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What made the biggest, most noticeable improvement

My musical fidelity v-dac ii broke and is being repaired under warranty but while it is away it made me think that out of all the improvements I have made to my rig since this craziness started 9 months ago, my dac made the biggest, most noticeable improvement. Every other upgrade made slight improvents here and there but my dac (with upgraded power supply, of course) gave me far better imaging, tighter more defined bass, and more micro detail. I figure the dac in my denon dvd2900 is good and that the dac in the classe ssp 25 pre-amp is good (both sound the same to me) but the musical fidelity v-dac ii with upgraded power supply just blows them away, and I figure it's out classed by many other dacs. Anyhow, besides speaker placement and speakers, what made the biggest improvement in sound quality to your rig including acoustic panels, diffusors and bass traps?
128x128b_limo

Showing 2 responses by davide256

davide256's avatar
davide256
395 posts
 
Blimo, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Those with simple tastes can be ecstatic with a boom box. Assuming you are on the other end (never satisfied 100%), I'd offer you two paradigms that may help you weigh your investments in audio

(1) you can't hear what never gets to the speaker; conversely most of what goes wrong is in your source. So work hard at getting your source(s) right or else all else is a waste with amplified listening fatigue cutting listening sessions short.
(2) audio gear past the source is like ice cream, it has flavors and all of us have unique flavor preferences. Sample all the gear you can and home in on your favorite "flavor" first, then try to figure out in that manufacturers line what you can afford. Pay particular attention to the technology of that flavor, hopefully theres more than 1 manufacturer so that you have a range of price options other than stratospheric.
davide256's avatar
davide256
395 posts
 
and looking at your original question, for PC digital audio in order of importance

1) a separate quality DAC (no guts, no glory)($600~$1000)
2) the John Kenny MKIII smoked the VLink I had for async USB conversion... they aren't even in the same class (~$400)
3) Jplay in xstream mode brings it to life, can't listen without it (~$80)
4)Fidelizer in extremist mode adds more focus (free)
5) JRiver Media center makes it easy to use (~$60)

my disc players are all gathering dust, can't compete with PC audio and high res downloads with the setup above.
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