Allnic 5000DAC

I did own a lector tube CD player at one point and it was not very good. I thought the Luxman dac was just a rebadged oppo player.

Onhwy61,
That's exactly what I like about Art Dudley, he fits the term music lover. If a component makes music he'll tell you,and if not he'll say so. That's all I want to know. I think he and I hear in a similar manner and our priorities seem the same. Does the music sing with a component or not. If it can't stir the emotion and allow involvement I would have no interest in it at all.
Charles,

Pokey77,
Syntax has a very impressive system, it takes much time,experience and patience to do this. All of his components he proudly describes their "soiund" characteristics. He could have only reached these conclusions and kept them based on listening to them carefully. Lamm products for example are in his system because they sound good!
Charles,

I certainly agree that specs and measurements will generally provide little if any insight into how a component sounds. And I certainly agree that buying based on specs and measurements is almost certain to result in expensive mistakes.

However, I doubt that there are very many, if any, serious audiophiles having even a little bit of experience who buy based on specs and measurements. Although those who express disdain for specs and measurements often seem to make the IMO false assumption that those who consider specs and measurements to provide value do buy in that manner. In other words, a straw man argument.

The very considerable value specs and measurements can provide, as I see it and as I've mentioned in a number of past threads, is that when purchase decisions are being made they allow candidates to be RULED OUT, on the basis that they would be poor matches with either other components in the system (e.g. impedance incompatibilities, gain and sensitivity mismatches, etc.), or with the listener's requirements (e.g., dynamic range and maximum volume capability).

Without taking advantage of those kinds of benefits that can be provided by specs and measurements (and a good understanding of them), the randomness of the component selection process increases greatly. As does the likelihood of expensive mistakes.

And I suppose also that now and then there will be instances where poor measurements will be indicative of design problems that may be sonically significant, but which the reviewer may not have perceived for one reason or another. Perhaps because either his ancillary equipment or the recordings he used did not bring it out, or perhaps because he simply overlooked it.

If measurements are so poor as to suggest that kind of possibility, my question would be why buy that component, or even include it on one's short list for audition, when most likely others are available at a comparable price which sound at least as good and also don't have those measurement issues?

Apparently the Allnic review is in the December issue, which I haven't received yet. But I've read through the Lector review which Onhwy61 mentioned. With respect to the "dreadful" measurements which JA cited I can't say in general how likely and to what degree those may be sonically significant. What particularly strikes me, though, is his statement that "USB Prober appeared to indicate that the Digitube operated in isochronous adaptive mode rather than the preferred isochronous asynchronous mode." If in fact that indication of the "USB Prober" was accurate, use of the older and now largely superseded adaptive USB mode, rather than asynchronous USB, makes the device a non-starter in my book.

And perhaps most significantly, I would point out that in general adaptive USB sonics can be expected to be a good deal more dependent on the particular computer that is used than would be the case with asynchronous USB. And note that Dudley's sonic assessment was done "primarily" via USB. Which means that even if his assessment was 100% accurate, that assessment stands a good chance of not having much relevance to use of the Lector device in a different setup.

Best regards,
-- Al

All I can say, for me are technical specs (very good ones) essential. And the next step is a sonic layout which can deliver a real thing sound. That combination is rare. We find a lot of units with top specs which sound dead like a piece of wood and you find a lot of good sounding units which have no technical standard, which can be rated in the wide, endless "I like it Section. This "I like it" has nothing to do with High End. It is a personal opinion. You can like your car stereo, or MP3, or something expensive which is cheap internally. In a way, I would say, modern High End is loaded with low end "solutions". The term High End is stretched too much in the last 15 years, it is time to create a complete new chapter.
How about "Fun End"?

Some time ago, when the Allnic Hype flooded Audiogon I went to an owner who had the top line Pre and Phono (I think it was 3000 or something like that at that time). He had a similar electronics, Turntable, Arm, cabling and a Lyra Olympos.
We let it run and to be honest I never say something when I am invited. It is my experience and I respect every owner. It is his money, his time, his Fun. Or, when someone is a Fan of Dudley's Finest...I have no problem with it. He asked me several times what I think about it and after a while I said "You don't want to know that".
Anyway, he insisted. Fact was (or is), those Allnics blow up the Tone but that's it. The Phono was not able to deliver the abilities from the Olympos. I need some time to believe that but no matter what setting we used, 70% was not existing AND it was in a way wrong. I had no explanation for that and the last chance for us was to bypass the Phono section via MM with an external SUT (that one had top specs and was a custom made one) and from the first second all in the room said "THAT is MUCH much better"....To finish that story, I was only allowed to leave him when he could keep the SUT.
I deleted Allnic from my memory and when I did read the comment from JA it came back. did it astonish me? Well, no.