Cable advice for moderate system


Hi folks...i am helping a non-audiophile friend decide on cabling for a new HRT MusicStreamer DAC that he will be plugging into his system which consists of Thiel 0.5 speakers, Rotel RA-1062 integrated and RCD-1072 CD player. He has Kimber Hero ICs connecting his CD player to his integrated and bulk Kimber speaker wire that were terminated at a local audio shop. I guess the question is what IC and USB cable should he use with the $99 HRT MusicStreamer DAC without going crazy given the price of the DAC itself is less than a C-note. Also his laptop/seating position is about 8 feet away from the system, so is it better to do a short USB length to the HRT and long ICs to the RA-1062 or vice versa. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
cmalak

Showing 2 responses by stereo5

I am using my Music Streamer plugged into a 20K system. I am using a Kimber USB cable (50.00 new) and a MIT AVT 3 cable (50.00 new). For a grand total of 200 including the dac, I have a serious computer based front end.
I am using a HP Pavillion Multimedia laptop running Vista 64 bit. I am using the latest iTunes and all my music is in Apple Lossless format. I have a 3 foot usb cable and for the time being, it is on top of the dustcover to my turntable at the top of my audio rack.

You will find that the dac puts out a lot of output, it's much louder than my cd players or tuner. HRT says to run the volume on computer wide open and adjust from preamp, but I found that way doesn't give me enough range on the volume control. I am running the sound from the laptop at 75% and the sound is excellent, almost as good as my 2500.00 cd player.