Hi,   I'm thinking about getting my first replacement set of tubes for my WES and I was just wondering if anyone could give me any feedback on what tubes have sounded good to them in what combinations, and also what everyone's preferred sources for tubes might be? I'm entirely new to the...

Quote:   I'm still not a believer that some things are worth the money (there have been all those listening tests comparing custom cables to coat hangers, for instance...), but I did opt to go with a high-end DAC in the end. I'm using cheap cables from amazon, incidentally, and I couldn't...

Well, I've got all my equipment in. The DAC1 arrived first. I compared its headphone output to the O2+ODAC, and I honestly could tell almost zero difference between them. At that point I was anticipating returning the DAC1.   Then my WES and Stax arrived. With that, the balanced XLR inputs...

I know it's an old thread, but I'm getting a bit of sibilance in a new setup I just acquired and wanted a way to clear it up. This plugin works wonders.   Hybrys, when I first started playing with it it just seemed to veil the music entirely. Let me explain what I had to do to set this...

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Quote:   That ad was, without a doubt, the most laughter that this site has ever evoked from me. I love your avatar, too. At least you've got a good sense of humor about it :)   On the other hand, this thread has induced more cringing (cysts can have TEETH?!?!?!?!!!! spiders to the...

Something that may be of interest to others -   It doesn't seem to advertise it, and http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/benchmark_dac1.htm indicated that it wasn't differentially balanced, but I emailed Benchmark asking if the DAC1s are differentially balanced, and John Siau replied that...

Quote:   The used Calyx looks promising, and it's nice to hear that you can vouch for the seller... I might go for that. Thanks for the suggestion! At least I would be assured then that I'm not possibly missing out by having not gotten a better DAC (within reason).   Regarding the...

Also, I'm going to want to connect some 3.5mm sources for the sake of comparison. Should I use a 3.5mm->RCA and then connect to the amp with the RCA cables? Or should I just use a 3.5mm->dual XLR cable? (like this...

Quote:   Thanks for all that information! I had no idea DACs could contain more than one core DAC chip, but what you're saying makes sense. It sounds like it probably wouldn't normally be worth the extra expense, though I do have a nice balanced amp and pair of headphones on the way... I...

Well, no, I am serious. I can understand that the amp and of course the headphone comprise a major portion of sound quality improvements in an overall system, but I'm not at all convinced that all the very expensive DACs are necessarily significantly better than all the less expensive DACs.  ...

I ordered a Woo WES (stock) and an SR-007 recently after having heard them (in the maxed configuration) at a meet, but I only have relatively cheap sources (a xonar essence soundcard and a USB 'ODAC' from JDS Labs - but neither have balanced outputs) at home. The sources sound great to me with...