Schu

That NAD unit is nice... I was looking at them on ebay for a pre but I wanted to save money, do the same thing and have somem internal amplification for rears, which also kept me away from the 8801 Marantz. Don't most of the newer intergrateds have streaming capabilities at a fraction of the cost of that unit.... including the newer elite Pioneers?

I think you are over complicating the process/set up Chris... Laptop/Tablet with a large ARSE hard drive(depending on how much material you actually have) or a Network storage device and a player (jRiver/iTunes etc) on a device is about all you need if you have an external DAC or a receiver/processor with a decent DAC. I bought a new 15" i3 500gb laptop for under $300 to try this out. I have been playing with jRiver/laptop/DAC vs direct Oppo/DAC and while the HD based set up does sound really fairly good, no matter how I configure it (including sampling and ripping format) the disc straight from the Oppo to the DAC via coax is still very superior in critical sound quality, range and liquidity... Unless I am doing something wrong, and I dont think I am. I wanted the digital storage to work, but I have not found it to be to my satisfaction... but then again, conveince and portability is not the main requirement with my set up.

when you get tired of them OP I will take them off your hands for $400

absolutely... Randy Hansen is fantastic. from his work on Apocalypse Now to this Jimi shows that I have been watching since the 1970's he is the best.

holy cow... thread is more than a year old

if this is true... I can see a lot of secondary market used product going up for sale in the next year or so...

speakers that look like Natural Rock formations...

lenovo g50 for a dedicated, WIRED, music server. server, dac, amp, speakers... as direct as possible.

That doesnt work... beleive me, I tried that already.

I think you would definetely notice a more pure, less granulated, sound by going with a more direct link/set up. One issue with optical is it introduces jitter and is slightly less error free than coax is. Anytime you are adding elements and additional paths to the equation you are possibly introducing jitter, error and such. Manufacturers are spending good money to minimize and attempt to eliminate such elements by going to femto timing, multiple dac chips to individual channels (my wyred has eight chips for 2 channel), galvanic isolation, and by adding pre amp functionality to the dac cicuit. We're talking about the top hand full of percentages in improvement in sound quality though as it pertains to critical listening... a very small but none the less noticable improvement.

good point...

I find renaming things tricky... still have not figured out how to do it, f6. I have some old downloads that were not named correctly by iTunes and another company... they play great in jRiver, but they need to be renamed.

Absolutely the best piece of recorded music I have on physical media... it's stunningly good. Koyannisqatsi dvd-A

...

2200 for a stock 7's and a 64 is a really really good deal... specially with that stand. Good luck in finding them a new home

San diego only an hour for mission viejo/lake forest.... lulz.

So does the species of plant... probably more than the difference between weather and soil. This is why Nicaragua is highly praised, its pretty much the same as cuba. In the end, no one claims their cigars are cuban, just like tequila comes from tequila jalisco and champagne comez from that region in france... but they are just as good.

exactly... Most all good cigars right now were grown from cuban seeds. It can take a decade or more for the plant to mature so in the old days it made sense to try and get Cubans, the plants were not mature or, in the case of nicaragua, there was war and many of the mature fields were destroyed... now it's not that way.

Is that you, tis indeed...

250 for 81's? I would take them for that

it works independent of the computer... there isn't any system requirements other than to plug it in via USB

frankly... I am happy with Padron.

you can get them shipped from other countries that have normalized ties with Cuba... if they dont get confiscated.

move to 2" drivers and upgraded XO's on better end goods would be nice.

jRiver now... forget iTunes. I find jRiver fairly intuitive and the customization is awesome. Sounds is seemingly very superior so far.