[paulchiu]

Since I do not have my own Nagra HD DAC to play with, I have to entertain myself some other way.
 
....  we had a Supermoon Lunar Eclipse on Sunday night 2015-09-27 at 10:55pm over New York City
 

 
 

 

[romaz]

Impressive shots.

 

[isquirrel]

  Since I do not have my own Nagra HD DAC to play with, I have to entertain myself some other way.
 
....  we had a Supermoon Lunar Eclipse on Sunday night 2015-09-27 at 10:55pm over New York City
 

 
 

Nice photos, we missed out on the "Blood Moon" in Australia

 

[paulchiu]

 
Nice photos, we missed out on the "Blood Moon" in Australia

 
You did not miss out on this one as this was not visible in Australia.
The next total eclipse is 2018 for you.
http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/australia/melbourne

 

[isquirrel]

Update:
 
Have the Nagra working semi normally. I spoke with Nagra last night and at their direction have changed the jumper settings so the DAC outputs in Asymmetrical mode. This is not ideal and they are sending out a new board that will remove the Balanced Output Transformers. IN other words how the DAC is shipped normally.
 
I quote "With a balanced output transformer the output is completely different: there is no reference relative to ground, which is why if the cold spot on the XLR is not connected or used, the sound will be absent or very low and very bad. By cons, there is a great advantage of using a transformer balanced output: there is no reference in relation to the mass of the device and thus a high immunity to ground noise."
 
It seems that the ground pin on the XLR is not connected to ground on the Woo 234's. I have mentioned this to Woo as clearly it should be, there argument is that it is a SET amp so its not necessary. Anyway we now have decent sound, apparently the sound will improve quite a bit with he correct board installed. I will probably use RCA connections as in talking to Nagra the DAC is balanced through to the Valve and is then single ended. 
 
To say I am impressed by the sound is an understatement, this is not the incremental difference I had been expecting, I was beginning to think that SOTA DAC's had a limit and that the DAC's I have either heard or owned were all close to it which explained why with all the differences in Topology the sound itself was changing only a small amount from DAC to DAC and really the end users choice would have been a based on subjective preferences and not the wholesale sea change I had been thinking must be out there. Well it is and this Nagra has it. To this end it stands at the top so far with the Gryphon Kalliope. 
 
To be fair to the Nagra I will wait until the new output board is in and it has some more hours on it before we get down to that comparison.
 
At the beginning November I have a fellow head-fire who has a very good system himself staying for a few days, during that time we will do a lot of listening to all four DAC's and post our impressions.

 

[romaz]

I just saw the press release for the LCD-4 which at 100dB sensitivity should be much easier to drive than the HE-1000 on the Nagra's headphone port.  Ditto for the production version of the EnigmaAcoustics Dharma that just started shipping.

 

[isquirrel]

  I just saw the press release for the LCD-4 which at 100dB sensitivity should be much easier to drive than the HE-1000 on the Nagra's headphone port.  Ditto for the production version of the EnigmaAcoustics Dharma that just started shipping.

Looks good, my 1st pair of high end Headphones were the LCD-X's, makes me feel very happy that Audeze have come back with this. Have ordered a pair, they just might really work well with the Nagra at that sensitivity.

 

[TheAttorney]

 
At the beginning November I have a fellow head-fire who has a very good system himself staying for a few days, during that time we will do a lot of listening to all four DAC's and post our impressions.

 ... for about the 10th time on this thread.
 
In my case. I've gone the opposite way price-wise and got myself an Yggy for £2k, which I feel is a worthwhile improvement over the internal DAC of my Nagra CDC. Not night-and-day, but nevertheless a solid improvement that is astonishing for the lowly price, and should keep me happy for a considerable while. This of course won't stop me following the progress of DACs costing 10x as much - because I'm always open minded as to what may happen next.[size=small] [/size]

 

[Johnny Moondog]

  I quote "With a balanced output transformer the output is completely different: there is no reference relative to ground, which is why if the cold spot on the XLR is not connected or used, the sound will be absent or very low and very bad. By cons, there is a great advantage of using a transformer balanced output: there is no reference in relation to the mass of the device and thus a high immunity to ground noise."
 
It seems that the ground pin on the XLR is not connected to ground on the Woo 234's. I have mentioned this to Woo as clearly it should be, there argument is that it is a SET amp so its not necessary. Anyway we now have decent sound, apparently the sound will improve quite a bit with he correct board installed. I will probably use RCA connections as in talking to Nagra the DAC is balanced through to the Valve and is then single ended. 

 
Sorry, I don't understand the phrase "By cons" ... Is that similar to "in contrast" or "on the other hand"?
 
So if I wanted the benefit of the HD DAC's balanced output transformer -- a high immunity to ground noise -- I would first need to confirm with the designer of my amplifier, that it's input XLR is indeed connected to ground. And I would need to confirm the same for any future amplifier in my system.

 

[Johnny Moondog]

  To say I am impressed by the sound is an understatement, this is not the incremental difference I had been expecting...

 
OK, this is once again fun and interesting!

 

[Johnny Moondog]

 
Please share on the HE-1000 mods available from AudioArt?
 
If you like the HE-1000 now you will love it after 200 hours or so and some decent cables. Both myself and a friend ended up selling our Abyss as we never used them after the HE-1000. It scales very well.

 
When I purchased the HD800 in 2009, I had them shipped directly to AudioArt to be modified with Voice balanced hardwired cables. This time last year, I had AudioArt modify them with Endorphin balanced hardwired cables, and the HD800 Ultra-Modification. I've been planning to have the HE1000 modified with the same Endorphin cables. But with the long waiting list, not sure what I'll do between now and next year.
 
The HE1000 has been on continuous loop 24/7 with the Reference Recording "System Burn-In" track -- in between occasional listening sessions -- and is now approaching 200 hours.

 

[Johnny Moondog]

   
Yes, please share your thoughts on this cable.  I was ready to pull the trigger on these for my HE-1000 as I have heard excellent things about his HD800 cable but a few head-fiers have recently complained about poor quality.  Just search "Stephan Audio" here on Head-fi and you'll see what I'm talking about.  When I spoke to James Serdechny recently, he told me he was backed up until February 2016 but he did offer me a full money back guarantee if I wasn't happy.

I was not aware of these complaints. Will explore...

 

[Johnny Moondog]

  However with the transformer option you cannot do the following:
 
Use the RCA's and the XLR outputs at the same time
 
You cannot use the variable volume control only direct mode is available
 
You cannot vary the output line level between high and low it appears to be one only, I think it is the low option that it defaults to which would explain the requirement for more gain than normal
 
Summary, if I had known that the option came with the above limitations I would not have ordered it. I will be taking it out if possible.

 
Would we now add the following to the above list?
 
You cannot use the transformer option with an amplifier whose input XLR is not connected to ground.

 

[isquirrel]

   
Sorry, I don't understand the phrase "By cons" ... Is that similar to "in contrast" or "on the other hand"?
 
So if I wanted the benefit of the HD DAC's balanced output transformer -- a high immunity to ground noise -- I would first need to confirm with the designer of my amplifier, that it's input XLR is indeed connected to ground. And I would need to confirm the same for any future amplifier in my system.

BY contrast, sorry, flu virus, no sleep = posts that don't make sense, well actually they don't make sense most of the time 

 

[isquirrel]

   
Would we now add the following to the above list?
 
You cannot use the transformer option with an amplifier whose input XLR is not connected to ground.

Correct