I swear, i think the title of this thread gets longer every time M0N gets another great idea. Pretty soon we will need a thread for the title alone. Part 3 gets it’s own thread please to make it easier to scroll through for tidbits of knowledge and information. 
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I give him till the end of winter for PT.4
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No, seriously, this is the last one, for many reasons lol. This one is also pretty self centered. The entire goal of this one is to completely finalize my setup
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Again, dead serious, the speaker setup will never significantly change after this for my living room setup. I simply have no reason to change it after the DAC is solidified, it’s literally all I could ever ask for, all I could ever afford, and it’s all gear I dreamed about when I was younger. It’s set, I just want to triple check the DAC. Now my other setup with the bricasti and borresen might change, but that’s really more a 2ndary setup which really might get sold off since I just don’t use it as much. My desk setup is greatly changing with the FM gear and amp downsizing, and with that change, I will basically choose one high performing dac then build the chain around that, and it’s not going to change
I’m getting somewhat legitimately exhausted trying to keep up with everything, and I’ve tried and owned enough to where I really just want to solidify my setups and stop worrying about them. I just need to nail down the living room setup and pick the piece to build the headphone setup around.
That should give you some context for the level of dacs we’re working with here. The 5 contenders are within the ~30-60k new msrp range a piece excluding any digital frontend which really adds another 20k on top of that to actually get them to perform. There’s not going to be any ranking or shit list because all of them in my mind are truly top of the line and best I’ve heard (with a few missing but those few were without of reach anyways or too risky of a bet in my system), and the goal is not to categorize them, rank them, or really even compare them (although I will make sure to do comparisons of course lol) but choose 2 out of the 5 options to live with for the foreseeable future. It’s really a totally different mindset I’ve gone into this comparison vs others
I’m honestly slightly concerned it’s not really going to be something most people would find interesting or like to read given what’s been said here vs what I’ve ended up started/doing. But we’ll have to see I guess lol
Side note, due to more limited time I will have to cut out some details, like for example I was planning on swapping fuses on each dac and adding comparison notes there, going more in depth to tube rolling, vibration/isolation synergy, figuring out ideal warmup/operation times, and many others, but I will have to cut some of those plans depending on how much time I actually get to focus on things that are a bit more substantial. But I am going to try and make sure things are covered in most aspects for both my own sake and the sake of a potentially at least mildly interesting read lol
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Synergies to amps and headphones please!
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I think you underestimate that. Given how rare it is to find personal opinions of the kind of gear you are looking at and the reputation you have built up for knowledgable advice, I think all of us are interested in what you have to say, regardless if it is gear we will ever see in the flesh.
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Well that’s good to hear, I’ll try and make it live up to the expectations then lol
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I second what @Gothique said, I may not be anywhere near buying that pinnacle level gear, but I find what you have to say, @M0N, very informative, helpful, and interesting. It also paves the way forward for our preferences, as it loads us up ideas for where we want to design our end games and what sound qualities we want them to offer. Continue, sir.
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Since I feel like I’ve already said more than I want to about the comparison, I might as well say what’s actually being compared now lol (honestly this is something most could have guessed anyways)
Is it exactly the lineup I would want? Yes and no. Can I complain about it? Fuck no. I think these are realistically the best options for my setups and what I’m looking for, sure I could have tried to source a Select II or like a Wadax or SW1X DAC X or many of the other 100k+ dacs out there, but I admittedly am not really comfortable with that, don’t know how I’d go about doing that, and also don’t really have the funds to do that either lol. There are other options that I would have liked to have on hand, I have always been curious about the Trinity especially their new Reference for example, and many other curiosities, but at this point I’ve put those to rest. There’s also a lot of options that I was told just wouldn’t work in my setup such as the new totl nagra, audio note, etc so there’s plenty that got ignored for simply synergy and potentially preference sake
The fact I was able to do this in the first place I can only thank a friend and a dealer for letting this happen, this is the best that’s going to ever happen I’d assume lol, so there’s really no possibility of going further after this for me
Edit: ah shit I missed the special footers for the horizon
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I would like a very seriously worded deep dive into HD600 synrgey
But realy, awesone lineup. Tbh i think the only dac im even vaugely currious about that isnt there is the similar tier aries cerat but not like im realistucally going to be buying any of these anyways so 
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Finally got your hands on a Horizon! NICE!
