No offense Patrick, but are you for real with all of this? I have actually read through the entire thread - - - - just waiting to the announcement that this is all just a joke. I mean no offense by this.

Well Sixers Fax, I guess you are going to have to write the review comparing the two of these DACs (assuming you have heard the Stello). I have been following the comments and both of these DACs (and others) are on my list of considerations. Can you report whether you have heard the Stello...

What about something like the Grace M902, anybody familiar with this? This seems like it is a good product, but have not found too many personal opinions and comparisons. My concern with the Benchmark is that it seems a bit dry/analytical/almost bright and I think based on the rest of my...

Cool Torpedo is right, the Placette's passive may be in fact one of the most transparent but is limited (as he suggests to systmer capabilities). The active version, while also transparent is quite good as well from what I understand - but having only heard it once and outside of my system, I...

Agogic, not sure if I can agree that LS owners have only one pair. While this may be truer with LS owners than headphone owners, mostly due to physical limitations, I know of many that have several pair of LS. I have owned about 8 pair of speakers in the past 18 months, all purchased for my own...

The headphones that I have listed on page 34 of this thread are sold and being delivered today by me, in person, to just outside of Ann Arbor. Perhaps this will allow for another (more experienced that I) headphoner to add some additional comments on these phones, which I really like.

I currently own a EMM Labs CDSD/DAC6 combo and a Esoteric X-03-SE. EMM has a more pronounced and stronger bass. It is good, tight, musical (vs. bloated and single note sounding). EMM is a very high resolving system but at the same time is capable of a very smooth sound while still being...

First question: do you really mean transparent or do you want best sounding? To me transparent means that you can listen to your CDP through your headphones directly and then listen to that same CDP through your preamp direclty and not be able to hear any difference. Of course this requires...

Theta Dreadnaught II in stereo (2-channel mode). Tried several different speakers (VS VR4 JR, Totem Forrest, Wilson Duette and Wilson W/P 5.1), different sources and different pre-amps. Different SC and IC's too boot. Nothing ever allowed this to sound good in 2-channel. The amp I had lasted...

Currently own or have owned in past 3 months: Resolution Audio Opus 21 with GNSC Reference Mods (one of the best bang for the buck values in digital playback). I actually sold it back to Steve at GNSC who I bought it from as he had a buyer waiting/searching for one at the time. Esoteric...

Has anybody had positive experiences with the Duet? There have been very few threads on this topic, even at the Logitech/slim devices forums that I have not jumped at this product yet. I like the idea of the remote with album art view and being able to remove a computer panel/monitor from my...

I am in your boat. While I appreciate the basis for doing this (ie. to prevent scammers), I am not so sure I agree with the quantity of posts required. I would suggest that this be perhaps a combination of posts/replies and time. I have been a member for over 1 year, but have very little posts...

First - I am very new to headphone systems but am fairly well experienced in "outloud" audio systems. I am trying to determine whether it makes sense to go with a DAC/Headphone amp (with volume control) one-piece device makes sense. The background is based on: #1: I would use a Cambridge...

As I am in the market for a amp/DAC combo, what alternative devices (preferably single piece) has anybody compared this to? While the price looks nice, I am always a bit hesitant when somebody claims a particularly inexpensive piece is really terrific (no offense intended). Thanks to anybody who...

It has to be assumed that you are using full resolution files, correct? Are your comparisons based on the IPOD DAC or the external DAC you are feeding? Does the Wadia itself have a DAC in it? I didn't think it did, I thought the goal was just to be able to pull the digital signal, avoiding the...