Enjoying music with maggies, tube dac, tube pre etc

[anm]

ok - so I got my lyrita pre back into duty this morning. It now has the dac inside it, with output stage changed to tube and ss output is bypassed. Good thing is I can put back the SS output stage by pulling out a tube and reconnecting a cable. Thanks for the great work Viren, and thanks for being tolerant to my constant bugging

DAC - the one mentioned on lampucera site. Got the kit from HK for about 6.5k

Pre - Lyrita pre. Got a pre only initially, but now it has tube phono pre as well as dac with tube output stage.

AMP - hk 6550, with pre section bypassed and using only the power section.

Speakers - smg. The rattling problem is still there and is audible on some portions of the music. But I find it much more musical than my JBLs. Viren too had a listen to them this morning, and gave a thumbs up to their sound quality. Need to get them fixed soon, with stands and new looks.

CDP - nad 542.

Beautiful music both with analog out as well as optical digital out into dac+pre. For now they sound equally good. Will be able to decide a winner on extended listening. But this dac coming close to cdp like NAD is no small feat.

I tried laptop usb->usb->optical spdif converter -> dac. Not the best route but don't have usb input on dac and no digital out on laptop. I was underwhelmed when playing a lossless wav file using windows media player (no asio4all etc done).

Played a couple of songs via xtreamer optical out, but that was quick listening, different songs etc. Can't say anything right now. I hope I will be able to decide on a good digital source in next few months. I had bet on xtreamer on past based on their promises but it is not quite working out. Maybe squeezebox touch - if it ever starts getting delivered. I think now it will be more on usability rather than small differences in quality.

Right now listening to warm detailed music on some hindi CDs - sur, khamoshi, bombay etc.

 

[iaudio]

Thats great anm! Waiting to hear more on the lyrita pre+ dac and how the smgs sing with that!

 

[anm]

reserved for more details.

 

[rallynut]

anm,the maggies must be truly special and with virens modding of ur other components,am sure ur setup must be a worthwhile listen.enjoy mate.bummer reg the dac route for laptop/pc use.even so,.wav on wmplayer will still be sending its 'bits' thru the kmixer,am sure thats a big loss in quality,hence ur impressions.get cplay/foobar,use with asio4all plugin(for xp) or wasapi plugin(vista),results should be good.true,an spdif out would be best way to get that 'bit perfect' signal out to the rest of the chain.cheers

 

[grubyhalo]

Thanks for the update anm! Can't wait for more details and pictures! Congrats!


P.S: Could you please let me know how much the o/p mod cost you? Thanks!

 

[anm]

I will try with xtreamer first. Laptop also needs tuning for listening at work. Maybe if xtreamer is extremely bad, or less usable, I will think of another source - may be a music pc, mac mini, or oppo bd 83 (I guess it can play music well from an attached usb drive, in flac/ wav formats)

 

[iaudio]

Oh, I didnt know the oppo bd83 could play flac/wav from usb, thats quite cool.

 

[heliumflight]

anm I'm so happy for you finally things are finally bringing a cheer to your face:licklips: Now when are you calling me to your place?

 

[anm]

hf - whenever you want

 

[grubyhalo]

Hi anm,
Could you please let me know the cost you incurred for having the OP stage built?
Thanks much!

 

[anm]

Hi Gruby
since I already had the lyrita pre, and the dac chip was my own purchase (with its own transformer, power supply etc) and Viren was also exploring dacs in general, fitting this dac into pre's chasis, and building an output stage was not very expensive - just two thousand rupees.

Viren is working on his own tube dac so it might be a good option to go for that.

@Viren - a headphone amp is a must with a dac these days Actually there are products in market that act as dac+pre+headphone amp and I find them quite useful featurewise.

Thanks for the update anm! Can't wait for more details and pictures! Congrats!


P.S: Could you please let me know how much the o/p mod cost you? Thanks!

 

[gobble]

Oh, I didnt know the oppo bd83 could play flac/wav from usb, thats quite cool.

It doesnt play flac. Only WAV. They have no plans of supporting flac

cheers

 

[grubyhalo]

Hi Gruby
since I already had the lyrita pre, and the dac chip was my own purchase (with its own transformer, power supply etc) and Viren was also exploring dacs in general, fitting this dac into pre's chasis, and building an output stage was not very expensive - just two thousand rupees.

Viren is working on his own tube dac so it might be a good option to go for that.

@Viren - a headphone amp is a must with a dac these days Actually there are products in market that act as dac+pre+headphone amp and I find them quite useful featurewise.

Cool, thanks.