$1000 (+/-) DACs

marvda1

you know i'm cheap....wild turkey

maxward

Now your talkin’. Thanks for all the feedback. All brands have occasional hiccups. The key is how they handle the problem. Customer service often determines whether they earn a repeat buyer. I’m looking forward to trying out the North Star here in my own system. Not a thing wrong with Wild Turkey.

tonyb

Kerry makes good points. You can narrow down the field with others opinions, but in the end it's always your ears that make the final purchase. Even then, what sounds good to you today, may not a few years down the road. We audio guys are finicky like that.

If I learned one thing is this audio journey, it's to not expect any one piece to "transform" your system into a superstar. It's more so like members of a band, some play well together, some don't, but when they do....it's musical bliss.

Hope the NorthStar plays well with your band members bro. Had an ear on them myself and liked what I heard.

kharp1

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the NorthStar. A good DAC can go a long way to towards transformation in a system. Tonyb is right, imo, don't look for one piece to be a total transformer.

halo

One piece may not be a total transformer but one piece may be the key that opens up/unlocks the synergy of your setup. As others have already said, the only way to say for sure is to have the gear on trial ion your setup. I look forward to your impressions of the Northstar DAC.

maxward

Jetmaker737 shipped the Intenso to me last week and it came Friday. It looks like a quality piece. I am just starting to listen to it carefully and I’m realizing that it’s been a very long time since I have done an A-B comparison. I set it up with an identical set of interconnects as on my current DAC and used a vacant input on the preamp. This way, the only cable that is swapped is the digital one. First impressions were that everything sounded just a little clearer through the Intenso. I can’t yet pinpoint specific areas of improvement, but the more I listened, I started to wonder if I was hearing a difference in volume. So I found my old Stereophile test CD and played pink noise while using the Decibel X app on my phone to record average level over about 30 seconds. The Intenso and Micromega were very close in level, but the Intenso was 0.3 to 0.4 decibel louder. I was hoping that I didn’t need to mess with trying to match levels and I’m not sure if can make a consistent change of less than a decibel, so I probably won’t bother. Any thoughts a about this? I would have guessed that there was a greater difference in level, so perhaps the Intenso is displaying a lower noise floor. As I get more time to listen, I will have more to say.

maxward

Speaker cables and amp and preamp power cords are MAC (my audio cables) made by Steve Hallick, who I believe is now out of business. Reviews can be found online. Other power cords are Pangea except turntable, which is captive and Mydac, which is stock. Interconnects are mostly Straightwire Musicable II or better. Digital is MIT. Rest of system: Thorens TD-160C; Sumiko Talisman S; Jolida JD9; Marantz CD-53; Micromega Mydac; Joule-Electra LA-100; Balanced Power Technology AC conditioner; Odyssey Khartago monos (with most factory upgrades); Magnepan MG 3.6R.

maxward

After nine days with the Intenso, I’m really very impressed. The soundstage is larger in all dimensions, including some increased vertical imaging. All instruments, especially piano, sound more realistic and at the same time, more relaxed. This is interesting, since the Zero Fidelity review remarked that piano has a little digital glare. I’ve had two other trusted pairs of ears listen to it and both agree that it’s a major improvement over the Micromega Mydac, which sounds pretty flat by comparison. I’m now wondering what the Supremo must sound like. Thanks, Skip.