Picking an amplifier
NHT 2.1 Front LR 200W @ 6ohms
NHT AC1 Center 150W @ 8 ohms
NHT SW2 Subwoofer 200W @ 8 ohms
The rear speakers are inconsequential (and boxed up) they might come out to play when I move to bigger digs.
I’ve been using NHTs 214s and 216s, (think lightbulbs) but the market is drying up. I remain unconvinced they are worth the shipping & costs to repair.
My (current) short list of replacement amps:
Outlaw Audio model 770 7 (7 channels)
Bryston 9B ST (5 channels) (2 years left on warranty)
Parasound 5125 (5 channels)
The budget is $1000, I have located sources for all three at or below $1000.
Any/all discussion of suitability, repair outlook, and peanut shells welcome. From a listening perspective, I've been fine with the NADs, but am priced out of the newer models. Nuts, I might even repair the NADs if I find the right person with the skills & tools.
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That’s an interesting find. It’s hard to know for sure from the description if those RCA sockets are COAX SPDIF or if the card only supports toslink. You are paying for 7 analog channels, however. I think the Xonar Essence will still be better, but it’s your budget. You could also look at this (I found this earlier this year when I was looking at alternate SPDIF interfaces -- there aren’t many): I suspect it would perform better than the SEDNA card, but once again is the question of driver support in your O/S. Personally, I would still pick the Asus even though it is much more expensive. |
Just googling around. Not sure if you found this, but the Musiland digital times does indeed have a Windows 10 driver: http://emotivalounge.proboards.com/thread/50430/musiland-digital-times-transport-review I may have to try this card out sometime. ....further investigation on google translate shows that it's only engineered for up to Windows 8: http://www.musiland.cn/index.php/Download/show/id/75 Jasmine / Digital Age Driver [1.0.7.0] Resource Category: Driver Download Finishing date: 2012-10-25 File size: 14848Kb Operating environment: Windows XP, WinVista 32-bit, WinVista 64-bit, Windows 7 32-bit, Windows 7 64-bit, Windows 8 32-bit, Windows 8 64- |
Okay further analysis. The Musiland has TRS85812NL on the RCA and BNC outputs. These are transformers for digital audio data transmission (which is the proper way to output SPDIF): http://www.microchip.ua/trxcom/telecom/np97-100.pdf It does not appear that the Xonar Essence or SEDNA cards have output transformers. It does have a 24.576 crystal clock. Looks like good power supply filter support. Though, if those are through-hole capacitors, I would be pulling those out and replacing with some nice 220uf polymer caps (along with some .1uf MKPs soldered on the back side for high-frequency stabilization). No extra DSP or analog stages. Just a non-nonsense well engineered SPDIF card (based on pictures). It also has a real BNC output (which performs better than RCA for spdif). Technically speaking, this is an excellent option and could very well be better than Xonar Essence. The proof is how well the software drivers actually work and real world listening tests. :) At $60, I may pull the trigger on one of these. Ebay item has extended handling times, but it looks like it is in stock at Shenzhenaudio for $9 more: Maybe worth trying? |
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