The All Purpose Advice Thread

Thanks for very useful details in your post. Regarding adapters, it is a lot of hype about Radstone ES100.
I found it on Amazon.ca with the same day delivery, no tax, free shipping for $129 CAD ,which basically the exchange rate. Reviews are great on .com. and I bought it to keep, if it works as expected, But if it does not work, well that's Amazon prime. I will try it before I decide to spend a lot more money on Sony or B+W.

 

I have MSR7 and I actually like it a lot.

 

My pleasure!
Good luck, let me know how it goes with the Radstone.

 

can anyone recommend me a good looking usb type a to b cable

 

Define good looking? The audioquest stuff looks nice to me and the cheap ones are atomicbob-certified to not be shit ...

 

i meant something that doesn't look like a printer cable and is under a 100$ maybe braided or something

i'll look into audioquest their pearl series seems reasonable

 

Schiit PYST

 

If you want something nice to look at buy a piece of art from a local artist, then grab a Monoprice USB cable and be happy listening and looking, haha.

 

Anyone know if you can sell of your drops on Massdrop. Like have massdrop send to the person that bought it from you? I have a Massdrop x THX AAA™ 789 Linear Amp drop that I need to sell off since I'm buying the upgraded model. Does anyone know how that works?

Thanks!

 

I like the way these look

https://zapcables.com/usb-cables/

I don't know how they are for audio though since they are mainly known for keyboard cables

 

I would just change the shipping address. I did that with my HD 6xx. Originally addressed to my parents place and then changed the shipping address when it got closer.

 

I'm trying to decide if my Bottlehead Crack would benefit from a DAC upgrade, and if so, how far up the food chain is it capable of scaling.

My crack has speedball; choke; cree diodes; and mundorf caps. At some point I will put in a new pot, but that's probably as far as I will go with mods. The current DAC on the Crack is a gen1 modi and I brought home my EITR/Modi Multibit from the office and liked the improvement it gave the crack.

Will the crack scale to soekris 1321? Gungnir Multibit? Yggdrasil? Or will the EITR/Modi Multibit max out it's capabilities?

I'm trying to plan out my audio journey, and whether it makes more sense to get the Kenzie Encore first and then go with a DAC upgrade.

I appreciate all opinions, thanks.

 

Exactly what he said^^^^

For me, the B+W were the better sounding cans as long as ANC was off. However, I value ANC for travel and I thought the XM2 sounded superior with ANC is on. From a comfort standpoint, I could only wear the B+W for short periods before I developed hot spots on the top of my head. I could wear the XM2's all day. I ended up returning the B+W and kept the XM2's. FWIW, I eliminated the Bose from consideration while demoing at the store.

 

USB decrapifiers are not recommended with Schiit Gen 5 DACS, correct?

 

Yuup! Consensus is Gen 5 DACs don't need decrapification

 

Gen 5 has built-in decrapification, so unless you're one of those USB nervosa guys who feel they need to daisy-chain those things to get the best sound, no, a separate one is not required.

 

Hi tube experts. I'm considering buying a pair of NOS 2A3s. How would you characterize these test values?

Tube 1
eG1 43.7 V
GM 4.68 mA/V

Tube 2
eG1 40.3 V
GM 5.14 mA/V

 

Depends what the tester is. If this is an Amplitrex in auto bias mode (plate current 60mA, plate voltage 250V) then the readings for a new spec tube are eG1=-43.7V and GM=5.25 mA/V. So both tubes are within 10% of each other and within 10% of spec, which seems pretty respectable.

 

hi any good surge protectors for european sockets and voltage? like an isobar equivalent ?

 

SurgeX makes a europlug model: http://espsurgex.com/product/cee77-standalone/

I've never been able to find it for sale though.

The Supra stuff supposedly works well but I've never had any and the audiofool snake oil marketing is very off-putting.

Personally I use an ATL HiFi DC Blocker into an Acupwr Line Conditioner into an Audiophonics unfiltered power strip.