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Absolutely if you are doing DSP. I've run Roon on a laptop and NAS. Since moving to an i7 NUC and Rock things have been very trouble free.

After living with both Venus II and T+ BOTH with and without Gaia. I concluded the Gaia added nothing to either. The only difference between the Venus II and T+ was a slight bit of gain on the T+. Initially that made me think it was better/different. It was not. The T+ was just slightly louder. At the same time I offered up the Venus/Gaia combo and T+ and was willing to let the market decide with I kept. The Venus/Gaia combo sold for asking price in less than a day. No more problem with silver and black mismatch. I'm keeping the black T+ but just as easily could have lived with the Venus. I've talked to a couple of other T+ owners and they too felt the Gaia added AND subtracted nothing, we were all using the clock synch feature with dual BNCs. Lots of hype out there and I suspect a good dose of confirmation bias and expectation bias. That said I can't tell others what they can and can't hear. Even if it is just the placebo effect; if it helps, it helps. I think there is some valid reasoning behind Darko not reviewing DACs much anymore. At some level, IMO, I feel there are way better gains to be had with speakers, placement, room treatments, even amps. I'm glad I bought the Gaia and found out for myself. Knowing what I know now, I probably should have quit at the Venus. I really like it and it became the catalyst for me selling all but 75 of my vinyl LPs. One step closer to simplifying and downsizing with retirement squarely on the horizon.

I have a Terminator + (plus) no complaints. Never heard the T2 or Pontius. Have owned Aries II and Venus II, with and without Gaia.

Thanks, The coworker seems to approve. My first bit of BDI furniture. Pretty nicely build. Bonus grill-less shot. Digging the ATM tweeter. Just noticed the post it note on the wall in first pic. I did that to center the cabinet on the wall. Probably time to take it down🙄

First crack at office reorg.

Drink it or you will always wonder....what if.

Love me some Whistlepig! I've got a 12 year single barrel in hiding for the last 2+ years. Waiting for that special moment. This came today. Can't wait to dig into it. Might be the last piece of the puzzle for my office.

Terrible advice. Prices have been on the rise lately. But just a couple of years back I sold two beautiful Walnut Oil B-style Khorns with a matching Belle center channel. All three had Dean-G XOs and original XOs. All three had Bob Crites tweeters and original tweeters. I sold all 3 for $3,500. I would not pay $1500 for those. YMMV.

Can you post a screen shot of your signal path? How many dots do you have? What are you using between Roon and DAC, not that it matters but curious. Lot's of people swear that Roon Advanced Audio Transport (RAAT) sounds best. I've never had anything except RAAT on my "real" system so can't weigh in on how the bridge/streamer might impact things if it is not RAAT. All my non-RAAT stuff is spread out the house in non-critical areas. That said nothing in my other 5-6 locations actually sounds bad. What are you hearing that you don't like? Agree with @Thaddeus Smith if you don't want conversions you need a DAC that supports your chosen format natively. I've got a Denafrips Venus II, Gaia and Terminator + I'm "thinking" about selling. I have to get rid of one, just not sure which. PM me if you are interested in some back and forth dialogue. This is what one of my DSD/DSF files looks like. 3 dots is the least you can have....I believe.

When I switch form 2 to 1 I feel like the sound stage is a tiny bit wider and deeper, possibly a blacker background...but both are so close. When I go from 1 to 2 I don't feel like anything changes. It is only going from 2 to 1 that is seems like there is an ever so slight improvement. If I listen to either one for any length of time I can easily forget which one. I believe, If I were to leave the room and somebody else change it I could NEVER tell a difference walking back in.

I've switched them, that is connected the DACs to the opposite inputs. 1 to 2 and 2 to 1...so don't think it is the preamp channel. To be clear I don't really perceive it as louder, initially I liked it better. But the difference is so slight I'm starting to think it is a loudness differences, not actually an improvement or even a difference. I think most would agree that all things being equal you will typically "think" the louder one is better. Thinking it might be louder got me to wondering what would account for differences. Thus my post. Obviously a few differences on paper but very close. Same manufacturer, just two different DACs in their lineup. Seems entirely possible that as you move up any companies food chain they would up the output to stack the deck in their favor of more $$$ sounding "better". No?

