all right... I'm officially fried and beyond exhausted. Way too long a day for me. I'm glad I got that nap before driving out.
Many thanks to Rich for hosting and putting up with us. His woodworking skills are very good. The speaker project looks even more impressive in person. Can't wait to see the next incarnation
The room is coming along. It sounded the best it has ever sounded now that some of the panels were up. I know once all the panels are up its going to be a really great sounding room.
We futzed with the new speakers for hours and eventually configured things with DEQX. It played for a little while before we made the switch. The rest of the evening was spent in equipment comparison mode and eventually a little relaxation listening.
We listened to and compared 6 different DACs
Tranquility DAC
Antelope Zodiac+ (only has about 20 hours of break-in time as it was just delivered late this week)
Wyred 4 Sound DAC2
PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC
PS Audio Digital Link III
Rich's Buffalo32 series 1 DAC (pretty stock kit)
Speakers were Usher Audio Diamond 718 bookshelf models as they fit in the back seat of my truck. The tweeters were broken in (I stole them out of my Mini 1s in the theater room), but the rest of them only had about 15 hours of break-in. They held up surprisingly well.
Amplifier was at first Sol's I-60 (played with Tranquility for a little bit at first) and then we switched to the Moscode 402AU and stuck with that for the rest of the night. Tubes in it are Mullard 6922s and the stock 6H30s.
At various points throughout the evening, we brought in the Audio Research Ref 3 tube preamp depending on whether the DAC needed a preamp or not. We listened to the PS Audio PWD and the Antelope Zodiac+ with and without the AR Ref 3. It was pretty much mandatory to let the Zodiac+ be DAC and preamp by itself. It sounded awful with the AR after it. I guess too many volume controls and preamp sections. Most preferred the sound of the PS Audio PWD with the Ref 3 after it to give it a bit more bloom and love. I actually liked it without the preamp, but could definitely see the reasons why folks liked it. On some music, it definitely would be more musical and listenable. I liked the soundstage presentation running direct into the Moscode. The AR moved stuff around in a way that I didn't like quite as much.
Cabling was all JPS Labs SuperConductor 3 interconnects and speaker cable. Power cords were a mixed bag of JPS Labs and Black Sand Audio.
Source devices were Ken's tricked out Mac Mini feeding USB to the Tranquility, the Zodiac+ and both PS Audio DACs. We also used the PS Audio Perfect Wave Transport to feed either I2S, coax SPDIF or AES/EBU to every DAC except the Tranquility, for obvious reasons since it only accepts one USB input. We ran the Wyred DAC 2 via coax, AES/EBU and I2S but did not setup and try the asynch USB. It was a dramatic difference in sound between the three inputs we tried. I2S direct from PWT was far and away the best option.
All music used for listening was 16/44.1 to be fair to all DACs involved since the Tranquility doesn't do high rez...
For me, within the context of this system and given my sound preferences, it wasn't even close as to what I preferred. One DAC was completely incompatible with this system's sonic characteristics. One showed its midrange edginess that we've heard in previous comparisons. One had too squashed a soundstage and dynamics. One showed potential but I'd need to listen to it some more to figure out exactly what was going on. One "prettied things up" and made things more musical and exaggerated the soundstage like Maggies do for me. I can see why some would like it, but it wasn't for me. One was just right to me.
It was a fun night. It was great to see everyone again. After the last few months, it was such a thrill to hang out with my audio buddies and shoot the breeze for 18 hours while we waited for Rich to get his speakers to work
hehehe... Sorry Rich, I couldn't resist... I made it all the way to the end of the post at least
hehehe