It’s actually not that bad, more of an in-joke for Chicagoland residents. It’s know for it’s giant mall and large offices, and all the houses looking the same. Not really a vacation hotspot.
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Also known for being pretty expensive for what it is there, and people acting like the city is just as if not more important than chicago, some stuck up mentality there at times lol (at least more than other areas from my experience). But really it’s fine, it’s whatever, just basically the textbook definition of a suburb to a tee and that’s what makes it really boring to visit and live there imo. Don’t really think anyone really hates it or thinks it’s a bad area
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Haha. Sounds like the city where I live (replace office buildings with studios). 
Isn’t that where Motorola was based?
So I only just had the realization that estat speakers need a speaker energizer, not a normal speaker amp. Anyone know if anyone makes particularly great ones? I wonder if instead of trying to get a good enough trafo and amp to surpass something like a 3es/T2/STX you could get a great speaker enegizer manufacturer to make you a custom bias one for stuff like shang/HE90/etc. Do estat speakers have the same issues as over hear estats where all the source gear just isnt great?
They don’t typically need a special amp, just are typically power demanding, and an amp that can handle very low impedance loads since they tend to drop to 2ohms at times for some models. I’m sure there are some esoteric designs that might require a really special or proprietary amp or transformer but most have them built in and work with traditional amps from my experience. Not really ever lived with or messed around with ESL though as they’ve never been my cup of tea
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do the speakers have transformers built into them then? TBH googling this stuff realy isnt turning up much.
Add public transit inaccessibility to the list of negatives. And that space just generally makes my skin crawl, apologies to the locals. I’ve already committed, so it is what it is. I might even get a room despite living within 90 minutes of it.
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So, listening to my setup vs @DanMellinger’s, AIC has way less bass in my setup than is his. Testing wall power vs regen, that is playing a role, but its not even close to the whole answer, so I was wondering what else could be holding it back. The TD is obviously not the slammiest, but I also dont think thats all there is to it tbh. Here is my full chain as it sits on my desk right now vs his chain. Anything else I should look into? or is rossini maybe just slammier than I give it credit for? FWIW, the HM1 isnt crazy slammy IME and I believe @DanMellinger had similar slam levels whether using it as a pre or not
graph LR
subgraph mine
PC -->|FTA calisto| d1-digital
d1-digital -->|TD UP12 AES| d1-dual
d1-dual -->|world best XLR| AIC-10
AIC-10 -->|DHC Molecule Elite 15| Susvara
Wall -->|JPS Labs AC Analogue| Furrman-15FI
Furrman-15FI -->|JPS Labs AC Analogue| AIC
Furrman-15FI -->|JPS Labs AC Digital| TD-Stack
end
subgraph Dans
ethernet -->|normal cable| rossini
rossini -->|normal XLR| HM1
HM1 -->|normal XLR| Riviera
Riviera -->|TOTL Skedra cable| Sus
Outlet -->|normal cable| Niagra-5000
Niagra-5000 -->|normal cables| everything
end
Could also be the internal tube inside the aic, something to consider. Can make a notable difference and have a lot of variance, something you didn’t really note, the amount of hours on the tube also matters
Obviously the different dacs would be a large factor to me, 2 pretty different sounds overall (also digital sources would potentially play a role tbh)
The overall cabling also could matter, for the headphone cable, interconnect, digital, and power, but hard to nail down which might be it, first thing I’d check would likely be headphone cable since that’s the easiest and to me might be a culprit moreso than interconnects or power (since you have jps power which is a bassy cable in general imo). As noted the conditioning would also play a role but to what extent will just depend, try direct from wall instead of the furman to see how things change.
When you’re talking bass, are you noticing more a lack of quantity or a lack of slam (or both, or other factors as well)
Could also be the headphones themselves but idk, perhaps due to just batch variance, burn in time, or potentially most impactful sealing and fitment (one headphone seals better than the other due to difference in pad wear or something?)
