AndrewTosh
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2004
- Posts
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I had a bunch of money burning a hole in my pocket last week and ordered a Scott Nixon TubeDAC+ with upgraded power supply from someone on Audiogon. I bought it knowing that I can likely sell it and not lose much if I don't like it. What I'm wondering is, will it really make a difference to be worth its cost?
My current setup is an ASL MG-HeadDT with 2 Ei tubes and a Tung Sol 5751WA powering a pair of Sennheiser HD580s. It's sourced either by my PC's SBLive or a Sony CDX-C900 car cd player with 20bit Burr Brown DACs. The PC sounds ok for casual listening and the Sony sounds much better.
When I first got the ASL amp and Senns I could tell a big difference between other things I've listened to in the past, even my Etymotic ER6s. Even my girlfriend who isn't really big into audio, but is a musician, was very impressed. We spent the whole night in her dorm room alone listening to CDs which for college students means a lot!
What I'm planning on doing is using either my SGI Indigo2 (old unix workstation with a real 44.1khz S/PDIF out) or the NEC CDR-601 (4x external) as a transport. Either of these should be able to put out a pretty good digital signal for the TubeDAC+.
I just feel like for it to be "worth it" to me the sound has to be incredible, and I sortof have a feeling that it won't be that much better. I think I might be setting myself up for dissapointment here! Does anyone here have experience moving from cheaper cdps to a more expensive DAC? Is it really that much better?
For reference I listen to music from a lot of different types of artists, modern and classic rock, some classical, some hip hop and I'm generally pretty pleased with my system.
Thanks
-Andrew
My current setup is an ASL MG-HeadDT with 2 Ei tubes and a Tung Sol 5751WA powering a pair of Sennheiser HD580s. It's sourced either by my PC's SBLive or a Sony CDX-C900 car cd player with 20bit Burr Brown DACs. The PC sounds ok for casual listening and the Sony sounds much better.
When I first got the ASL amp and Senns I could tell a big difference between other things I've listened to in the past, even my Etymotic ER6s. Even my girlfriend who isn't really big into audio, but is a musician, was very impressed. We spent the whole night in her dorm room alone listening to CDs which for college students means a lot!
What I'm planning on doing is using either my SGI Indigo2 (old unix workstation with a real 44.1khz S/PDIF out) or the NEC CDR-601 (4x external) as a transport. Either of these should be able to put out a pretty good digital signal for the TubeDAC+.
I just feel like for it to be "worth it" to me the sound has to be incredible, and I sortof have a feeling that it won't be that much better. I think I might be setting myself up for dissapointment here! Does anyone here have experience moving from cheaper cdps to a more expensive DAC? Is it really that much better?
For reference I listen to music from a lot of different types of artists, modern and classic rock, some classical, some hip hop and I'm generally pretty pleased with my system.
Thanks
-Andrew