This is great advice I should have followed more often!
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Welcome to the forum!
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Thanks everyone!
I’ll keep in mind to take it slow with everything. I don’t have enough money to go ham anyway, not yet at least. Liquid Platinum under $400 seems very doable and Arya V2 with a chance to upgrade to V3, or HE1000 seem like a great upgrade path. I liked the open soundstage of the Ananda and if there’s anything I miss with my XS (which are fantastic in their own right) it’s that. It seems the Arya v2 should be a nice upgrade from the Ananda so if I can snag the open box I’m looking at I’m happy.
Otherwise, thanks for having me!
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Phasure Lush^2 vs JDS usb. Thanks @Veritas.
After reading all about the what the shielding harness can do, I settled on the “preferred configuration” to start and will for sure try some other configurations later on when I’m in the mood for it. There are tons of different configurations to try. 
Preferred configuration - A:B-W-Y-R, B:B-W-R
After changing over to the Lush^2 and hearing how this cable sounds with the preferred configuration, after a few songs, I’m in no hurry to try other configurations. Lol. The first thing I noticed was a “silence” in the background, which resulted in hearing everything better across the board. I wanted to take the edge off the highs a little and Lush^2 delivered. I am hearing gentle highs but yet still detailed and that results in a more natural sound which I like. It also gave me a little bit more bass weight. All-around just a musical cable vs my previous one. I am really enjoying it right now.
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My Eletech Prudence cable for my Gae Bolg arrived today!
The cable is really nice from an ergonomics standpoint! Though as I mentioned earlier, I’ve been sick, so it’ll probably take a while before I can really give meaningful impressions on the sound.
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Snagged an open box Arya and just got shipping confirmation. It should be non stealth but we’ll see what gets sent. If I “accidentally” got sent a v3 I’ll be giving it listen regardless
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A bit of a another change in direction for me, ended up actually just buying a d1-twelve-mk2 from a friend in exchange for the pacific (he was the one who sold me the direct), so that’s pretty cool, that way I can get it now, and also upgrade it later on so I can have something now and not have to wait. Also cheapest possible way to go about things lol (for some reason he insisted a 1:1 trade so I’ll take it even though I think it’s better for me?). Will be getting it in a few days, and moving to a mk3 if I like the mk2 enough in a few months
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Sounds like a win/win.
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Yeah, I just thought I would have had to add onto that deal but nah looks like he wanted a change of pace since he’s redoing his setup lol. Also now get to directly compare the twelve to the direct so that should be interesting to see how those fare (hopefully the direct isn’t that close lol). So far I think the best value when buying new high end dacs is honestly the kassandra, followed by the d1-direct (although that’s cheating a bit since you really need the drivers), so I wonder from a value prop how the twelve stacks up with and without the drivers (since the twelve can have the output stage enabled or bypassed)
I wasn’t going to say no when I will actually be getting the dac TODAY (and I already have the rest of the pieces already) assuming I get the time to drive out and do the swap later in the day (hmmmmm, if I skip a few meetings I can start the drive right now…) Got him to drive out to me lol
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ROAD TRIP!
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I read a writeup on the Totaldac ecosystem and my head hurt. I guess until you see a diagram flow of how things are connected it’s hard to visualize just in writing. The upgrade path in adding boxes seems like a good idea but I lost track, from the amount of “boxes” chained up sounds like it can get stupid expensive when Totaled 
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It’s honestly still pretty reasonable compared to alternative options new. The problem is that they hold the mass majority of their value so used deals are hard to come by compared to other options
Let’s say you get a d1-direct (w/ live power) + d1-driver single box (w/ live power) + d1-digital-mk2 (w/ live power) or perhaps the d1-streamer-mk2 instead (w/ live power), that’s roughly the price of a fully loaded pacific, and they compete well. Even if I grabbed every possible totaldac box, it would still be much much cheaper than some other dac options out there lol. It’s just nice to be able to carry forward my live power multi box, monoblock drivers, and the reclocker and replace the dac itself in this case.
Also, the d1-drivers are insanely capable preamp boxes for the money, I actually preferred the d1-drivers acting as a pre over the pass xp-32 and given the price difference that’s pretty insanely good, although when using things other than the totaldac as the source it wasn’t that impressive
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Rofl. Same. I needed a block diagram to understand how the hell people hook it all up.
Basically my digital chain will now be (sans psu and cable info) etherregen → silent switch ocxo extreme → k50 → digital-mk2 → into twelve reclocker/splitter → into both twelve monoblock dacs → into both monoblock drivers and out from there, really not that hard lol. For the twelve it just takes the digital signal into the first box, and then splits out left and right to the monoblock dacs, not all that complex
From what I know there are 2 other connections that need to be made inbetween the monoblocks outside of getting aes from the main unit, there is also a bnc to sync clock signals, and a digital interlink to handle control signals between them. I’ll know in a few hours at this point, since was able to get the friend to drive out to me, I just have to pay for gas lol. I’ll map it out for more clarification when I get mine in and also make a totaldac thread since I think it deserves having one
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Out of curiosity why the SS OCXO Extreme in the chain? Are you splitting the Ethernet out from the EtherREGEN to other systems?
I’ve fallen in love with the Silent Switch since you first mentioned it in one of your thread. And it’s damned reasonably priced as well!
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Sounded better that way, that’s basically it. For now I’ll stop clogging this thread lol, we can continue in PM if needed
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Damn man I need you to broker deals for me. Congrats on making a plan and getting it all done so quick. I hate to see Lampis go but it sounds like it is in good hands and youre moving towards what you want more. You know its the right move when the pieces just all fall into place like they have.
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Saw the opportunity, and just decided to go with it since I wanted to do something quick, so things just ended up falling into place somehow lol
Well I’ll let you know if I regret the decision of letting it go within a few hours lol
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Inb4 the pacific on audiogon is marked sold by EOD 
But realy, hope you love it. Will be realy interesting to see impressions once you have more time. Tbh the total dac sig seems like what i personaly like so always nice to have mlre content on them
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