Note that raw-ripped CDs being played via my Wavelength Cosecant DAC is my only source of music.
Despite this, I think many would classify my system as having an 'analog' sound.
The Wavelength Cosecant DAC is awesome. So good that I bought its little brother (the BRICK) for my bedroom system with my old Energies - also very happy.
I use WAV raw-ripped files (in case I want to switch back and forth between OS platforms or music players and I have plenty of hard disk - 11Terabytes RAID5 in the garage).
The current setup is awesome.
I finally have my Chardonnay pre installed and am very pleased overall. Will still evaluate for a while but I believe I like the sound better with the Chard than without - although it a significant change and I was *very* happy running direct with no pre. The Chard also makes the system much more fun at lower volumes...
Now, I am only waiting for amp stands (and component).
The only component that hasnt had a significant effect on the sound is the Nirvana Speaker Cables - everything else has been a step forward to where I am now.
Great transparency, great mids, highs, and a supertight bass. Now a much more dimensional sound stage - I will now schedule the room tuning for the Amatis...
I have also done a little tube rolling with the help of the ATM3s former owner Albert Porter and am very happy with my Tele El34s and the tele driver tubes.
I am really getting there now. In fact, I would say I am becoming highly 'room limited'...
Will update after a few more months of everyday listening!
Dual Intel Core Mac with touch screen interface running itunes/front row. Currently attached via gigabit ethernet to 8TB CD/DVD server with all raw wav files ripped using EAC for error corrected transport onto hard drive.
The Cosecant takes the raw source material directly via Apple's Audio Core interface without being touched.
Review later on... Unfortunately no 2nd video interface to drive the projector, but should be easier to maintain then the Windows MCE with J River Media Center and ASIO... UPDATE: I have had stability problems with the mini - it occasionally wont accept input! This seems to be from the 3rd party USB touch screen drivers. I will be evaluating running MCE on the mini and using Itunes -> Foobar2000 -> ASIO as an alternate. This would make the mini better for its DVD player usage... will update after having tried all this.
Gefen Mini USB-1 USB Extender
Extends USB 1.1 over Cat 5e/6. Works better with shielded cat cable. In evaluation as Gordon (Wavelength) thinks it to have too high of an error rate. Seems to work pretty well with shielded pre-molded cable so far.
Generic Cat 6 100' Shielded Cable
Used to extend USB connection 100' from garage to living room with USB sender/receiver pair
Wavelength Audio Cosecant USB DAC
USB Tube DAC Beautiful DAC that makes computer (perfect transport on raw error-corrected rips) sound as good as a great CD player.
Nirvana SX Ltd 1.5M RCA Interconnects
Awesome Interconnects - one of the biggest positive changes of any of the equipment in my system.
Supratek Chardonnay
Finally got my Chardonnay functional. After 6 months and 2 trips to Kevin Covy in NY to compensate for some shipping problems, I am now getting used to the chardonnay. A preliminary sound description - the Chardonnay 'adds' to my system in that it adds 'resonance' that makes the soundstage of the recording come through. I am still trying to decide on how I like this overall, but I have to admit it to very much enjoying my listening sessions now the the pre is fully functional. I will update later, but currently I will say that whereas my system used to be clean, transparent, and very very 'tight', it is now more 3 diminesional in sound stage, and gives more of an impression of 'being there'. The slight counter is a lost of a little tightness in snare type bass - but a better sense of that bass in the stage... MOre later
Nirvana SX Ltd 2M RCA Interconnects
2M Interconnects - amazing
harmonic technology Fantasy AC-10
Auditioned these cords from the Analog Room. As usual, Brian was right and they are a significant improvement. Basically, before these cables, I couldnt plug the ATM3s directly into the WALL without getting significant GLARE in the music that was unbearable. The result was running the AMPs through the conditioner that really cut down on the openness. With these, I get all the openness and none of the glare. Footnote - I also had to replace my wall-plugs - for now with just high grade home depot ones for commercial use (about $30 each)...
Air Tight ATM-3
Air Tight Flagship Tube Monoblocks. Beautiful. 6 Telefunkin EL34s per block. Now running upgraded inputs as well. And using the HarmonicTech power cords to good effect!
Nirvana SX Ltd 2.5M Speaker Cables
Spade Terminated, famous speaker cables
Sonus Faber Amati Anniversario
New version of Amatis have arrived! Now in their break in period, I am already very happy. I am now "in" the music rather than having it played at me. Also, I see much deeper into the details of everything. Will update after breakin. In the meantime, piano, cello, female vocals sound awesome. Attacks are better although still a little rounded by the cosecant. Although piano sometimes a bit back (hope improves with break-in). After break-in Brian from the analog room will return to do a real tuning - cant wait!