I don't have the brain/smarts/vocabulary to answer that. Not sure what you are asking Preamp has 3 balanced (XLR) inputs. Each DAC connected via XLR to input 1 and 2. Preamp remote selects 1 or 2 as I desire. My streamer can output to both DACs at the same time in the same way while playing the exact same track at the same time. It does not seem to matter if I play FLAC 16/44, 24/96, 24/192 or DSD 64 to 256 files the one always sounds just slightly "better" but I suspect it is really a slight difference in volume.

I'm able to AB two DACs with the push of a button. I have a suspicion that the difference I hear is due to a slight Gain or for lack of a better term, "difference in loudness" between the two. I'm not very well versed with differences in loudness beyond Gain, and I can't find any specs on Gain. Not even sure if that is typically noted besides on preamps, again these are two DACs. Can someone tell me if these specs, below, impact the perceived loud/quiet of a device and if so which one should present a louder signal? If none of these below and Gain is not available, what other specs could impact the slight difference in loudness? I don't want to tell you which one I think is louder until I know about which one based on specs should...or if there shouldn't be a difference based on this info. Thanks #1 Analog Output RCA at 2.2Vrms, 625 Ω XLR at 4.4Vrms, 1250 Ω Power Consumption ≤20W Frequency Response 20-40KHz -0.2dB THD+N 0.0010% S/N Ratio 127dB Dynamic Range >132dB Stereo Crosstalk -110dB #2 Analog Output RCA at 2.0Vrms, 625 Ω XLR at 4.0Vrms, 1250 Ω Power Consumption ≤20W Frequency Response 20-70KHz -3dB THD+N 0.0020% S/N Ratio 120dB Dynamic Range >121dB Stereo Crosstalk -110dB

That looks pretty good to me. Only one wrap of phase and pretty flat. Did you plot the group delay and spectrogram? They can help with time alignment. Also, REW has a way to make snapshots of you plots and save as JPG so you don't have to take a picture of you monitor. Can be easier for looking at plots....but not necessary, just an JFI

Xilica makes that very easy...once you know how. If you are using the windows app not the buttons on the front of the unit there is a fairly obvious way to copy things. You select the channel to copy from and to, then a bunch of check boxes to tell it which items to copy. You want things like gain and PEQs but not mixer. Save your "good" stuff to a preset and if you mess up the copy just don't save it, reload the good one and start over.

I can't offer specific help with that, but I've done it enough times that it takes an hour or so...no longer days. General rules: Make sure the HF section is muted on Xilica or the amp is off Start with a clean, empty preset in Xilica so there are no PEQs set (this way you have your old ones saved) Level match the LF with amp or Xilica gain controls Set up REW to sweep from 20 to above your XO crossover point probably something like 20-500 to 20-1100 iteratively run sweeps and let REW tell you the PEQ values, enter them - try to lower not boost whenever possible. Try to get to +/-5 better yet +/-3 If he HF is fine and you have your old sweeps look for a place near the XO spot you want where the phase is close to each other. make that your XO point. Or perhaps a better way find the place the phase is close and let it tell you what the XO point is. Combine HF and LF, take sweeps with REW and repeat the PEQ entering process from REW to Xilica but this time on the input as a whole not the LF output side. Have a beer, listen a bit, repeat sweeps with both fine tuning the PEQs on input side until you are happy

Denied!

I've always wanted to see the Museum.....but not bad enough to go to a get-together where @CECAA850 @richieb and the rest of you lowlifes might show up.

Got my planning all done. Night in Nashville

I'd worry about that when you win. Which you won't because I'm a lock.

You need to put a Beets Docker/Container on that QNAP and start obsessing over getting each and every directory/file named and tagged to the nth degree. I have not slept in a week. Loads of time wasting but perfect for the obsessed music fan. I went form this.... To This!!!

Not when you can get 001 and 002 AK6 for $25😜

Just like Roon I resisted for a while and regretted it. I knew Beets was the way to go but did not want to jump through all the hoops. I'm hoop jumping these last several days and all I can say is WOW. So powerful and so many ways to use it. https://beets.readthedocs.io/en/stable/index.html Start at about the 3:50 mark

PM me. I can explain how to extract ISOs to DSD files roon can play. Easy peasy. Have you figured out how to use Focus?