Musings of a Budget Audiophile

A retail of $8k for a system can produce amazing sound.

Particularly if you are good enough shopper to have invested $4k

for the whole package which is entirely possible.

Be a  patient fellow.

It looks like you stream. Optimize the router connection.

Speakers are good. Sell the conditioner and DAC and upgrade

the DAC. The one you own may be great but I assume not.

You got a great start!

This is a lovely system and one you've paid good attention to.

I have to agree with @chorus that the DAC is the weak link. It's a $200 or so DAC and while you've modded it, I think your system deserves much better. I don't know about selling the power stuff as suggested, but finding your way toward a much better DAC -- especially one which mellows those tweeters along with some of the glare of digital -- would open up a new field of listening pleasures. My two cents.

@chorus I'm not a particularly good shopper, but did get a great deal on the amplifier which is the only reason that I have it.  I don't stream and just have an external hard drive connected to it.

@hilde45 The DAC could very well be my weak link, but I do believe that it performs above its price point.  It has a DSD capable chip (underutilized?) and the addition of the discrete op amps really improved things significantly.

When I rolled in the Mullard tube in the Pathos the result was a much warmer sound while also significantly increasing the level of clarity.  The only downside was that the warmer sound eliminated some of my highs that I've always enjoyed with the Focal speakers.  The improvement with the Mullard tubes was unquestionable so it was easy to adapt.

When I installed the three Sparkos Labs op amps (all three are in the signal path of both outputs) the sound because slightly brighter, but more significantly the bass became more visceral.  Prior to the op amp upgrade I had always preferred the clarity of the solid state output and considered the tube buffer output to be dull in comparison.  With the Sparkos Laps op amps my preference is for the tube buffer output with the solid state output sounding bright in comparison.  At this point I was thinking a lot about getting a tube DAC with Jolida being one of particular interest.  There was a slight brightness that made me think that a tube would benefit.

When I added the W Audio power cord (expecting nothing in return) the resulting sound somehow became more live/real sounding with even more micro details coming out.  I would also describe the sound as being slightly more laid back/relaxed and any thoughts that I had for getting a Jolida tube DAC seemed to fade away.

Before I upgraded the Maverick Audio DAC I did pick up a Schiit Modi Multibit DAC.  It played tricks with my mind because I did enjoy the way it sounded, but I was only comparing it to the solid state output on my Maverick Audio DAC.  When I realized that this was the case I hooked the tube buffer output up and discovered that it sounded identical to the Schiit DAC so my multibit experiment was done.

At some point I'm sure I'll be interested in trying a "better" DAC, but I'm honestly not sure what improvement I could expect though I've said that before.  For now, I'm just enjoying listening to my favorites again for the first time.

That’s a nice setup.  Nothing budget about it.  Ever try a straight DAC, no tube buffer?   Might be interesting to compare especially in that you are already running a tube amp.  

@millercarbon I've never had a goal of owning wildly expensive gear and really consider the Pathos to be better than I had really expected to ever own.  I also lean toward being satisfied over constantly searching for something better.  The tube rolling opened a window into some ways to optimize my system that really made a difference and now I think I'm settling back into a place of being satisfied.  Maybe when my Krell S-300i amplifier sells I'll get the bug again.