Monster 3500 Mk II
Basic Monster Power Filter/Protection... jury is still out.
Generic Windows Media Center PC
Windows Media Center PC connected to 8TB of server storage for Video/Audio This system is in the garage and so noise isnt an issue (USB Extender and DVI extenders from Gefen) Currently running J River Media Center. ASIO based usb audio to the cosecant. I finally have this working well, but am fed up enough with windows that I will soon try to switch to the mini... Evaluation time... This PC currently drives my Benq Projector via dvi and the touch screen via VGA. Uses the projector in overlay mode.
Energy 22 pro
My "Vintage" speakers soon to be replaced with targeted Sonus Faber Amati Anniversarios now on order. Nice sounding horns, base, imaging - thin in the middle.
Although my wife and I do use the touchscreen quite a bit.
However, I often just use VNC remote desktop control on my laptop (like now =) via wireless.
This way, I can sit on the couch, listen to beautiful music, get some email/work done, and easily update music selections without even budging...
I am really happy with the setup...although until I just got my pre with the remote, doing volume manipulation in high quality fashion (ie other than on the PC) was a pain..
Glad to know you are heading in this direction - I have to say, at this point I am truly convinced it is the right way to go.
Hard disks make great loss-less transports, and with a proper low-jitter dac interface, I cant see getting any better...and you get playlists =) BTW USB interface to the Cosecant has been *awesome*
You mentioned my WAV choice - I really didnt spend to much time on it. I have plenty (now over 11TB RAID5) of hard disk so size isnt an issue. I thought about researching a bunch of the lossless compressed formats, but decided that I still wanted the flexibility of platform and music player so I just bailed on all of that research. I have been fine using tools to migrate between EAC, itunes, and JRiver MC although it is a pain to get all the info in sometimes.
In terms of DACs, I honestly have a tough time anyone will be able to best the Wavelength Cosecant DACs for me. It just sounds so superb to me - the single best purchase I have made (and I like them all). The only downside to Gordon's design for me is the lack of USB2.0 support limiting me to 44/48Khz sample rate playback. But, with this DAC, a CD that has been recorded in even decent fashion sounds superb and I have become convinced that all of the 192 upsampling is just a big bandaid for bad design. I will take my DAC any day (would be very curious to hear the Japanese DAC done similar to the Cosecant but it is over 10K). So, this just leaves 24/192 recorded music that would be nice to have but is currently impossible in my system. I bought a 24/192 FIREWIRE 400 ADAC for karaokee and to listen to dvd audios - but am having trouble getting any of the music players to output 24/192...
So currently I am just very happy that all my CDs sound so great, that I can play 24/192 DVD-As and have them sound equally good (no problem outputing 24/44/48)...
Did you get the mod'd dac after all? How is it working? The new DAC add-on interface supports 24/192? I know someone that is doing perfect DVD-A rips of all of their LPs onto DVD-A so this would be great.
I'm heading in the same direction. I'm curious to know why you decided to rip in wav rather than flac or some other compressed format that can use ID tags...I'm not talking MP3s.
Also, you said you were fed up with windows. Can you elaborate? Has the mac mini solved your problems?
Have you considered using a palm pilot as a remote control or are you happy with your touch screen? i set my father up with a touch screen and an escient music server and he's pretty happy although I notice he's really not taking advantage of the touch screen.
Regarding your sound card. You might want to check out empirical audio at http://www.empiricalaudio.com/ this is steve nugent's site. He's got something he calls an "Off ramp" which will take the place of your sound card and reduce jitter considerably. I can't attest to this from personal experience (I just ordered one and i'm on a 2-3 month waiting list) but from what i've read, it sounds like the way to go. Your wavelength dac would have to be modified to work with an IS2 connection (I don't know if steve can do that) but it's a thought.
Thanks for your tips and advice, it is appreciated. I wish I had more space to rip everything in Wav - this is just not an option for me on my budget.
Interesting about bypassing the Windows K-mixer - I have the ASIO driver for the M-Audio installed though, and I'm happy with how it sounds (considering it wasn't *that* expensive)
I am pretty pleased with the results to be honest, I just think my system is let down by the Monitor Audios - they sound a touch too metalic, although extremely reveiling. I would prefer a much warmer sound, although my new Advance S101 amp has tidied this up a bit.
