[yuheng]

Quote:

Originally Posted by souperman /img/forum/go_quote.gif I don't think you will be able to appreciate the difference with just KSC75's as I see you have paired them with in your sig .

i have one recable(i dont know what cable been used, not canare) version of ksc75, which sing really well, very significant improve by adding d1...

 

[jamato8]

I use the Koss PortaPros quite often with the D1 and get a very good open, out of head presentation. They respond very well to this amplification/dac source and far exceed the price in sound quality, imo.

 

[LarryVale]

I just got my D1 today. Still stock of course. Connected to the optical out of my H120 playing Flac to my KSC 75's I am impressed. I tried switching back and forth between the H120 line out and THINK I can hear a difference between the line out running into a Headstage amp and the optical into the D1. The optical out/D1 high end seems to sound "cleaner".

Actually I am even more impressed with my KSC75's. I didn't know they could sound that good!

This was a 30 second per side test.

I find the main difference between grades of sound is how much fatigue is involved, how sweet sounding, airey and the like doesn't convey a lot to me.

I need to see if I can find another audio nut locally and do double blind tests and see what we get. The D1 is just too heavy for the gym though.

 

[kiwirugby]

Quote:

Originally Posted by yuheng /img/forum/go_quote.gif i have one recable(i dont know what cable been used, not canare) version of ksc75, which sing really well, very significant improve by adding d1...

For me too. I have mine recabled with a Blue Dragon and sound really good with my D1.

 

[jamato8]

How do you encode to flac on a Mac? I downloaded Max to encode cd's to flac or mp3 and the tag is wrong so I can't play Flac or mp3 files (drop them onto the iRiver 120, as they are tagged wrong. Any ideas? Also, does anyone know how to take the files from the cd and control the speed of burning, when not burning to a cd? The speed is often 13X and I get errors, even with error correction activated and the cuts do not play through all the time but skip to the next cut. I prefer to download a cd at 1 or 2X.

 

[nc8000]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamato8 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I use the Koss PortaPros quite often with the D1 and get a very good open, out of head presentation. They respond very well to this amplification/dac source and far exceed the price in sound quality, imo.

Yes, I get the same experience with the D1 and my Koss A250. It has no right to sound this good at that price point.

 

[koto-in]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamato8 /img/forum/go_quote.gif How do you encode to flac on a Mac?

xACT

 

[Schalldampfer]

Great... now I gotta go recable my KSC-75. And thanks SO much for the Ety cable, nc8000. I'll inform you when it arrives.

 

[trickywombat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamato8 /img/forum/go_quote.gif How do you encode to flac on a Mac? I downloaded Max to encode cd's to flac or mp3 and the tag is wrong so I can't play Flac or mp3 files (drop them onto the iRiver 120, as they are tagged wrong. Any ideas?

With Max, I haven't had problems manually adding the Metadata and Album Art. But I find this a pain as I have to do this manually. One advantage of this is you can also mark or songs from a Various Artists album as a compilation so Cover Flow will work.

What I do now is rip to Apple Lossless with iTunes. Ripping a CD to ALAC with iTunes, iTunes will fill in the tags from Gracenote, and try to find album art from the iTunes store.

If iTunes can't find the albumn art, I use the Amazon Album Art widget to find the art (if it's not on Amazon, you have an option to search google images).

The tagged ALAC will work in Rockbox on the iriver IHP. Haven't been able to tell a difference SQ-wise for ALAC vs FLAC with Rockbox.

Max can convert from ALAC to FLAC and vice versa rather quickly. I know it's a lot of steps, but I find it worth it just to get iTunes to auto tag the files and add album art.

I'm sticking to iTunes because I need my files in Apple Lossless. ALAC will play on all my players - Rockbox (iriver ihp, nano 1G) and Original (iPod Classic and Touch). For Rockbox on the iriver IHP, I leave a thumbnail of the album cover as the file browser can display it in grayscale.

 

[kiwirugby]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schalldämpfer /img/forum/go_quote.gif Great... now I gotta go recable my KSC-75.

You're welcome.....that's what head-fi is all about....draining wallets!!!

 

[xnothingpoetic]

battery life update:

I thought I'd share that today I got around 13-14 hours on a full charge, playing non stop.

This is with opa2111, lm4562, and ad8656. Using both amp and DAC (optical out on h120).

 

[Schalldampfer]

HiFlight, payment was sent. Please PM me when you see this.

 

[Nine']

Finally got my D1 and so far sounding good. I'm running it stock until the batteries charge, at which point I'l start the rolling (I've already got quite a supply from my GV5S).

Initial impressions are the DAC is clearly superior to my Alien DAC (which I would hope for the price) and the amp is about the same level as my favorite GV5S configuration (switching between D1 and D1->GV5S). The imaging and detail are what really stand out at this point. Considering this is all stock I'm pretty happy with the result, can't wait to see what happens when I break out the opamps in a couple hours.

 

[Schalldampfer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nine' /img/forum/go_quote.gif Finally got my D1 and so far sounding good. I'm running it stock until the batteries charge, at which point I'l start the rolling (I've already got quite a supply from my GV5S). Initial impressions are the DAC is clearly superior to my Alien DAC (which I would hope for the price) and the amp is about the same level as my favorite GV5S configuration (switching between D1 and D1->GV5S). The imaging and detail are what really stand out at this point. Considering this is all stock I'm pretty happy with the result, can't wait to see what happens when I break out the opamps in a couple hours.

When'd you order yours and when was it shipped?

 

[Nine']

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schalldämpfer /img/forum/go_quote.gif When'd you order yours and when was it shipped?

I ordered mine late late september and had it ship Oct. 17th, and it just showed up earlier today. Though shame on UPS for never updating the tracking information (even now, I get nothing).

On a side note, the D1 doesn't show any noise coming from the same cheap usb hub that affected my Alien DAC. I was going to try optical, but since the cheapo hub didn't mess up the D1 I'll stick with usb. I'm guessing the dividing line is whether the device taps into the bus power, which is why the Alien did so poorly out of the hub, so much better directly connected to my Macbook Pro, and why the D1 doesn't seem to care.

One little quibble I have is the OS X volume appears to have no effect on the D1 output, and going MBP->D1->MylarThrees means I have to turn the D1 volume way down, to the point where I'm noticing a L/R channel imbalance. If anyone knows a way to externally control the D1 output I'd be much obliged. (I'd also settle for lowering the gain if that's an option)