So I finally heard back from rivera. It looks like they will do the conversion between 120v and 240v for free. They were simply worried the shipping+tax would make it not worth while. So thats great to hear. Ima see if I can get the one I had my eyes on now (though I probabaly need to sell some stuff before I can put in the offer if I’m being snart).
In other news, (I think a @M0N question here) anyone tried something like an iesl/other dtax conversion box off of the aic-10? Kinda currious if it would be enough for something like an HE-60/009S/CRBN to start to make sense
Rofl. So maybe work at my sub ambient listening levels? But realy, I try it if I feel like playing once I get an aic. Until then I’ll just conclude “jury is out, but doubt”
in your HP comparison thread you mention the weiss 501 as a possible matchup. Since the weiss is balanced (I think at least) does that require a transformer or can you just use it out of the se outputs to good effect?
The se outputs were still pretty good, I didn’t think there was a real problem there. I mean the aic 10 now comes with balanced inputs now (I think?) so if you get a new one it should have bal in for you (although I’m not sure if they are transformer balanced, active balanced, or just drop a pin or something)
Digging into this a bit more and its not clear. They only make the bal version now and don’t offer the se only anymore. Their sites says its a proprietary circuit so its doing something more than drop pin bit what that is I have 0 idea
So I finally took the plunge and my AIC-10 Bal is currently being made. Now the goal is going to be to make the rest of my chain live up to the beast. My question is, if I ignore size limitations, what are some dacs ~5-8k used that I should be looking into? For smaller stuff the weiss is obv on my list as are a nagra classic and possibly total dac 7 (know someone who may sell soon) if I bump my budget slightly, but idk what I should even be looking into full sized wise. Holo May, Atlantic TRP/Big 7, wavedream sig? I mean I just genuinly dont even know what to look into. Big Bonus points if its something i can actually find a demo of in socal
There have been a couple of SE Golden Gates in that price range, but they don’t come up often.
Chord Dave, but I don’t think it would be your preference, and you’d want either an MScaler or a high quality digital source for it.
You might find a used Total DAC.
Rokna WaveDream though I think they hold too much value used.
MSB Analog with the PSU
Dave + Mscaler I can demo easily enough so it will be getting a try once the AIC arrives even though I have generally preferred the weiss to it so far.
I didnt realize golden gate came up in that price range if I am honest. IIRC you want a fairly stout front end on lampi stuff, right?
MSb analogue is one I always seem to forget about. I wonder if I can actualy find one of those to try local.
As for the wave dream, yah. SE can be had ~7k or so if I wait a while but it would be real close and i would have to be fast on it too. Its one of the ones I plan to call around to see if any dealers will let me try though.
As for the total dac I think that will be a toss up on even finding. I know of someone who is demoing a bunch of dacs over the next month or two and is pitting them up against a core. i think him selling maybe my only chance of grabbing one used without waiting a year + and sketchily shipping from europe.
EDIT: Would Bricasti M1SE be a decent pairing? Ive tried to find demos of one unsucessfuly in the past but they seem easy to sell on if I decide to just blind buy
Not sure I understand stout front end.
Like any other high quality dac, you’ll want a relatively clean source, but they aren’t overly needy in that regard, at least the 2 I’ve owned weren’t.
@Draaly Honestly I’d wait until you get it and see how you think it is since you’ve already committed, so you know what direction you want to go. You have a ton of really good options in the range you are looking in, but I’d wait until you hear it and figure out how you would want to tilt it or what to focus on
There is no chance I will buy anything until I have it in hand. I’m mostly looking to put together a list of stuff to hunt down demos for. So far all I have found are: weiss, nagra classic, and dave
Haha. Tyvm! I’m pretty stoked tbh. That levante review that dropped on sterophyle yesterday was a good dose to hype to keep me going while they build it
Will do! So far ive ordered a Brimar CV4003, a wierd set of hyper specific double getter supported tungsram ecc82, and a G73-R red text. I also have a friend with a massive tube collection yhat will be lending me some to try as well.
Thats the plan. Im borrowing an adaptor from a friend for a bit but im think ill probabaly end up getting a prion4 one made by dhc
yah. your and @mammal’s comments on the tube are what lead to me ordering it. the G73R is supose to be similar sound/presentation but at a higher technical level as well so will be cool to see how those compare. The tungsrams were just an impulse buy based on one persons glowing review though tbh
ah, nice. Do you use spades? TBH the way that the speaker connectors are handled on the AIC kinda make it seem like spades wont even work on it (the flat surfaces had a hard plastic cover on them with just the internal post having bare metal).
As a side note, bass is super fast but feels kinda held back currently on the stock tube. Is that something that will change with burn in of the tube?
