Are you getting yourself anything nice for Xmas?

[Georgi]

Thanks Fran,
I would like to hear before hand if that's possible, thanks.
How much is little money? 😄
My last DIY DAC which sounded wonderful, cost me nearly €1300.

[Fran]

It very much depends on what you want to spend!

If you start to move into boutique caps, z-foil resistors and the like, well then the money rockets. Same for the case. However, there does seem to be a sweet spot that will probably put you around 300-400, and then add a chassis after that. If you want duelunds, or cardas RCA jacks etc....you know what happens!

[james]

I'm on the market for a decent DAC, because I have make the mistake of selling my multibit PCM63k one.
Now I can't made my mind what I want or what I need for my new Hybrid Amp.
Any suggestions and advices would be much appreciated or if someone would lend me a good DAC for a test for few days, would be even better. 🙂

I was looking up DAC's and I came across the following ..

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threa ... t.22363/

It discusses various DAC's using the PMC63K chip.

[james]

Not for Christmas, but I'm mulling over a fairly sizeable purchase in 2022 that could be considered "hifi-adjacent".

I've given up on getting a pipe organ for home for a variety of reasons, and most commercial digital organs are shite. Instead, I'm seriously considering a bespoke "Hauptwerk" digital setup with 3 manuals (i.e. keyboards), pedals and by every recommendation, "as many audio channels as you can afford". The idea is that this allows sample sets of world-class, often very famous, instruments to be loaded into some fairly serious software and played in the home. Most of the newer samples are in 24/96 (each individual pipe is sampled, more or less) and the computational demands are very serious in terms of CPU and memory, so I'm discovering that none of it is cheap. The real expense is the 3-manual and pedal console itself, so that's where most of my research is going at the moment.

Anyway, there's a lot to figure out here and no triggers will be pulled any time soon. The lead-time for the consoles is many months, and post-Brexit that will probably need to come from Holland as there are a lot of options over there. There might be a fact-finding mission when we're allowed to travel more freely again and when I feel confident of doing so. The audio component will be the last part I suspect, but I'll keep you posted.

Apart from that, I have no plans. But I've said that before.

I looked it up ...

https://www.hauptwerk.com/

[Diapason]

That's the one! Some of the instruments people have built for home use are pretty serious: example

[Fran]

Makes me feel almost normal looking at that!

Serious effort put in there for sure.

[Rayfi]

I know ye will laugh but I bought a Yaqin SD-CD3 tube buffer and replaced stock tubes 6SN7 with a set of Tung-Sol from UK supplier on bay. I also upgraded cables to Van Damme Blue Series from excellent Polish seller on the bay " Lucasoundvision" with really good connectors I would recommend Lucas he has higher end stuff too. I can notice the difference, a more elevated and rounder sound. I'm using it between DAC and amp so I can use for CD transport and digital files on Roon. It came quickly from Schenzhen Audio in China. I would love a tube amp now I've got a taste. That was my Christmas.

[Fran]

The purists all say that a tube buffer only adds distortion and noise, but I think if it sounds good, then its not a bad thing.

Enjoy the purchases!

[Ivor]

I know ye will laugh but I bought a Yaqin SD-CD3 tube buffer and replaced stock tubes 6SN7 with a set of Tung-Sol from UK supplier on bay. I also upgraded cables to Van Damme Blue Series from excellent Polish seller on the bay " Lucasoundvision" with really good connectors I would recommend Lucas he has higher end stuff too. I can notice the difference, a more elevated and rounder sound. I'm using it between DAC and amp so I can use for CD transport and digital files on Roon. It came quickly from Schenzhen Audio in China. I would love a tube amp now I've got a taste. That was my Christmas.

Nobody laughing in my house!
I love me toobs me! Toobs everywhere. Everything distorts, everything colours, I like the warm sound of tubes.

[Cyndale]

I know ye will laugh but I bought a Yaqin SD-CD3 tube buffer and replaced stock tubes 6SN7 with a set of Tung-Sol from UK supplier on bay. I also upgraded cables to Van Damme Blue Series from excellent Polish seller on the bay " Lucasoundvision" with really good connectors I would recommend Lucas he has higher end stuff too. I can notice the difference, a more elevated and rounder sound. I'm using it between DAC and amp so I can use for CD transport and digital files on Roon. It came quickly from Schenzhen Audio in China. I would love a tube amp now I've got a taste. That was my Christmas.

Nobody laughing in my house!
I love me toobs me! Toobs everywhere. Everything distorts, everything colours, I like the warm sound of tubes.

Counting up all the the valves (tubes to US readers) in my amplifiers there are 40 valves (tubes to US readers) in my equipment.