Also, working on something potentially interesting when it comes to dacs, think of the shit scale but more info/comprehensive and a focus on giving a bigger picture view on the state of what I’ve heard and how things place, and including most of what I’ve heard, but we’ll see if I get burned out while doing it or not lol
If you remember Marv’s dac chart of awesomeness, think similar vein but different, less specific goals
Pace yourself then! Def interested, certainly worth the effort.
Nah, can’t do that. Either have to do everything all at once, or not at all lol. I go from dropping everything to work on it, to absolutely hating the thought of doing it, so if it gets done or dropped depends on how I’m feeling at the time
Ah yes. The hyper focus Ups and downs. I feel this one a lot tbh 
So not a bad move as a “anything but worlds best” interconnect at $700? Tbh I was planning on doing interconnects last, but since some popped up I am kinda tempted even if it’s abive what I wanted to spend by a tiny bit.
Interesting. Any specific recs sub 1k ea used for TD → aic? Ngl, I’m not convinced my jps cables are doing me a ton of favors.
Been kinda looking at cards clear beyond powers since they are super regularly avilible for $800 ea or so
My Google-fu is failing me. Anyone got a link?
Cardas would be pretty cool. I mean I’m a big triode wire labs fan around that price lol
I’d give them a shot
Good Ole yggy a1 right at the top.
To be clear, not saying I fully agree with the way things are there lol, but it’s a reasonably concise visual way to convey good info
Just looked at it fully. I like the concept. If you have a 3d Grapher you could also add a forward/relaxed axis
I was thinking of doing it in 3d, thing is, I think that kinda removes some of the simplicity and immediate readability that I’m going for. I know it will allow for something more accurate overall, but I don’t really want to waste too much time working on some 3d version to embed into the site since that’s harder to work on, and harder for people to really get an easy reading on where something lies.
Trying to think of how I want to go about doing it, I’ve already started to work on a legend with color coding and what info I want to have, it’s just that I have to figure out the best way to use the 2 axis I have. Or perhaps make multiple versions with different axis to do what I want. Still thinking about it. I’m going to cover the overall technical level, value, source importance/pairing pickiness, and versatility and variability on each block itself without having to use the axis, but trying to think how I want to format the x axis, since I do think the y axis is going to be overall perceived tonality/lean (will have to clarify there) since that’s easy for people to grasp and faithful to the shit scale somewhat
Likely going to be doing it in excel (which I really should learn how to use more but surprisingly I haven’t needed to work with excel as much as I should have lol), but there’s likely a better option, but that’s easy to do for now to at least a draft/something going
Just be aware that Snake River markets their Gold cables as something to warm up the sound of your chain, as opposed to the Signature, which they describe as neutral.
I personally think the signature are still a bit warmer leaning, but not as warm leaning as the gold for sure
Very duly noted. I expect twelve to be less warm than dual but tbh, even still, I don’t expect to want to warm anything up
I don’t understand the width representation of the bars. Probably would work better as quadrants with points. Might even allow fore easier visualization of a “house sound” for DACs that you’ve reviewed a half dozen of, like Lampi for example.
Actually thinking about it further, an ideal chart might be a radar type chart as you can visually show multiple attributes and they’re easy to overlay.
Trying to make this as hard for you as possible. lol you can have the various characteristics around the perimeter and have a standard chart and almost free hand draw the blob to get a general sense. Way above my graph skills, waaay above.
When needing to present a ton of variables in a digest able manner I find 2d + color an amazing way to go Fwiw. You could do tier on verticle axis, forwardness on horizontal, and warm/cold with just a few colors and probabaly keep.it super parsable Fwiw.
Just imo, the forward/relaxed and warm/linear scale in the dac 2 writeup is dumb dumb useful. If you are open to a coupe chats that need to be cross referenced I would keep that one specificaly.
What about a “tonality” chart and a “technicality” chart (tier + neediness)?
If you need excel help, excel graphics are litteraly 20% of my daily work load. Can even help you automate the graphs if you create a back ground numeric ranking system super easily. Tbh, excel automation of shit like that is mega easy if you are use to the work flow so just HMU if you need help
I think I’ve got a solution so far, mainly focusing on color and some symbols alongside the basic tonality and energy level for the axis (I’ll get more into that later). So I’m happy with it for now
Kinda what I wanted to stick with
Shouldn’t need that with how I plan to do it, but might need another one for various reasons, we’ll see
Using illustrator because I gave up lol, will see how that goes even though it’s going to be more work
Just a quick question. you call out the “transparent reference XL” for AES, but all i see on their site are the “reference” and the “XL”. Just want to confirm you are referring to the XL and not some higher tier I cant find, correct?
It’s the XL yes
In the Utopia middleground shitlist there is:
Amp : ECP DSHA-3F >OR> Pass HPA-1 >OR> Bryston BHA-1.
Based on your tastes is the v550 not worthy to be there and why?
Hmmm I actually think I organized it wrong lol, I’ll have to fix that tomorrow
Should be Pass HPA-1 >OR> ECP DSHA-3F >OR> Bryston BHA-1.
I do think the 550 is worthwhile, I just prefer the bryston personally. The 550 does offer better control and a bit more defined edges to things, but I think the weighting/density, timbre, tonality, and microdynamics of the bryston balance the utopia out a bit more, although the macro capability of the 550 would possibly be preferable over the bha-1 for some (I just am willing to take a bit of a hit on that with the utopia considering it already has plenty of that in spades lol). But really the 550 is a great choice overall in the range too, equal to the bryston in overall tier, and I can see someone liking the 550 over the bryston as well. Something else I should say is that the bryston is a better value used which is another reason it gets preference in the shortlist
In theory the 22 might play better with it I think.