[magid]

Thanks everyone for the quick replys. It seems as if the apogee is the way to go with the source upgrade, but is somewhat on the expensive side. Where is the cheapest place I could get one? Also, do you think that at this point better ICs will make a difference? Thanks

 

[Apoptygma]

http://www.sonicsense.com/anadigiMDAC.htm

USB version $969 (last week).

 

[magid]

For that price do you think it will make that much of a radical difference with my system?

 

[Apoptygma]

I haven't heard the Apogee, but from what I've read, yes probably. Trogdor has the Grado combo and the Apogee; I think he's shared some experiences in other treads. Jahn and others have also reported that it's a very fine match with RS-1's. I think a search will find you a good deal of MiniDAC >> Grado talk.

 

[ScubaSteve87]

well ill just repeat everyone else, upgrade your source. You can do much better than the M-Audio

 

[Nomad]

Quote:

Originally Posted by magid For that price do you think it will make that much of a radical difference with my system?

I really think it's going to be a kind of night/day difference. It shouldn't be subtle at all.

The Apogee has a great sinergy with Grados. I had for a while the RA1-RS1 Combo (before to give it as a present to a friend with the burning-in done) with the Apogee and it did sound great. I'd dare to say that the RA1 wasn't that important on that setup. It did improve things, of course, but the RS1 works great straight from the MiniDAC. So if you really are in a budget I'll even sell the RA1 in order to reach the Apogee. I think the MiniDAC-RS1 might be better than MediocreSource-RA1-RS1. And it would be a much better platform for future upgrades.

Want more good news?

- If you still want to upgrade cans in the future, the PS-1s and the L3000s has the same sinergy with the MiniDAC. Depending on the music, sometimes I just unplug the L3000 from the Earmax Pro AE and I plug it straight to the MiniDAC.

- If you want to upgrade amps, the balanced outputs of the minidac allows you to connect it to pretty much anything even in balanced mode.

- Forget about power cables and stuff. You can run it from batteries with great results. Besides, it seems like it's pretty inmune to power issues even from its power supply (it performs a kind of power rectification, I did read somewhere).

- If you want to upgrade sources you still will have a great bedroom system!

Please note I'm not saying the headamp of the MiniDAC is better than the EarmaxPro AE. Is just that my Earmax is a bit slow for some music. I'll perform some tuberolling and well see how it goes. The point is that changing from EMP with my actual NOS tubes to MiniDAC headamp is not a drastic downgrade for some kind of music (fast rock songs for example). Well, is not a downgrade at all.

The MiniDAC is very good with the Sens (I even have a balanced XLR Zu-Mobius for the Senns). I'd say it's great actually. Is just that with Grados and L3000 is f$%@£g amazing. All this IMHO. I heard from jpelg that is great with Qualias too, but I can't comment on that. I'd trust to jpelg, though.

I agree with Trogdor. The MiniDAC is one of my best hifi purchases ever.

Hope this helps. Cheers!


PS: No, I don't work for Apogee

 

[ken36]

Here is my plan, for what its worth: present microdac is a great source, but I like the tube warmth. Will try the Scott nixon USB Tube Dac when released. If there is still something missing will strongly consider a move up to the Apogee.