known about them when I started out.

Edit for horrendous grammar

With your computer setup, I think it would be prudent to look for sheilded cables. Im thinking of getting one myself. Im currently leaning on trying the CPU line ICs from headphile. It's price is great, and is sheilded. I dont know how it sounds though

I find the DI/O sensitive to the source and power supply quality. If you are going to be running stock power supply on the DI/O and connected to the other items with no power conditioner, you will most likely will have trouble noticing upgrades beyond better than average digital cable and interconnects.

Iron_Dreamer is selling a DI/O power supply in the FS/FT forum if you need a much better than stock power supply.

What's up with 18 of the drives though? That's insane!

If supporting a fellow head-fier sounds good to you, I see nothing wrong with getting some nice shielded cables from headphile. Should sound very good. The shielded variety may not be necssary if you aren't using your system near your computer, but if the price isn't too far off, there's not much point not getting shielded cables unless you need flexibility.

The Headphile CPU series IC's were just what my music rig needed to bring out the best from all of my system pieces. The low background level, excellent tonal quality, spectral balance and the width and depth of the sound stage that I hear with the Headphile's (AND their low price relative to almost any other IC) brought the sound quality of my rig to the point where I am not currently interested in upgrades. I just want to listen to music on it. I found the CPU Copper cable to sound significantly warmer than the CPU Silver cable. The Silver cable is faster and more transparent. My source is a little on the thin side, and my phones are on the forward side. So, to get the warmth of the sound from my CDP to my PPA just right, I'm using a Silver cable to get the sound from my CDP to my Bose MediaMate speaker, and a Copper cable to take it from the headphone jack on the speaker to the PPA. The sound I'm hearing out of my Grado's has never been this good. I paid 60% more for a Signal Cable Analog Two IC. It's bass response is more like a sub-woofer - too exagerated for music, but good for movies. For music, the spectral response of the Headphile IC's is far more refined and balanced. These IC's started to sound good after about 30 hours of continuous use, but they did not sound their best until about 75 - 100 hours of continuous use. And Larry at Headphile is great to work with. In the Bang-For-The-Buck category, the Headphile IC's get my thumbs up. (To My Ears, On My Rig, ... )