[tigzstudio]

So I am rebuilding my 2-channel system, wanted some thoughts on what I came up with.  I am basically looking for pure true to life musical bliss.... (as we all are I would assume)   I already achieved it with my headphone setup, so its back to the 2-channel. 

Computer -> Audio-gd Ref5 DAC (new sabre chip) -> Almarro A318B Integrated amp -> Zu Druid Credenza

My jitter control is handled by my Saffire Pro 24 dsp.

thoughts? 

[JLM]

The Zu Druid Credenza are only rated down to 45 Hz.  Are your willing to give up the bottom octave?

The Almarro A318B is warm, slow, and lacks detail, but in a musical and euphoric tube way.  Is that what you want?

What's your budget? 

What's your room like?

What's your musical preferences?

What's your audio preferences?

[srb]

Computer -> Audio-gd Ref5 DAC (new sabre chip) -> Almarro A318B Integrated amp -> Zu Druid Credenza

I'm curious about the reference to the "new sabre chip".  To my knowledge, the Reference 5, and all Audio-gd DACs, use 2 - 8 Burr-Brown PCM-1704UK DACs, depending whether it is balanced and/or using more than one per channel.
 
Steve

[Jon L]

The Almarro A318B is warm, slow, and lacks detail, but in a musical and euphoric tube way.  Is that what you want?

With what speaker did you have that result?  Definitely not IME, provided that the speaker has reasonable sensitivity and "friendly" impedance curve. 

[roscoeiii]

Why the Druid rather than the Zu Soul or Soul Superfly? Gopher has really raved about his Soul Superflys here and in an A'gon thread about them.

[srb]

I'm curious about the reference to the "new sabre chip".  To my knowledge, the Reference 5, and all Audio-gd DACs, use 2 - 8 Burr-Brown PCM-1704UK DACs, depending whether it is balanced and/or using more than one per channel.

I now see on the Audio-gd website, the NFB-1, their new (and only) ESS Sabre 9018 based DAC.  It is a market test version, and is housed in a Reference 5 chassis.
 
"Why the NFB-1 has the wrong text on it?
 
The NFB-1 is a new DAC based on Reference 5 which is considered a good sounding DAC design, and the NFB-1 fits the same chassis, so it has "Reference 5" printed on the chassis. The NFB-1 is without USB input, but the chassis still has "USB" printed on it but it is actually for the BNC coaxial input. This is because this is currently only a market test version. We want to save some cost on chassis to lower the price of the this version. If the test version is a successful for market, maybe we will change to a new chassis and raise the price accordingly sometime in the future, but we have no plans to change the circuitry configuration inside."
 
Got it.  No price listed yet.
 
Steve

[Steidl Guitars]

Definitely not IME, provided that the speaker has reasonable sensitivity and "friendly" impedance curve.

+1.  The Almarro 318A might have had some of that, but not the 318B, IME.

[Kenobi]

Tigzstudio,

Do you have an update to this NFB-1?  Curious what direction you're heading.  Be great to see some user comments/reviews on this unit which looks very promising.

Thanks in advance,

Kenobi