[neekomax]

So, tonight I drove the 1.5 hours to a fellow AC member's place in Brooklyn in order to pick up a DSPeaker Anti-Mode Dual Core DAC/processor ( Here's the big AC thread, in case you missed it). I'm only a year and a half into serious home audio obsession, and I really haven't heard many good systems, so it's been hard to judge what I've got going. Long story very short, I finally got to hear the system of an audiophile who's been at it for 15 years (as he told me).

HO. LEE. SHIT.

Sounded incredible. Just incredible. Hard to describe, except to say that I WANT THAT SOUND.

Didn't really expect that much, it was a pretty normal NYC townhouse living room, but the tiled floors made me think the sound was gonna be harsh and echoey. He pointed at the front wall, and I saw a big pair of speakers with grills on (he's got kids), and I recognize them as Salks. Yup, he says, HT2-TLs. Cool. They're bigger/deeper in person than I thought they'd be. Huh. And look at that amp, wow, really big. No, actually, THAT is the preamp  . It's a TRL Dude. The volume knob is the size of a bread plate, and he says it weighs 70 lbs.  . Didn't see the amp, it was behind a kid's little tricycle or something, but he did say the Dude is bigger. Finally, I notice the ModWright Oppo player, two crazy tubes sticking out of the chasis. Big ole' audiophile cables sticking out of everything.

Mind you, I've been pretty skeptical that cables and even electronics (save DSP I guess) really have that much to do with sound. Call me ignorant, but I just figured, get the best possible speakers, and put anything reasonably competent in front of them, and off you go to musical Valhalla. I dunno, maybe I still think that, after all, I didn't hear the Salks with a budget front end and cheap cabling for comparison, but something tells me that the whole system together was working a magic that speakers alone wouldn't.

Maybe those Salks are just incredible, and the rest is jewelery. It's possible. But man, all I know is that his system sounded so good I wanted to eat my shoe.

And I was sure he had subs playing, so I asked. Nope. No subs. That shit was all HT2-TL. Dayum. Tremendous, tuneful bass. Just wow.

Anyway, that was the big revelation of the night. I'm home now, I've got the DSPeaker in my system as USB DAC, direct to my Acurus passive pre amplifier. Not going to run the calibration protocol tonight, too late for that (girlfriend and in-laws in the house), but just listening to the DAC low level, feeling it out. Tomorrow after work I'll run the room correction and see where we end up. Pretty psyched, at the very least this is a nice DAC so far. But the real show will be what its DSP does, let's hope.

But, coming back to my exposure to a killer system tonight.... I am so inspired to know that my sound can get really, really good, so much better than where it's at right now. That there's so much to strive for in the world of hifi, and so much to learn. Awesome. 

I LOVE THIS SHIT!!!!!!

[Austin08]

I got the same feeling as you just did 20 years ago when I bumped into a true Phile. Even now, I think my system sound much better than what I have heard but sometime those beautiful memory sill comming back. Anyway, congratulation on your new purchase. I hope you got what you were looking for. 

[wisnon]

Neekomax....I TOLD you! LoL

[neekomax]

Neekomax....I TOLD you! LoL

You did? I forget... 

[sharpsuxx]

Everyone has that revelation moment that pushes them over the edge.  Sometimes there is just some magic to a room and a system and the system chemistry.  My Eureka was in my friends upstairs listening room from an older pair of Aurum Cantus V2s (I think) in a well treated room of of a Jolida FX-10.  I have since heard many far greater systems, but there was a magic to that moment, sitting there with jlafrenz and the owner of Emotiva and we were all just blown away.  I would like to think that some of the inspiration for Emotiva's award winning Air Motiv bookshelf came from that day.

My system has surpassed that point already, but I have a long ways to go.

[abernardi]

That post put a big smile on my face!  One more audiophile infected 

[SET Man]

Hey!

   I remembered when I first got interested in audio. Coming form a simple JVC receiver and Avent Baby II speaker. I was easily impressed when I stop by hi-end stores... some were nice enough to let a kid like me back than to listen to some of the stuffs in the store.

    Anyway, my eureka moment that totally changed the way I see and think of home audio sound reproduction was back in 2000 or was is 2001.... anyway I hread my first hi-end Single Driver speaker, the RL acoustique Lamhorn with 75wpc Tenor tube amp. They were kind enough to play my CD and I was stunned! I've never heard the female vocal on that track sounded like that before

    Althought it was not all perfect in some area. But it left a seed in my head after that. And that is why I built my own Single Driver speaker as an experiment a year later, but 10 years after I still have them in my system.

    It had been a quite a journey. I used to dream of having mega watts amps and big speaker with many drivers... that when i was young. Well, strangely I now ended up with 6" full range single driver speaker with helpe/superstweeter and 18 watts per channel SET amps.... OK my second SET amp is about 40 watts per ch. Still both are less than my first so-called hi-end amp, the Adcom 535II of which rated at 60 wpc. Funny isn't it?

    Well, thanks to the Internet and Audio Circle of which I got to hear many systems, some are nice and some ar not....it is all depend your ears. Too bad you missed the New York Audio Rave group here... It was a great group back than. They are still around but not here.

Take care,
Buddy