[keithc]

Thanks in advance for any advice. I'm chest deep in the middle of an upgrade and am a bit lost, and thought to seek wisdom here.

My office headphone rig consisted of:
Aurender N100H digital server -> Curious Evolved USB cable;
Rega P8 turntable;
Vinnie Rossi LIO w/ his L2 DAC and L2 phono stages -> DH Labs Air Matrix;
Ampsandsound Mogwai SE
ZMF Verite open

This sounded wonderful, but I got caught up in the upgrade path, and with holiday blessings I was thankful to now have a Nautilus here, and a bunch of various tubes. However, I noticed that while it sounds great, the LIO does not necessarily match perfectly w/ the Nautilus, and there seems to be a limit in dynamics/overhead/whatever. Justin advised that it may have to do w/ the LIO's 2Vrms output needing more gain, and I have tried his Booster box as a potential solution. But so far, I'm undecided about the benefits/downsides to LIO->Booster->Nautilus vs LIO->Nautilus.

Last night I pulled (from my main rig) a Resolution Audio Cantata 2.0 and plugged it directly into the Nautilus, driven by the Aurender. It sounded less Hifi'ish and more musical, and it does have a higher RCA (and also balanced) output voltage. But in its current setup, without another preamplifier, I'm unable to listen to vinyl.

So my question to the group is: What are reasonable upgrade paths? I don't have the opportunity to listen to a lot of gear. Here are some ideas:
1) Upgrade the LIO to its DHT stage, which adds 300B magic, while keeping a single box phono+DAC -> Nautilus. Plus it's beautiful. This would be a pretty pricey front end.
2) Replace the LIO w/ the Cantata 2.0 as the front end, and upgrade to Cantata 3.0 R2R-ladder system for $3k, which has the benefit of having analog inputs for a new phono stage, and now it acts as a digital 'preamp' and DAC, and can run balanced cables to the Nautilus. Question here is what phono stage.
3) Replace the LIO w/ another DAC (too many choices, which one? Holo Spring? Lampy?), and then buy a phono ADC and use the DAC as the source selector. One option here is replace the Aurender N100H with like a A200, which would effectively upgrade the transport as well, and use its DAC output directly to the Nautilus.
4) Buy a preamplifier and separate DAC and phono stage (I hate this option as it's the most complicated and I only have 2 sources).

Thanks in advance (again).
Keith

 

[sajunky]

I can't comment on the most gear you have, but if is good for the turntable, then Audio GD NOS DACs should pair well, giving the most natural sound out of DAC for your target below $3k. Company has also a large offering in headphone amps department, all amplification is made of discrete components, zero feedback, pure class A when possible and the internal ACSS interstage links. It is similar to the Krell CAST interconnect technology, but deployed even in the cheapest models. DACs output stage is made the same way. No money spent on advertising, most of feedback is made by users, including this forum, make it best value.

I suggest recently released AIO model R-27 Mk2, it has one analogue XLR input, preamp with stepped attenuator and a headphone amp able to drive most difficult cans (10W/40 Ohms). Recently reviewed is a standalone DAC model R-7 Mk2 on Stereophile.

If you don't have a chance testing, there is an entry combo model R2R-11 Mk2 for $630. Don't like it, sell it, loosing hundred bucks. Or get a second hand first model (which was selling new $350). One problem, this model do not have analogue inputs. Next in line R-28 has, but costs more. A point is, test a house of sound first before spending more money.

For the analogue sound, Holo Audio DAC is out of question. While it is R2R ladder type and claim to be NOS, it doesn't sound NOS. It is made by engineering freaks interested in the best measurements. In result it sounds more like DS type than R2R.