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It’s funny, the guy I sold the pacific to almost immediately got his hands on one as soon as he could lol, so I now get to demo it
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While that’s not a priority that’s something I could consider adding later on lol
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Hahaha. I was 100% pissin about fwiw
I’m not really as high on those as others are lol, great cans, but realistically I’m given little reason to use them with any frequency now
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Pretty much same. Hd580 are shockingly coherent and organic for the price, but that qulifier does need to be in there. Only reason i may grab them over anything else i have would simply be if the amp cant run sus
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I read your observations on $50k DACs not because I’m ever going to buy one, but because the way you drone on about the very minute details helps me to better understand how to listen to gear. Things that I should be listening to. I can’t find the post now but not too long ago you posted something that said you were looking at the border outline where the stage ended. That’s an observation that I would have never made or even thought about. Typically I’m excited when I hear things in my system that unexpectedly go beyond a boundary where I know sounds shouldn’t be coming from. You’re evaluating the detail in that boundary and I guess that’s what makes the difference between a $10K and a $50K piece of hardware, and the level that you SHOULD be evaluating that hardware at!
So, not selfish IMO, I still read it and still get something out of it.
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You need to stop worrying what the rest of us will do with your words and while you have the inclination, time and energy just get your experiences in writing.
I troll / skulk around in some really high end forums. The problem with 99% of those guys is that whatever they purchase that’s more expensive than the last thing is always just better and that doesn’t help anyone form any sort of genuine opinion or help in making an informed decision.
At anything beyond the $5-10K level synergy and matching of pieces plays a role. When you spend enough most things tend to be pretty damned good. Most of us get that. Getting the fine nuances though, that’s another thing all together and you have a savant like ability to pass forth good information and details. Do what you do well boo and don’t worry if, how etc anyone will use the info. 
Thank you so very much for your time and effort always. It’s genuinely appreciated from the heart and my wallet!
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I think the bigger annoying thing I see is someone ask for a comparison or reference to another piece, and it’s almost always a single sentence response just saying one is “better” without any context or further info, which is really unhelpful lol. But I think the 99% figure is high, I’d say it’s more along the lines of 50/50 from my experience or at least where I commonly frequent.
Here is the thing though, really most of the people posting are so far into the hobby they somewhat aren’t in it for traditional conversation anymore. When you get to a certain gear level, seriously the best you can sometimes do is say better since it’s so hard to articulate what you’re hearing. Another thing is they know that since synergy is so make or break they don’t even bother trying to make guesses or offer help, and don’t even care about impressions anymore outside of “it’s good” or not, since it’s not valuable to them. I will constantly stress that this is an inherently self centered hobby, that fact is just exaggerated in the high end, and it will show in higher end forums
A lot of these people are also incredibly jaded by the hobby and really don’t feel like putting in effort which, I kinda get it lol, but I still think if you are going to post on a forum, at least make some minimal effort to make sure posts contain at least something of value lol, specifically when you are being asked for help or attempting to give help
Quite a big role
Pretty much, although I’m sure you’ve experienced some setups yourself that would convince you otherwise of this statement lol. Money will get you good equipment, but it won’t buy you experience, since really most anything in that upper range is good, but only when properly paired and matched, synergy is everything
Well I’ll see if I can live up to that lol, but this one has been a serious struggle since while differences are basically night and day for almost everything now, I can’t actually put those differences into meaningful words. My notes I take during every listening session are genuinely cryptic and look like schizo rambling, trying to even make sense of what I wrote down is hard lol
No problem lol
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