The simplicity. The convenience. It’s all I know. All my stuff is there. I have 2 PCs running atm, so I could use one just for music/movies, but that seems like too much of a usage disconnect to be viable. I suppose I could set up a CD player and Blu-ray player outside of the PC, maybe…
Not that a PC is a simple thing to set up, but setting up something that’s not part of my PC seems complicated/confusing/unknown. Some full system examples(basic, intermediate, advanced) would be nice to see, to see what the possibilities and costs are.
I think you see substantial steps on technicalities with each jump with teh TT2 specificaly straying a little from the general chord house sound. IMO none of the devices are worth dealer pricing, but used (say ~3k for TT2 and ~7k for dave) they are fairly competetive. Overall, chord has a fairly strong house sound (may not be super obvious if you havent heard a decent amount in each performance category though) and if you like it, you wont find it else where, but if you hate it, you wont like any of their dacs.
In terms of stackin up to holo, IME, the rankings have fairly clear delinations in total SQ (see below) but they sound wildly different with holo also being fairly flavored but in a completely different way.
Hugo 2 → TT2 → Spring 3 KTE/TT2 + HMS → May KTE → Dave
All this said, just TBH, there is a dac i would take over holo or chord at every single price range as I find both companies have a habit of letting texture take be a bit smoothed over in favor of other traits which I personaly realy dont like.
A lot of this will depend on the rest of your chain as well as what yo uare considering “dave price”. At the ~7k used I have seen dave at recently I would personaly take Weiss 501/502, Meitner MA3, and bricasti M1SE over dave, but given your described desired sound, May KTE may actualy not be a bad call for you. Its hyper holographic, slams like a truck, and with true NOS has a farily well tamed trebble.
m-scaler is a DDC (it takes digital in and puts digital out). TBH, I dont feel like it makes enough of an improvemnt to justify its cost, but I do believe im also in the minority with this opinion here.
I’ll add a Rockna Wavedream to @Draaly’s list. Great bass, great soundstage size and treble is fine depending on the rest of the gear. It’s different from the May and Dave.
Warning: I really hope I am not coming off rude, but I’m here to give you a swift and firm truth slap, lol.
Look, I get it. I was the same as you as well, especially during Covid. I was on my PC 24/7. Everything was on it. My work, my entertainment, and of course, my music. It took a lot of convincing to get off of the PC, but hell, I’m glad I took the plunge. I will never look back.
If you are insistent on staying on the PC, do that. Stay there, but don’t upgrade. You can get a setup that is good enough. If you are smiling and happy, stay there. I will say that, as you upgrade and move up, the more everything else matters and if you stay on the PC, you are leaving a shit ton on the table. Huge bottleneck.
When I moved off of the PC, I only went to a DAP, then a better DAP, then finally a dedicated server/streamer. I always saw it as a waste of money, a redundancy. Why have a place to store music when I already have my PC doing that?? But get this, your PC is stupidly noisy. When I got a streamer, I swore it was like I got a new DAC. The impact was that immediate and that large. So again, if you want to stay on your PC, cool, nobody twisting your arm… too firmly, I hope… but if so, take the ideas of upgrading to a DAVE or DAC of similar tier out of your head, imo.
Like others have said, yeah get off the PC but in case you don’t understand the getting off the PC commentary it doesn’t mean stop using a PC. You can continue to use your PC and play your music from your PC.
What you’re being told to do is to use your PC for gaming, YouTube, whatever else bings and bongs and boinks but… the music, you can “send” that signal from your PC to a bridge, a streamer something else that will then take the digital audio file and send it to your DAC but instead of being a cesspool of noise like most PCs are. A dedicated bridge, streamer, whatever will be oodles cleaner than your PC USB out.
So all you have to do is listen to your shitty audio through the PC but the audio you want to appreciate, listen critically and enjoy, you send that to a bridge/streamer. Win/Win you get the most bang for your audio buck and a VERY good streamer solution can be had for roughly $500 in the form of a Pi with a good audio hat on it running Volumio.
That is not completely true but is not far from accurate too. Just as one example - between my Mac and previous streamer (Auralic Aries G1) I could use airplay streaming to move every sound from the Mac wirelessly to the Aries. It was capped at 16/44 but it was acting as the sound card. Including movies YouTube and whatever you’d like. Thing is, most things that aren’t high res music didn’t really benefit from it. See Nick’s comments on garbage in garage out.
Using good motherboards or specialized soundcards, high quality USB cables, DDC and a good cable from there to the DAC will improve your sound across the board. But it will be better with all of that and a dedicated streamer instead of PC. That’s the point in the previous messages.
I bought a rpi+SD card here on the buy/sell threads for cheap and added a hifiberry DAC2 Pro and fitting case for a total of less than $200. Can it be better? Of course. It’s still very good value for the money. You can find a PI2AES used for under $300, also good value.
I have a small CD collection, and would be happy to add more, as my physical, lossless hardcopy format of choice(to rip or play from). I mostly have MP3 and FLAC. Some OGG, WAV, various chiptune formats, etc. Played on PC through WinAmp, or movies with Media Player Classic.
It would only matter when doing analog to digital conversion, or digital to analog if you loop through an analog processor, the rest is all digital to digital, so it’s entirely lossless.
I don’t know enough about what’s used in this space anymore, or how they are even connected to the controlling PC.
But it doesn’t really matter, like microphones and their preamps, it’s not a part of the chain you can control, so your stuck with whatever noise is added at that point.
I do think we tend to overstate the impact of almost everything here and on every other audiophile website, none of this matters at all and you might as well use a D10 as a DAC, or the one on your motherboard if your not listening critically.
I really don’t see the point of upgrading a DAC beyond the basics for gaming for example, and my computer system has an SMSL SU8 plugged into it for that purpose, driving a Whammy into an HD800S (which is way overkill, but I like the comfort).
But we’re a collection of people who listen critically, and it does make a very noticeable difference to get off the PC. I wouldn’t push high end streamers as hard as some here, but they are worth it at higher levels of investment in gear, I just wouldn’t do that over a DAC upgrade.
For anything not music listening related, my mac is connected straight to my DAC with a generic USB cable. For youtube I’m just looking to get it on my headphones or speakers, don’t really care for more quality. I don’t game but expect that would’ve been the same result.
For my in-the-background-listening speakers setup, it’s a simple rpi4 with a hifiberry DAC, less than $200 and nothing fancy.
But when I want to enjoy my music to the fullest, and leverage everything my system can offer me after I chose specific headphones, amps and DAC, yeah I use a fancy server and player for the source.
It’s about getting the right tool for the job and not creating clear bottlenecks.
I also don’t mind the noise generated in the studio, if it’s in the recording, I’ll be happy to hear it. For me the point is getting rid of things under my control and not in the original music. Not to change the music itself.
Well yeah and that’s why so much of the cost of a high end piece of equipment whether a DAC or a streamer is about the refined power.
It’s not as straight forward as that. I know for example the Kitsume May is well praised for their USB input and how it handles a noisy PC USB out. But it’s also not the end all and be all, so the higher up you go the more you want to get the most of what you’re paying for. I think as a consumer if you’re spending $15K on a DAC you’d expect more at least I would so the expense is usually put towards extreme measures of noise shielding, anti resonant materials, and supreme power with bespoke custom windings and wiring.
I have a Topping e30 connected to the optical out of my TV. It does a great job there.