Picking stuff on A'gon is tricky for me as I am based in United Kingdom.. :(
Once again, I love your system - you make people like me JEALOUS!
Hi Jack, Thanks for the inspiration, and yes it sounds amazing (my wife unprompted commented that it is better than most of the concerts we have been to) - and I still have a lot of tuning and break-in to do. Also, with the touchscreen, she is finally happy with the interface 2.5+ years after starting this project.
We use the same setup for home theatre (stream both DVDs and CDs in raw form from the 8TB (and counting) Raid5 Server) - I have an electric screen that drops down over the front window for my benq pe8700 projector.
I checked out your system - seems great! A few comments a) You might check out EAC ripping software for doing error corrected rips from CDs to your computer. b) along the same lines, once I hit a certain level of overall fidelity, I started really noticing what I was missing with lossy compression (ie mp3s). I am 3/4 through re-ripping my whole collection. In the current system the old mp3s are very listenable (mine old ones are 320VBR), but not even close to the raw WAVs I am using now. Now I wish I had a 24/192 losses solution for getting DVDA and SACD. As a footnote, there are several formats that willdo lossless compression - I am only sticking to wav for now because I dont know what software I will end up using for playback yet. c) Seems like you have a great soundcard (I am using an digi MBox at work), but I am really happy I bagged on the CD player altogether and went with the USB tube dac. Even with the tube amps, changing out my somewhat highend dvd player (which has fine dacs too) for the wavelength audio dac is night and day. On everything from female vocal jazz to pantera. If this is appealing, you might check out the 'wavelength brick' - I have seen them used on audiogon for about $1200 I think. d) if you are running windows, I would really try to make sure you use a real ASIO driver. Until you can kick the windows 'k-mixer' out of the equation (ie make it stop touching the damn bits), you are leaving a lot on the table. It took me a long time to work this out. Winamp and J River Media Center worked the best for me. iTunes and Windows Media Player *CANNOT* bypass the kmixer as they are now...
This is a really great and genuinely different system. It's so nice to see someone using digital media properly, and I'm sure it sounds great. You have an amazing system - I am very jealous. 8TB of storage? I only have just over 1TB!
System edited: Ok I am still getting started but ready to get some opinions. Has anyone tried different tubes in the cosecant - it sounds beautiful in every way for me other than a little rolled off on the 'attack' on piano and metal? I certainly am very happy now but am curious. Ideas for power cables? Other comments... Thanks in advance!
System edited: The Amatis have arrived! Breaking them in now - and I added a bunch of pics... Still need to evaluate mac mini verses windows media center pc... Comments are welcome!
I have a 17" 3M M170 LCD touchscreen (I think I paid about $700 a while back). The big thing for me was that it was 1280x1024 and simple to use USB. I havent hooked the touch usb yet to the MAC mini...will look for drivers when I get back from my current trip. If I cant find drivers, I will probably use my windows shuttle XPC with remote mac desktop to drive the interface for the mac. I still dont know if frontrow will accept 'left click' as input for to select things which is a worry...
The touchscreen has worked quite well with the Windows based system where I have the interface on the touchscreen and the video always fullscreen on my Benq PE8700 720P DVI projector. My wife is *finally* happy with the interface after 2+ years working on the dvd/cd client server approach. I am still debating about whether I will have just one system to drive the stereo and the home theatre. One thing to note - currently, I have my computer in the garage with my servers and I use a USB over Cat5 (actually shielded Cat6 in my case) to run the cabling for the cosecant. So far I have been happy with the extension, but I will let you know in more detail after I do some direct comparisons with the Amatis in place (Gordon says in his test, he got high error rates with the extender I am using - but I doubt he was using shielded cat 6 and that made a huge difference for me).
BTW, the 17" monitor is probably a bit too big for this application as just a touch screen interface. I think if I did it again I would go with a 12" and settle for XGA as long as it could sync 720P. (17 inch screen is a bit big on our coffee table =) Still, it is very nice to have the real estate and I will probably mount it on the wall next to my couch. Right now, just flip it on, choose a playlist or start a movie, and flip it off during the movie - very nice...
I use an iBook and headphone amp with built-in USB DAC for my headphone listening. I'm about to do the same with my main system. I'm thinking about using a new Intel iBook when they are released. But I've also looked at the Mac Mini, however I did not want the clutter of keyboard/mouse/monitor. What is your touchscreen system and how large is it? I would be using the Cosecant, which I had in the past and sold, but will have to rebuy. I plan to use Glyph "pro audio" hard drives for storage and backup. Thanks.
