vmps, art d/io, & boldercables.com

re: the ctc blowtorch - way-expensive preamps may be worth something for those w/deep pockets, but i'm not so sure about expensive dac's... ;~) and, after i have a chance to audition the vmps rm-40's, i may have the same thing to say about way-expensive speakers, too! :>) actually, considering the relatively reasonable amount i paid for my melos music-director preamp, i'm not sure just *how* much way-expensive preamps really *are* worth... ;~)

brianw - i'm curious - who, besides me, has said anything negative about the class-a op-amp biasing? and, since i've fixed the broken trace from the op-amp, i have to say the mod was an improvement...

i agree that doing the internal voltage-divider mod so you can use any cables is a good thing, but you can also replace eight resistors on the board to reduce voltage - this is even better. instructions on how to calc the exact reduction you want are on a spreadsheet on the yahoo diomods site. ie: to reduce the units' output from 7v to 2.6v, replace 4.7kohm resistors r14, 15, 20, 22 w/13.3k resistors, & replace 4.7kohm resistors r16, 17, 21, 23 w/8.08k resistors. i just ordered resistors for this mod today, but w/a bit higher final output, at 3.2v. i will be yanking & replacing some resistors i just upgraded last week... ;~)

doug s.

Joe B and Sedond, it costs like Hell to build something right and we really don't want to build very many of the preamps anyway...I thought it was necessary to point this out as that was not a cheap system as the preamp cost more than the rest of the system combined.....Regarding digital I never have understood why it should cost so much as you can't do anything to the digital circuit or the thing won't work....About all you can do to any digital circuit is play with the supplies and maybe the quality of any trim caps and resistors.....All this refers to DACs as most transports can be updated with better clocks, output drivers and supplies.....

hi bob, i in no way meant to slight your product or your efforts - i'd love to hear the blowtorch. preamps & amps (especially preamps, imo), are items that *can* be made to sound great w/lotsa time & money thrown at them... of course, it's way beyond my budget, & my comment was made cuz i really *do* think my preamp (not exactly cheap at its original retail of $4600), *is* an outstanding-sounding preamp, sonically competitive w/anything *i've* ever heard. of course, i have not had the opportunity to audition competition in my rig, where it matters most...

regards, doug s.

btw, i can't disagree w/you about your opinions of the cost of digital electronics... :>)

Well, well, well:

I've been listening to my DI/O all morning, freshly modified by Bolder Cable Company and I have to say that I am floored by how good this DAC sounds. There is no question in my mind that it easily outmaneuvers my ModWright/Perpetual Tech P-3A. I am amazed at the purity of the treble, its delicacy, and fine focus. The bass also surprised me. It has clearly the most natural and detailed bottom end that I've heard from any DAC in my system. And the midrange is less opaque and oh-so-transparent. The DI/O, with Wayne's mods is clearly a winner -- and the thing is not even broken in.

I heard so much more detail from almost every cut in Fionna Apple's "When the Pawn" CD, that although I have played this recording countless times, it was almost like I was hearing it for the first time. A drum/percussion passage toward the end of her song "Limp" amazed me by how dynamic and true to life it was (very high slam factor). Later I put on the "O Brother Where Art Thou?" soundtrack and almost jumped out of my skin at the start of "Po Lazarus" because the sound of the prisoners cracking rocks in the opening was THAT STARTLING!

Happy Listening!

Sedond, no offense taken whatsoever as we built the preamp to see how far we could take it and never expected to do much more than build a few units and have something for reference use the rest of the CTC partner's lives.....Just finishing up the big JC-1 amps for Parasound and they mentioned that they want a matching preamp, but it is going to be tough to make an easy to build and cost effective preamp for them....It will happen this next year I imagine.....Back to Art it is possible to spend a lot of money on digital parts as I specified in the 1.5 rev to the Entec Number Cruncher as teflon caps don't some cheap nor do Muse caps, Schottky diodes, shunt regulators or Vishay resistors....You can run the bill up pretty high if you aren't careful and obtain better performance and finally come to a stopping point years down the way, but the point is the digital circuit is exactly the same electrically and most DAC chips just don't cost much these days.....