i just bought a nice pair of Piega C10 Ltds

To me, the height of the soundstage is exactly as it would be in real life. Perhaps a tad bit higher on the 10's because the tweeter/mid array is a few inches above the one on the 3's. The 8's are the same way. All of them sound the same really. Just a bit more bottom end as you climb the ladder.

I, too, made the upgrade from the revel f30 to piega c-8ltd. I confer. A great upgrade, although the f30's weren't too shabby. I use an aloia amp and lector zoe preamp. My current source is the consonance opera audio ref. 2.2 cdp. Great product also, but now am curious about the Nixon DAC. Any other info. you can share on this? Thanks.

Twc:

I've listened to that 2.2, and it's not a bad CD player. It's probably one of the best for that pricerange. It's a good transport too, so it should work well with the Nixon DAC.

The Nixon DAC is based on the old school design that Audio Note also based theirs on. It's a non-oversampling DAC without a digital filter. The current crop has a switchable filter to give you some filtering goodness if you need it, but I prefer mine nude.

Tube buffered, the thing sounds as good as anything I've ever heard up south of the Audio Note 3.1x Balanced. In fact, I've compared it directly to many more expensive DAC's up to $15k, and once you get used to the non-OS non filtered sound, it's impossible to go back. I tried. I went with a pro soundcard for a while from Lynx, and it was neat, but I was missing the music. Had gobs of detail, but it didn't sound like music anymore.

Luckily Scott is still building more. I have the latest version now, and am loving it. If I had $6,500 to get the 5% improvement the Audio Note gives, I doubt I'd spend it. But that's just me.

Hope this helps. You can get more info at http://www.scott-nixon.com . . .

Well, I finally followed hantrax and brentknoll's advice regarding the nixon tube dac with piega speakers. I have had a few sources (opra audio ref. 2.2, denon 3910 with hram level 2 mods, and aloia cdp which is now my transport) with my piega's and none compare to the nixon tube dac. I had an extra nos mullard 6922 tube and put it in without even listening to the stock tube. I don't think I will ever even put the stock tube in because I am in audio bliss. Thanks for this thread as it has been of utmost significance. Twc