during my bachelor days i used spend most of my free time on the road - i mean driving to different destinations - with friends. so it was only natural that i started 'upgrading' the car audio system. i had bought amplifier and components even before i could purchase the car 
but now that i've started spending more time at home, i'm paying more attention to music at home. i've just started this journey [sharing below text from my post from a different forum]:
i've had Swan monitors for couple of years. apart from the fact that they are very rigid wrt to placements i find them absolutely delightful.
recently i made few changes to the set-up,
-an active sub [Yamaha YST 215]
-speaker stands [sand filled] - some Tanotis make
-Buffer PreAamp - a DIY attempt with Kuartlotron [dont't ask me how to pronounce that!] buffer
-and finally a Sabre 9018 chip based SMSL M8 DAC
music is being played from Foobar on my laptop and is being controlled by Foolite app on my tab and i absolutely love the convenience it offers.
overall, experience of music listening has and SQ have greatly improved.
effect of these updates to the chain,
let me start with speaker stands: the moment i placed them on the stands, i felt that the speakers were sounding thin - not by a large extent but it was evident. i've filled the columns with sand now but i don't see any difference. earlier i had placed them on speaker box [from my old AIWA] which were in-turn placed on plastic stool. probably those speaker boxes played a role in the sound :strange:
subwoofer: personally i do not like much of bass as and i never thought of adding a sub. this changed when one of my friends said that i'm missing out on some fine bass notes while playing EDM. after few experiments, sub XO is set at 80hz and volume level is level 4 out of 10. and the port has been sealed with styrofoam - this is to reduce the boominess. now the sub doesn't standout from the overall listening experience.
preamp : i needed a source selector and an easy option to control the source volume and in the meanwhile chanced up on the thread about this preamp on hifivision. finally ended up building the buffer with source selection module. this is my first DIY attempt in audio and took a lot of time from me [buffer itself is simple to build, but i had issues with power supply board and the chassis].
music sounds crisp - high and med frequencies sound superb. definitely happy with the sound response especially considering that it is a DIY effort [forget improvement, i would have been happy even if the music sounded the same ]. one another major improvement was in the integration of bass response from the sub.
DAC : i had a very basic MUSE DAC which was not bad for the price - the sound volume level used to be very low. i was looking for Wolfson based DAC [because my Cowon uses the same i love the way it sounds], was particularly interested in a parallel implementation of 7041 dac chip - again a DIY board. but one of the reviewer online said that the board in itself had a design flaw. during that time, saw an awesome offer on aliexpress for SMSL M8 and immediately decided to get it - though it was far out of my budget even after discounts. so far i've liked what i've been hearing from this set up. can't express in words but music seems to have more depth now and seems more coherent. need to spend more time with it. still haven't been able to play DSD files from Foobar.
current setup:
preamp with DAC - preamp does look little crude, especially that ugly hole meant for IR sensor : but it is the best i could do [ this is the 3rd iteration of the facia! and so far the most difficult task in this DIY attempt]
but now that i've started spending more time at home, i'm paying more attention to music at home. i've just started this journey [sharing below text from my post from a different forum]:
i've had Swan monitors for couple of years. apart from the fact that they are very rigid wrt to placements i find them absolutely delightful.
recently i made few changes to the set-up,
-an active sub [Yamaha YST 215]
-speaker stands [sand filled] - some Tanotis make
-Buffer PreAamp - a DIY attempt with Kuartlotron [dont't ask me how to pronounce that!] buffer
-and finally a Sabre 9018 chip based SMSL M8 DAC
music is being played from Foobar on my laptop and is being controlled by Foolite app on my tab and i absolutely love the convenience it offers.
overall, experience of music listening has and SQ have greatly improved.
effect of these updates to the chain,
let me start with speaker stands: the moment i placed them on the stands, i felt that the speakers were sounding thin - not by a large extent but it was evident. i've filled the columns with sand now but i don't see any difference. earlier i had placed them on speaker box [from my old AIWA] which were in-turn placed on plastic stool. probably those speaker boxes played a role in the sound :strange:
subwoofer: personally i do not like much of bass as and i never thought of adding a sub. this changed when one of my friends said that i'm missing out on some fine bass notes while playing EDM. after few experiments, sub XO is set at 80hz and volume level is level 4 out of 10. and the port has been sealed with styrofoam - this is to reduce the boominess. now the sub doesn't standout from the overall listening experience.
preamp : i needed a source selector and an easy option to control the source volume and in the meanwhile chanced up on the thread about this preamp on hifivision. finally ended up building the buffer with source selection module. this is my first DIY attempt in audio and took a lot of time from me [buffer itself is simple to build, but i had issues with power supply board and the chassis].
music sounds crisp - high and med frequencies sound superb. definitely happy with the sound response especially considering that it is a DIY effort [forget improvement, i would have been happy even if the music sounded the same ]. one another major improvement was in the integration of bass response from the sub.
DAC : i had a very basic MUSE DAC which was not bad for the price - the sound volume level used to be very low. i was looking for Wolfson based DAC [because my Cowon uses the same i love the way it sounds], was particularly interested in a parallel implementation of 7041 dac chip - again a DIY board. but one of the reviewer online said that the board in itself had a design flaw. during that time, saw an awesome offer on aliexpress for SMSL M8 and immediately decided to get it - though it was far out of my budget even after discounts. so far i've liked what i've been hearing from this set up. can't express in words but music seems to have more depth now and seems more coherent. need to spend more time with it. still haven't been able to play DSD files from Foobar.
current setup:
preamp with DAC - preamp does look little crude, especially that ugly hole meant for IR sensor : but it is the best i could do [ this is the 3rd iteration of the facia! and so far the most difficult task in this DIY attempt]
