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Been using XLD for over a decade, shitty interface but let’s you save presets then use Musicbrainz with a custom script to fix metadata and organize folders the way I like.
Took a few weekends of ripping for archive at first, then another round to make sure I had a good Flac rip a few years later. Now it is easy with a few CDs here and there.
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You made me order some direct, check out their variety pack! 
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I hope you realize the candy doesn’t come with a free Snake River cable 
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I’d be very interested also in what you’re driving them with, and in your further impressions. Their (in)efficiency is definitely concerning. They’re really intriguing though. 
In Ryan’s pictures it looks like a Schiit Ragnarok that’s connected to them 
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This is how it should work and works like that for me. It may be an option that you have to set… basically integrating it’s options onto the Windows OS.
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Thanks, I’d never noticed that right click option before until you mentioned it. It brings me to the conversion screen, which is good, but uses the last conversion setting I used. Do you know of a way to save different settings, so that I can easily switch from one type of conversion to another without setting it up from scratch.
I’ll play around with it, I don’t often (rarely) switch. Actually I’ve only even done it to convert a DSD to flac. I don’t think that would be an option given how the rest of the software operates but it would be a nice feature request. Also check for updates as they come out and do/have added features over the years I’ve owned the software.
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What is supposed to be the difference between the single and double sided versions? Is the double sided supposed to be the technically superior one? Is there a big difference in tuning that you know of?
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Just bought a Euphoria, the new silver cable from Arctic.
I wasn’t in the market for a new cable, at least not this year. I was thinking of maybe getting a DHC Prion4 next year, since I’d already tried and really liked it. But I’m a sucker for a bargain, and when looking at the Arctic site last week, I saw that they’d brought out a new TOTL silver cable and it was on sale for a couple of days at 35% off, which made it less than a Prion4.
I’ve had a good experience with Arctic in the past, and that was repeated here. I emailed some questions, received my answers the next day. I put the order in less than 2 weeks ago and it arrived today. It’s a very pretty cable, and after a few hours of burning it, it sounds pretty great already, matching my (unreliable) memory of the Prion4. It is certainly different from my DHC Molecule Elite, not as lean-sounding, with a bit more substance in the mids, a bigger bass, and a very smooth treble.
I don’t understand cable burn-in, but the stage has opened up and the mids have blossomed since the very first few minutes of trying the cable out. Arctic told me that it should get even better after a 2-300 hours.
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That larger gauge silver wire sure makes for a nice looking cable. I’m sure it sounds just as incredible.
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It’s a mystery to me too. I’ve always wondered about those cable cookers, some people swear by them and claim it’s noticeably better than just burning it in with your system. Maybe if one pops up for a good price I’d be inclined to try it.
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The things are here and the tests are being done. Will have a cleaner layout once I am done testing with/without the isolators in my signal path. Have it set up this way so I can easily switch the output USB from the isolator to directly from the ultraRendu. Anyways, thoughts to come!
Oh also a headphone…
The name of this headphone/company always makes me think of the Simpson’s quote,
Aurora Borealis!? At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within your kitchen!?
Yes.
Aurorus headphones are very sparse with their stock unfortunately, and I was actually considering getting them before I ended up with my ZMF Auteurs (almost 3 years ago now I think). After I had the ZMFs though, I forgot about their existence entirely lol. I was able to nab the last one in stock about a week ago and it has been here for a couple days now. Anyways, super initial impressions is that they are definitely a fun headphone, though I do miss the deep bass rumble/oomph and technicalities that the Susvaras provides in comparison (but comparing a $900 headphone to a $6000 headphone is hardly fair lol). I may give some more in depth impressions once I have my system dialed back in, but they aint half bad and will definitely be staying in my ever growing collection of headphones.
Oh btw my initial listening with the Aurorus Borealis has been with my monoblock Aegirs instead of the Tyrs…
As you may or may not have noticed from the rack picture above. I have sent my noisy Tyr back again for the (now slightly quieter) buzzing issue. Before I sent it back (again), I emailed them about it and they told me the buzz “measured within the noise floor” after the initial fix, which just tells me they knew it was still there, but because it was quiet to whatever their criteria is they just went shrugs “good enough” and sent it back to me. At the very least they were willing to give it a second look and paid to have it shipped back to them again. I didn’t bring up the fact that I was using the Tyrs to drive headphones, but even with my speakers the buzzing was hard for me to ignore, especially when compared to the dead silence my other Tyr outputs. Hopefully they actually fix it 100% this time, because if it’s still there when I get it back again it may just get me to switch away from Schiit products moving forward (I mean Tyr is their most expensive product when bought as a pair, but they get the same level of QA that their $100 amps get? I won’t Schiit on them too much yet though since they’ve shown initiative to make it right). I guess we’ll see what happens.
Also, I realize I’ve been doing a lot of complaining on this forum as of late haha. But I’ve had my fair share of good moments just listening to music between the trying new things that is always a reminder of how much joy this hobby brings me. Hope y’all have some good music listening sessions as well this week!
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I’m intrigued by this headphone; looking forward to hearing more about it.
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Just bought an AKG K371, my first high end HP… nah just kidding*, I re-bought the Elegia and had some Dekoni Stellias lying around and what can I say, it’s my favorite closed back around that price point (with the stock pads, it’s not quite there imo). Isolation is excellent as well, portability surprisingly good, but it’s a well known HP so I’m not gonna write an essay lol.
*but I love how some ads sell 200$ HPs and advertise them as high end lol.
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So before I found that Dynalo I had already planned to build an M3 and had ordered the boards, mosfets and jfets. Which arrived today:
My original plan was to build this mainly as a preamp and source selector, including optional passive mixing or passive volume controlled pass through. I’ve priced both builds up and the M3 is around half the Dynalo. I do want to build both but I have absolutely no idea which to do first. I can achieve the M3 before the end of the year or I can aim to build the Dynalo around January and then leave the other until next spring.
Practically speaking the preamp build is the missing link in my current setup. The Dynalo is more an end game DIY amp for me that I look forward to experiencing.
So I am torn. Thoughts?
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Preamp first IMO as it will help you with… everything I guess. I will also say @Gothique I’ve got nothing but respect and a little jealousy for you and your progress in the DIY.
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Thank you so much. I get a huge amount out of learning. I’ve probably failed as much as I succeeded but that’s getting rarer - I think I went through two additional Whammy pcb boards before I built a working one, so much wasted cabling and solder and not a few burns, hah! Learning by attempting and failing is my favourite way to learn as an adult. Well worth the time.
M3 preamp would round my setup out and let me remove a fair amount of redundancy - wouldn’t need three dacs if I can route the two good ones to more things and occasionally mix their inputs, for example. It would be a nice easy build compared to the Dynalo and building that would benefit from longer planning. It’s looking like it will end up costing around 600 Euros to build with high quality parts - plus case - and I feel it is only worth doing if I do it really well.
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Absolutely and IMO that’s the point of DIY, especially now that you’re no longer a novice. Pour as much as you can into the quality of parts!
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I’ve been soldering for 40+ years, and I still don’t remember the soldering iron tip is hot and stabilizing it with your finger is a bad idea 
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