Tír Na HiFi

Hi Nige,

No, not put off yet. Just dipping a toe into the pond...

Spent a bit of time ripping a subset of cd's to hdd. Then as a very basic startup, booted up an oldish laptop with daphile.
I borrowed a NAD M51 DAC as an initial starting point.

Findings? This setup really doesn't compare in terms of sq to the Wadia. In basic terms, far less resolution. Softer bass, a veil over the midrange and much less precise soundstage. Overall, a big dip in musicality.

To be fair, probably not that surprising. A very basic PC setup and a DAC which does sell for considerably less than the Wadia.

So I think a case of auditioning more DAC's and taking slow steps before making any permanent decisions!

yea well using a old laptop with daphile just ain't gonna cut it compared to the wadia
40-60 % of a pc dac combo sq will be the pc's contribution

daphile is a decent performer but does be a little soft
so not really a permanent solution

a better pc would make dac testing much easier

Well Steve
What was your thoughts on your little DAc/ PC test

Will let Steve give his thoughts my only comment for the moment would be on the speakers and amp. Hugely impressive,
really taut dig really deep in the bass and treble is clear and pronounced. Destination speakers no doubt. Even if they sounded crap the
other half's would be showing them off to all and sundry!
The monoblocks with KT120's really shine.No loose bass delivered with this combo.

Compared to my Quads I would have to hear them side by side. Electrostats have a particular style of delivery. The bass hitting your chest doesn't happen
but instruments and voices whether accurate or not have a particular liquid quality. Hearing them side by side I would fear the Quads would seem soft mushy etc
but maybe not. The SF's might blow them away and maybe safer to avoid a contest! It certainly not an easy ask on either person due to size,room size etc to compare them but maybe some day in the future.

Thanks Steve for the evening very enjoyable

Will give you some of my initial thoughts Nige!

The session was pretty jaw dropping from the outset as both myself and Tony had first off to get used to the wonderful appearance
and more important sound out of the Jadis JA80s and the Sonus Faber Amati's which are a work of art and
deliver some serious mid to low range sound.
Now I know what people are referring to when they say electrostatics do not do low frequencies that well!!

Unlike a lot of get together's we did manage to listen to lots of music even though we did repeat a lot of tracks
for comparison purposes and it was well worth the effort.
We started with the Wadia 581 I think as our reference with CD's!!
The same tracks were then used from these CD's which Steve had already ripped to FLAC 16-44 for our Audio PC's.
WE mainly used JPlay 6 for playback on the Audio PC's.

Comparing audio playback from the Cirrus 7 (Audio PC 1) with Switch Mode supply through the Big 7
the Wadia came out on top.
We then jumped straight to the best Audio PC (Audio PC 3) with all the bells and whistles through the Big7 and I tried a
DSD track first and we did not get any jaws dropping as it appeared I had issues with DSD playback on the night,
still not sure what was wrong but I think it was something Audio PC side and not the Big7.

Next on to PCM on Audio PC3 with Big7 with tracks Steve had ripped to FLAC 16-44 and that is when the magic started and jaws dropped!!

I will step back here and leave it to others to chime in when they get a chance as to the remainder of the night with beers and wine in hand,
got home at 1.30 am so a good night was had by all I reckon :-)
Many thanks to Steve for being a great host.

What's the spec of audio PC 2?

Is there a power conditioner on the wadia?
Not surprised the cirrus was bettered by the wadia there was probably quite a bit of difference in it
No repeatant fifteen second testing wow bet that was a novelty

Audio PC 1 is in a Streacom case with Gigabyte Mobo H97M-D3H & Intel I7 4770S & Paul Pang Audio OCXO replacement, a Paul Pang Audio V4 USB Card with OCXO, a Teradak ATX Linear Supply just for the 20 pin ATX connector on the Mobo, the Paul Hynes SR7EHD 12v goes to the 12v CPU supply connector on the Mobo, the first Paul Hynes SR7EHD 5v supplies the 2 OCXO's, the second Paul Hynes SR7EHD 5v supplies the Operating System Paul Pang Audio TCXO SSD + Music SSD + a separate Audiowind regulator which bypasses the on-board 1.5v supply to RAM.
Server 2012 R2 Essentials in Core mode loaded in to RAMDISK on start-up, JPlay 6 & Audiophils Optimiser 1.26b.

Audio PC 2 is in a Streacom case, Asus P9D-M Server Board & Intel I7 4770S, JCat USB Card, SSD for OS & SSD for Music powered by the Teradak.
I also run Server 2012 R2 Essentials in Core mode loaded in to RAMDISK on start-up, JPlay 6 & Audiophils Optimiser 1.26b on this PC.

so pc 2 is probably most relevant for steve

how much worse is it than pc 3

what you think simon?

Waiting to get to pc so i can type properly, but simply put i thought Friday was some of the best sounds I've ever heard from hifi. The Lampi 7 was superb, really adds an extra magic. I heard some difference between the two higher level PCs but I sometimes thought i preferred the cheaper of the 2. Lampi 4 was great too, but very hard to look beyond the Big 7 when you've heard it!