Higher End DACs

A 10,000 thousands dollars dac cannot be used with 1000 amplifier+speakers...Then like you said the question is not about money "per se"...There is 3 rungs in the scale...We must know at which rung a product is in term of quality/ price...

Second point, plugging directly to the wall is destructive of the sound, but you can alleviate that with modified and tweaked battery off the grid, or like me with homemade noise cleaning devices all along the electrical grid of the house, whose efficiency are vey high at relatively low costs...I will never upgrade my dac because of his low cost, and low noise with its minimal design, and no evident limitations in my 500 hundred dollars audio system...Each rung of the scale must be filled with products in the same rung...


My methods was not trials and errors in the way of a buying spree process, my methods was correction a step at a times during one year, by a trials and error with systematic listenings experiments and corrections by feed back with low costs homemade creations, at the end of which my audio system were able to gives me emotions...Total cost: 1000 dollars E.C. +tweaks... I dont calculate one thousand dollars of trials and errors in unsucessful buyings before my systematic series of experiments, keeping always the good gear I owned after my buying spree...


The general problem in audio is simple: people dont trust their ears, and dont give themselves the means to learn how to listen with experiments...

By the way each one of us possess a unique and particular hearing system, with is limits, and deficiencies.... I dont speak when I speak about hearing to some superhuman perceiving bat power in me or others...I am 68 years old....I speak about working with our own listening potential in a learning process...

I silence myself now.... Sorry if I had speak too much... My best to all...

@djones51 @lalitk 

it was all REALLY good until page 6 lol

honestly, it might be appreciated if folks think they may be taking a thread off topic (at least enough so that they apologize and indicate that they don't want to do that) - that they actually not take the thread off topic.

Maybe just to confirm, I was most interested in Esoteric, DCS, MSB, T+A DACs and their synergy/fit with my Mcintosh components :0

but I also realize its usually nice to have fulsome discussions...

@ufguy73,

Speaking of your quest for digital front, where are you on auditioning offerings from DCS, MSB or T+A?

Hate to repeat, but only way to know what sounds best with your existing gear is to listen new component in your home.

@lalitk

so, my local dealer (who ironically doesn’t carry any of those) has indicated he can get some demo units (at least for MSB and likely DCS...not as optimistic about T+A but given the MQA thing not sure that will matter to me)...

So, I basically need to tell him what I would like to try and he will work on getting what I want - I think this is dovetailing nicely into him otherwise wanting to establish some professional relationships with those particular brands as well.

if he can’t come through on an particular brand I would like to try, I will have considering going down the out-of-state path.

@ufguy73,

Sound like a plan. I always support local dealers, it’s an important relationship that pays out well beyond the initial demo/sale.