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I still think it’s power. You’re in an office cubicle with what I’m assuming are other cubicles with office equipment such as PCs, printers, etc.
Noisy power impacts the sound greatly, IMO.
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Yeah that’s kinda close to worst case in terms of what you can run a high performing system in, even outside the direct office, you also have to consider the general area and neighbors of the building that might share some lines, if it’s anything industrial or manufacturing that can also really be poor for systems as well
Generally power conditioning can help, but also kill bass to some extent (and other aspects) so you’re kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place in the office setup when it comes to power
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Yeah, I feel like the best remedy would be a regenerator. 
Edit:
@Draaly just needs a Stromtank.
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This was my amp with the same tube in both setups.
forgot to include that. Its extension, grip, quantity, and impact. Kinda just holistically less and a little looser. I do realize there are a lot of variables here, but figured it was worth asking since it was legit more bass than ive ever heard the amp have.
This is kind of what I assumed the difference was at first, but after trying P6P I was wondering if maybe rossini is bassier than i was expecting or if something else was going on.
I was kind assuming it wouldnt be interconnects since we both use worlds best, but maybe power? I kinda hope not since im using the JPS labs ones that seem to be liked for their bass though, so idk where I would even go from here 
Checked ME19 vs CompC and didnt notice much, but ill try C15 one I get it back fairly soon here as well.
So direct from wall there is more quantity and its more impactful with a little more tightness, but still leagues below how it was at dans. Unfortunately I dont trust work enough to not have something between my amp and the wall though since we’ve had power surges in the past. Is it possible that something like a power plant (looking at a P12) or niagra 5000 could bring bass up to levels above what you get right out of the wall?
That would be interesting. TBH idk ive ever compared one sus to another, but maybe.
I was kind of under the impression that this wouldnt change actual bass quantity and impact, but instead general clairty, stage, and detail (when right out of the wall). TBH I thought bass impact was basicaly just “is there enough juice” not a noise issue.
Like exact same tube? Or same tube mfg and model
In that case, I’d really either point to the dac differences, or the power. The rossini is a reasonably bassy and punchy dac, moreso than the dual for sure. I think this one of the things totaldac really improved upon with later models especially moving up their line.
I mean only real test you could do is bring a rossini into your setup and swap and see how things are lol. But really that’s still what I think would be the main difference and deciding factor between the setups aside from power, but given how it affects most all aspects I do think it’s a difference of just sheer dac tiers with the rossini being a fair step ahead technically of the d1-dual imo
Figured it wasn’t interconnect, but headphone and power were kinda what I would have focused on, and really moreso headphone, but I do think overall cabling absolutely isn’t the driving factor in these differences
So to clarify, was it his susvara and cable then comparing to your susvara and cable? The DHC stuff has a similar house sound, I’ve not heard the skedra cable but perhaps that could be one factor if it’s a bassier leaning cable?
Figured. I’d have assumed the furman was squelching bass performance a bit, but not to the extent to where it was that big of a change.
Depends, it could, but again I don’t think that’s the driving factor
Probably not, but figured I’d throw it out there anyways lol
I really do think that it’s just the raw difference in dac tier and the sound of that dac, the better you put into the aic the better it will get, and the rossini is just a better dac than the dual + digital mk1, really at the moment your digital side of things is the weakest link in your setup especially in comparison to his setup. Also please get some nicer interconnects at some point after that lol. But dac first, don’t expect the dual to really compete all that well with the rossini
Initially I thought you also were saying that trying 2 aic in the same setup that one ended up being bassier aside from the differences in the different setups, but I see I misread that a little bit lol
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As in I used it there, un plugged it, drove home, and plugged it right back in with no other changes.
This may well just be me not giving rossini enough credit for how punchy it is tbh. This was my first assumption to what was happening too. I only posted when I didnt get even close to the impact when using P6P which I find pretty middle of the road impact wise and I wasnt expecting DCS to be impact kings.
