vmps, art d/io, & boldercables.com


as many know, i am fond of vmps, & the art di/o dac. well, the vmps rm-40 has won a "best in show" award at the recent ces. and, here's a quote from vmps' brian cheney to wayne, of boldercables.com, who supplied brian w/a modded di/o. wayne charges $200 for these mods to the ~$130 di/o, & having done most all the mods to *my* di/o, i can easily say it's a most fair price! ;~) anyway, here's what brian had to say to wayne:

"...We used the DIO as our digital source throughtout the Show, since we thought the Sig 9 Muse player loaned to us did not sound as good. My transport was my own 10 year old Krell MD 10."

just thought y'all might want to know... :>)

doug s.

sedond
To Rcrump: I heard your preamp in the VMPS room and in your room at CES. I'm glad to hear you say the amps and speakers in your room were green, because that is how they sounded to me. Your preamp is transparent though. How much of the Blowtorch do you hope to be able to build into the proposed Parasound preamp, and will you hazard a guess about projected retail on it?
Yep, the sound in our room was really green for most of the show.....The speakers had 75 hours on them and we had about that on the JC-1 prototypes and nothing even started to gel until late Thursday and Friday wherein the sound got to table radio standards.....I don't know where to point the finger on this one, but will have the JC-1s here next week to voice.....Have a friend close to me with some Wisdoms and they didn't break in pretty, but I expect a bit of both......Just in the talking stage right now on a preamp and trying to relate that the Blowtorch is a hot-rod and not easily built as parts have to be all dead matched to make it work properly, something that normally cannot be done in high volume production.....Ask again in a few months.....
Anyone have any RFI problems with their Art DI/O's? If yes, have you been able to solve them and how?
sorry joe, i have no problems here... what is it doing? you may also want to go to the yahoo site set up for diomods; lotsa technically-oriented folk there, who may be able to help...

doug s.

Hi Doug,
It is generating interference with my radio reception. Not unusual for digital products to do this (I've tried expensive ones that were worse in this regard), but it is annoying. Have to disconnect interconnects to it in order to listen to tuner w/o static. Was hoping that maybe the modifications do away with this and will investigate as you suggest. Still burning it in (it does improve each day) and waiting for the upgraded power supply (Stancor 3400mv) to arrive. Other things I've noticed is that it sounds best in the x2 mode; can't get any sound in ext sinc mode. Also, mine sounds a little better with the tube installed. I know the tube supposedly has nothing to do with the d/a circuit, but I notice the led's next to the tube warmth adjustment don't work unless the tube is installed and the sound is slightly smoother and there is less of the RFI mentioned above when the tube is installed. I won't comment on the sound until I have gotten the upgraded ps and it has run for a couple of hundred hours.