New DAC Not a Dramatic Improvement?

Interesting thread...

If I were offered a choice between the best DAC in the world and the best transport mechanism in the world, I would take the transport any day of the week. Until you hear a DAC with a great transport, you really do not know what it is capable of. The digital cable also makes a big difference.

I have a MSB Plat III DAC/with volume control fed by a Empirical Audio Off Ramp Turbo2 connected to a music server I built (the USB cable I use is a Wireworld UltraViolet). This combination is quite amazing. And I strongly suggest using a computer/music server to anyone who can. You have to spend really big bucks to get better sound from a traditional CD transport to beat my setup (I'd estimate at least $10k used, $20k retail). Especially when you rip with EAC. One thing about the EA Off Ramp Turbo: This device takes forever and a day to break in (30 days of continuous play... seriously) If you buy one and hook it up, you might cry as it sounds bad new out of the box. It does sound amazing fully broken in.

Keith

Tok20000,

Technically, a music server is not the same as a transport, but I hear what you're saying. I've also found that a feed from a music server can sound very very good.

In my case I use a Toshiba Vista laptop with Windows Media Player that connects to a Roku Soundbridge with external tube DAC over a wireless connection.

It has exceeded all my expectations going into the music server world with my system for the first time.

I also use the transport section of my Denon player/recorder to the same DAC. It too sounds way better than ever with the mndt Paradisea tube DAC compared to the internal DAC.

Tholt, Fundamentally I think your comments result from some fairly honest observations. I'm sorry my comments were unhelpful. They were nothing more than MY reflection on MY experience in coming to audio and learning how to listen critically.

I won't catalogue my audio experience, but
it was a slow and expensive process. I would have been, and in fact was, no less frustrated then by trying to understand what more advanced audiophiles were experiencing than the newbees you talk about. If it wasn't obvious I didn't hear it, even though in retrospect I've certainly had enuf high quality equipment to have allowed me to hear many of the real extant differences.

Hell at one time I didn't appreciate the full value of 'imaging' as they were discussed in the high end magazines (by Harry Pearson for example) - not a clue, in fact I thought it was a bunch of bull shit until one day I actually heard a system set up by a pro with excellent sources in a great room. It was amazing! Replicating that 'sound' has ever since been my main audiophile goal. That was the day I first really stepped onto the learning curve. The rest was incidential to that goal. It was no longer just about things like tone, dynamic range, big bass etc, not that they did not contribute.

All I intended by my post was to counsel patience for newbees who were begining the climb up that relatively steep learrning curve. We all have to establish measurable goals and learn how to assess our systems potential performance with changes we might make as well as why things we try cause us to succeed or fail.

It can be, and I expect ordinarily is, an expensive and long climb up the curve, until we either are satisfied (if not estatic!) with out progress, or we just settle and take up another hobby. Photography anyone - oop's another steep curve unless all you want, really, is nice snap shots everyone marvels at. That is relatively easy and its all in a book some where.

However, for the record, I do take exception to Drubin's remarks about equipment and listening skills being a load of crap. He must have been born complete or has remained ignorant of the growing process, I don't know. I could assume many things from his comments, none of them either favorable or productive. They may have been posted to make the OP feel better so I'll just stop at saying they were rude.

Oh, I stand by my remarks. It struck me as arrogant audiophile snobbery (and rudeness, if you ask me) to suggest that the OP's system is not resolving enough or he is not attuned enough to hear the differences in question. Which is exactly what you did. We're talking about adding a $2,000 DAC to a $200 CDP in a system built around the very good Gallo speakers. The differences should be quite apparent in this system.

I'm actually surprised that no one is holding back their comments pending original poster stating what dac it is. We're all working in the blind here. Isolation, source material, it is a crappy transport (but a $2k dac should STILL be better). (even with that digital cable, unless cable (terminatio?) is at fault??? Help us help you. Power cable, balanced or single ended... And, what music are you listening to? Rap? Fritze Reiner?

Is it just me? (AND I AM PREPARED TO BE... FLAMED)

Not to mention, help a fellow audiogoner not make the same mistake and buy it?