Alright, I'm bored so I'll bite. I didn't realise personal preference needed to be shoved in faces.   And 'Van Dyke brown' is the best shade of brown!

Maybe this thread can offer some help: http://www.head-fi.org/t/643091/listening-fatigue   Merry Christmas!

Bit of a mix... all recent CD purchases:   Tron Legacy: Reconfigured     Bat for Lashes: Two Suns     Various: Spiritual Chillout     David Foster: The Symphony Sessions     Brooke Fraser: Brutal Romance

S Club 7     Edit: And no Googling :P

I experienced it for the first time a week or so ago, while listening to Madonna's 'Ray of Light' album on my cans. Up until that point, I never really understood listening fatigue - as I never had a problem with it - but the stereo imaging and beats used on some of the tracks is pretty intense...

  Absolutely... My headphones are also a "go-to" place when I need to chill - even elevate myself sometimes at the risk of sounding like a hippy. Whereas cranking the tunes up while driving makes me a racing lunatic  

The thing is, most devices and their components for the consumer market are manufactured to tolerence. Basically, no two headphones are identical. They can argubly be very similar, but not identical. Is the difference enough to effect the sound? Sure; in some cases yes, in other cases no.  ...

Thanks, clear. I was hoping it might just be a simple digital deduction with no other processing... but sounds like the process is worth it anyway to downsize my 192 collection.

Just a quick question (hopefully): If you are downsampling in halves... ie, 192 > 96 or 96 > 48 etc. or integers in general (ie. direectly from 192 > 48) while maintaining the same bit depth, is there any risk of introducing artefacts? Does the process simply drop half the samples, or is there...

<Removed and moved to Sound Science>

Haha! I swear I hadn't seen that article before I made my Photoshop comparison.   Indeed though, it is an interesting read - thanks!

Yeah, I get that. It's not an excuse of course, but I do understand it. I'm more peeved because I've fallen foul to it.   When I started buying CDs, a "remastered" version was the one to get. It usually meant it was taken from the source and remastered to make it a better album; whereas these...

Hey All,   Let me start off by saying that I'm categorically *not* an expert or have any professional experience in audio engineering. I'm just a hippy, home, audiophile with an appreciation of good sounding music. I'm running most of my stuff from JRiver & FLAC > Ciúnas DAC > MF M1-HPA >...

I just wanted to chime in with another remark on these DACs; there is a small burn-in period with them. Along with earlier listening, I spent the late part of this afternoon listening to Sigur Rós. Another three hours gone on three of their albums. Lying on the sofa, sun haloing my closed...

Quote:   I have to echo that!! I received mine (DAC) on Friday and was up until around 0400 this morning listening to it. This DAC is very musically engaging. The separation is incredible; I can focus on individual layers of music, clearly follow individual instruments, or drift...

Yeah baby!! Where's the mailman?!   https://sites.google.com/site/jkciunas/purchase   EDIT: Should mention it was the DAC I ordered.

Quote:   That's part of it, but JK also mentions this on his website:   "The same low jitter clocks as used in the Hiface are also used here. These clocks are now situated as close to the output stage as possible i.e on the SPDIF output board or on the DAC board & are used to reclock...

Quote:   Yup... that thread started to roll over recent days. In short... great first impressions and should be available to order this week! Is it sad to be checking on a daily basis to see if he released it yet?

Sent John a message this weekend asking for an update... there are already first impressions out there from testing: http://www.tirnahifi.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=38218#p38218

I almost got the JKDAC32 late last year, but with one thing or another I decided to wait until the order taking resumed this year. I've been looking for something to replace my HRT Music Streamer II+ for a while now and the Ciúnas DAC looks like it's going to be it. Take my money now! 

  Quote:   You've just put my mind at ease. I ordered a HRT II+ today hoping to improve the DAC. I almost got the pro, but I don't have a balanced setup and the II+ was on sale. I also have some 24/96 audio which I later found out was not supported with the M1 HPA. (That was just me...

Wow... looks very sparse. I'm not an electronics wiz, but I assume it's designed that way so the EM fields from the different components don't interfere with each other and taint the sound???

I downloaded Beethoven's Symphony No.9 from HDtracks as 96khz/24bit flac. Streaming USB from mediamonkey and it plays beautifully. I'm making the assumption that the DAC doesn't down-sample, but of course it would still have to read 96/24 to be able to down-sample it :)

  Sorry, I don't want to hijack this thread, but there was already a topic open for this so I thought I'd post it here. It's quite a long waffle, but it might give you an entertaining read and a little more info.   As I sit here listening to the (not-so-)new mastering of Jean Michel...

Cool, thanks for the replies!   @kboe: With your mentioned setup, what would the HRT Streamer feed? Would it go to my existing Voyager amp or directly to my headphones?