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Advice from members

I have just started putting my first system together and have been enjoying it for about 6 months or so and am starting to research what I should upgrade in the current system next. I am looking to improve both clarity and soundstage. This is what I am currently running, the biggest and most noticable difference to date has come with the introduction of room correction via the Dspeaker Dual Core. Here is the current setup. I am debating on simplifying by going to a all in one solution like a Anthem STR integrated OR introducing a higher quality DAC into the current system:
  • Source: Innuos Music Server (MINI MK2) running Roon server and being used as a player
  • DAC/Preamp/Room Correction - Antimode Dual Core. - To leverage the best input on the dual core I am using a Musical Fidelity VLINK USB to SPDIF (24/96) converter
  • AMP - Using a Jolida 1501P Hybrid AMP
  • Speakers - ELAC Unifi UF5 Floor Standing with a ORB Audio 200 watt Sub that is corrected via the Dual Core.
I am wondering what the weakest link the chain is and the one I should look at upgrading next.
Many thanks in advance, looking forward to everyones feedback.
palakapatel

Showing 5 responses by rbstehno

rbstehno
916 posts
 
My prior setup used an Auralic Aries with a w4s dac 2 dsd dac using the w4s reclocker with audioquest diamond usb cable. This was much better setup than using a Mac mini running audirvana 2+. I have since sold all of that I bought the ps audio directstream with bridge II and couldn’t be happier and the SQ is off the charts. Simple setup using roon for the GUI. My Mac mini has 23TB of disk storage which handles all my ripped music and this allows me to put the Mac with the hard disks in a different area of the house instead of having a hard disk spinning in your audio room
rbstehno
916 posts
 
USB is not that great of an interface but it usually has better specs that spdif and especially toslink. If you do use usb, get the best cable you can afford, huge differences between cables, don’t let people tell you different. 
I would swap out your music server and external dac and get an updated dac with a bridge that supports 24/192, dsd, and especially MQA. If you get a bridge, you can use a better connection than usb. 
rbstehno
916 posts
 
Hegel h300 with Usher mini dancer 2’s with DMD. Use 2 subs with 2-10” woofers in each enclosure and each sub has 500 watts. Dedicated room 27’ x 16’ with 12’ ceiling, bass traps in each corner, 1st reflection point room tunes and 1 chair. 6 dedicated 20amp circuits. 
rbstehno
916 posts
 
The reason I mentioned you should get a dsd and MQA compatible system because these formats equal and sometimes surpass my vinyl rig with is a hanss t-60 tt with vpi 3D tonearm and soundsmith cartridge. I wouldn’t by any dac today that doesn’t have dsd or MQA support, no matter how good the dac is. The nice thing with the ps audio dacs, every 6 months or so you get a new dac. When ted and Paul release a free software upgrade, you get a better dac. Most all other dacs cant be upgraded like this, you will have to keep buying new plugin boards, sending it back to the vendor for a costly upgrade, or worse, sell the dac and buy a new 1.
rbstehno
916 posts
 
Yes, it’s not that good of a dac compared to what I have now. Even the newer h360 doesn’t have a really good dac
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