I was a straight-wire-with-gain guy(using a modded Dahlquist DQLP-1 to bi-amp my system) for 25 years. My last attenuator was a Placette Passive Linestage. I eschewed any signal manipulation, analog or digital, until reading some reviews about the TacT RCS products/algorhithms. If the(pickier than I) live-music-listeners at TAS thought it was transparent, I figured I'd try one(the 2.2X). Now I couldn't live without it. Replacing it's power supply with the MauiMods FRED/Sanyo OSCON unit took everything(system-wide) to an even more dynamic, controlled and transparent level. A TacT RCS would replace your present pre, with fully differential and single-ended inputs/outputs. If your CDP has digital output: you could feed the pre directly from it's transport, eliminating the CDP's DAC. Unless you rode the "short bus" to school: set up and operation are a piece of cake. If you go TacT, there's no going back!
digital eq/room correction trade-offs
I am very confused about digital room correction.
For many years, it seemed the common wisdom was to have as clean a signal path as possible, with as little processing and as few conversions as possible: use a high quality DAC to get the signal to analog and then a pure pre-amp/amp to speakers.
But it now seems that many would argue that the benefits of digital eq are such that even an extra analog-digital-analog step is worth it for the benefits of digital room eq.
So, for example, I enjoy listening to CDs and SACDs using my Bel Canto PL-1A. I go analog out to my pre-amp. Is it worth it to contemplate the extra step of analog to digital for room EQ and then back to analog to the pre? I find it hard to believe that any benefits of the room EQ won't be substantially offset by the additional conversions.
Your thoughts most appreciated. Let's assume for the sake of this discussion that my room is imperfect but not horribly so (which I think is accurate).
For many years, it seemed the common wisdom was to have as clean a signal path as possible, with as little processing and as few conversions as possible: use a high quality DAC to get the signal to analog and then a pure pre-amp/amp to speakers.
But it now seems that many would argue that the benefits of digital eq are such that even an extra analog-digital-analog step is worth it for the benefits of digital room eq.
So, for example, I enjoy listening to CDs and SACDs using my Bel Canto PL-1A. I go analog out to my pre-amp. Is it worth it to contemplate the extra step of analog to digital for room EQ and then back to analog to the pre? I find it hard to believe that any benefits of the room EQ won't be substantially offset by the additional conversions.
Your thoughts most appreciated. Let's assume for the sake of this discussion that my room is imperfect but not horribly so (which I think is accurate).