[McMadface]

You hear something better than what you have and you decide to stop enjoying the uber expensive benchmarks because in and of themselves they are too expensive for you? Sorry this confuses me.

I think it makes sense in a way. Say you live in New York and can only get Shake Shack. Shake Shack makes a fine burger but it's no In-N-Out Double-Double, which is clearly superior. When you fly into LA, do you try the Double-Double knowing that you'll never be 100% happy with the Shack Stack again or do you continue to live in ignorant bliss? It's a philosophical question with no universally correct answer, just an answer that's correct for you. Unless you're a poor person that lives in the Midwest and only gets Five Guys.

 

[Justin_Time]

You’re system is only as good as the weakest link. More often than not the source is the weekest link but it could be any number of things that cause less than perfect audio

Jason, I think we all agree on the concept of weakest link.

I was just amazed by the fact that for some strange reason many folks here—myself included—tend to blame everything else in our audio system but the source. Why is that?

 

[T Bone]

I've been living with the Utopia's for a couple of weeks now and like what I'm hearing.
However, I've been using the crossfeed option in JRiver media center to get a little more spatialization. Anyone else find they need to add a little crossfeed to get a little more soundstage out of their Utopias?

 

[TSAVJason]

I think it makes sense in a way. Say you live in New York and can only get Shake Shack. Shake Shack makes a fine burger but it's no In-N-Out Double-Double, which is clearly superior. When you fly into LA, do you try the Double-Double knowing that you'll never be 100% happy with the Shack Stack again or do you continue to live in ignorant bliss? It's a philosophical question with no universally correct answer, just an answer that's correct for you. Unless you're a poor person that lives in the Midwest and only gets Five Guys.

I might have said Burger King instead of Five guys hahahahaha

 

[TSAVJason]

Jason, I think we all agree on the concept of weakest link.

I was just amazed by the fact that for some strange reason many folks here—myself included—tend to blame everything else in our audio system but the source. Why is that?

I can’t answer that. As an engineer I find it easiest to start trouble shooting at the source unless the symptoms direct my attention elsewhere

 

[baiyy1986]

Just finish my Chick fil-A. Feels good man.

 

[DivaFonda]

You hear something better than what you have and you decide to stop enjoying the uber expensive benchmarks because in and of themselves they are too expensive for you? Sorry this confuses me.

I take that to mean they don't want to keep being tempted into going into debt. Trust me, it can happen and not just with equipment. Once you experience top of the line, you sometimes can't go back. But it will cost you if you don't have true disposable income.

 

[buzzlulu]

I keep on going to the mantra on the Naim and Linn forums to distill this conversation to the essence:

SOURCE FIRST

(always!)

 

[llamaluv]

Here is Utopia with 0.1 Ohm OI, 20 Ohm OI, and ~100 Ohm OI:
The treble does get affected a little but there is some variation as I quickly averaged these. The results fro the bass will be accurate.

Practically, when I used the excellent Apex Teton (an OTL tube amp with high impedance) with the low-impedance Utopia, I got too much bloom in the bass and some degradation of the midrange.

This graph matches up pretty well with my experience when using a Kenzie Encore (SET tube amp), 32-ohm tap. I hear about a 3 dB bass bloom, which is still pretty listenable for a lot of things, but right at the edge of what I should let myself tolerate. Mids and highs to my ears sound pretty unmolested.

 

[DivaFonda]

I think it makes sense in a way. Say you live in New York and can only get Shake Shack. Shake Shack makes a fine burger but it's no In-N-Out Double-Double, which is clearly superior. When you fly into LA, do you try the Double-Double knowing that you'll never be 100% happy with the Shack Stack again or do you continue to live in ignorant bliss? It's a philosophical question with no universally correct answer, just an answer that's correct for you. Unless you're a poor person that lives in the Midwest and only gets Five Guys.

Poor "person" in the Midwest here. Local places often fill the void for chain burger places. THEY are superior in fact!

 

[joseph69]

I think it makes sense in a way. Say you live in New York and can only get Shake Shack. Shake Shack makes a fine burger but it's no In-N-Out Double-Double, which is clearly superior. When you fly into LA, do you try the Double-Double knowing that you'll never be 100% happy with the Shack Stack again or do you continue to live in ignorant bliss? It's a philosophical question with no universally correct answer, just an answer that's correct for you. Unless you're a poor person that lives in the Midwest and only gets Five Guys.

What about Jackson Hole??? Never been to the Shake Shack, but my nieces and their friends go there and love it!

 

[Justin_Time]

I keep on going to the mantra on the Naim and Linn forums to distill this conversation to the essence:

SOURCE FIRST

(always!)

 

[Justin_Time]

I remember that during the golden years of High-End Home Audio, the weakest link was the speakers for a very long time. It was only much later that the speakers became good enough to cease to be the weak link. I think that even Linn, who was a prominent player at that time, would not proclaim that the analog source was the weak link.

It is interesting to see that for portable audio, headphones like the Utopia has become so good so quickly and that the source has to catch-up.

 

[TSAVJason]

I take that to mean they don't want to keep being tempted into going into debt. Trust me, it can happen and not just with equipment. Once you experience top of the line, you sometimes can't go back. But it will cost you if you don't have true disposable income.

Self discipline is useful in those cases

 

[DivaFonda]

Self discipline is useful in those cases

That's what meomap is doing, removing themselves from the temptation.