@DanMellinger you heard it here first 
thats possible. maybe just legit the control of the dac alone made everythign seem more intense bass wise. Guess we will see when I try direct.
cool. Thats what I thought as well, but wanted to kinda sanity check it.
Correct. His sus and cable up north, and mine back home. Ive had one of skedras middle tier cables before and dont remeber it being super bassy but maybe. I think its far lower effective gauge than what I have on hand right now at least.
Honest question: Where do I even go from here since I cant stream? TBH there dont seem to be many options. I could reclock the USB with something like a pheonix or maybe step up to something like a auralic serius, but I cant think of anything else really. Maybe try a holo red before the d1-digital since holo tends to clean up usb so damn well? I plan to do the dac first as you said (and maybe ill get a digital mk2 at the same time depending on how this goes), but I just honestly am not even sure what my options here are.
I could maybe move to a server but that would mean giving up ability to select songs and im not sure I realy want to do that. I guess I could also maybe get an LTE modem and plug in a laptop/ipad on my desk and do that? But that also seem pretty highly unideal tbh.
Thats very much so in the plan. Im keeping an eye out for some cotton mouth golds, but if I get a dac before they pop up ill just get some au24 SX or similar to tide me over. Ultimately just dont want to spend too much money before I settle the dac.
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Gotcha, well then that’s out of the question lol. In the past I remember someone talking about the aic and finding it to be pretty sloppy, but turns out he just found a really shitty heavily used warm mush tube and when he swapped it to something nicer that transformed it for him lol. Typically from my experience the changes aren’t that drastic however getting a nice tube for it is important
It’s almost like how chord does bass, it’s very tight and punchy, and pretty dense sounding lending it to end up being bass forward, not warm but forward and focusing on the technical side of bass. I do think over time this ends up feeling unnatural (moreso on the chord) vs other similarly tiered dacs, but that’s just me lol. The vivaldi stack is even more punchy than the rossini lol
Yeah if you can try direct, that’s going to be a much more fair comparison, although if the direct with no drivers for you works well or not remains to be seen lol
All cd baby, time for a nice transport lol. Realistically though your main option for convenience really is to go for the nicest USB reclocker and ddc you can get and hope that those in series would get things where you want them. Otherwise bring an entirely offline laptop to use only to control a streamer/server preloaded with local storage music
Hmmmmmm you could go with a lte modem, would be real weird though. Although that might cause problems at work depending on who runs your location (although given they let you install music stuff on your work pc they seem pretty lenient, if I caught someone under me allowing an employee to install something like roon or whatever I would have almost fired them if they did it again lol)
Yeah dac first 100%, but to get the most out of that nicer dac, I do think it’s worth the investment later on
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I think it’s a little more complicated, but I have no empirical data or proof. I have noticed with using power purifiers (basically iFi ANC products) that not only bass quantity but also quality is affected.
I know I linked a pricey unit above, but the iFi Powerstation is a nice option that’s not too spendy. I use one and I really like it. I think a few others on here might use a Powerstation as well.
hahaha. I could see that for sure. Especially if you dont have a super tight dac.
Pretty much what I heard. I guess I just wasnt expecting it to be that punchy.
yah, im very currious about this one. TBH if its not a slam dunk idk ima be able to justify it. If its just having enough gain i should be totaly fine since I listen so quiet but im a little worried its gunna be dynamics that suffer as well.
Yah, basicaly the only two option I can figure out.
ah, I more of meant like a laptop with an LTE chip, not somethign broadcasting wifi. I should be able to get away with that just fine.
Got some ones being lent to me until i figure out what I want at least.
I am already using a furrman regenerator FWIW. But yah, I know that my power is lacking. Current goal is a PS audio powerplant P12 once I settle on a dac.
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I do think this unit will be doing a tour after I compare it against the PBD.
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