My Steve Nugent North Star 192 DAC and transport mods are now thoroughly burned in, and I can report on how they sound. In a word, marvelous! Steve optimized them for I2S input and Serguei Timachev of Stealth Audio Cables made me a custom I2S cable just 5" long. For comparison, I also connected a Stealth Varidig cable. It sounded very good, as good as I'd ever heard before the Superclock 4 mods. But once I changed over to I2S, I removed the Varidig in a hurry, fearful that I'd do the selection wrong and use it by accident. There was no comparison: the I2S sound was super quiet, with fine detail coming through as never before, and at the same time extremely dynamic, with great "truth of timbre" on such jazz instruments as piano, bass, percussion and all the horns. I honestly didn't believe that digital could be this good. Steve told me when I first spoke to him that female vocals were especially helped by his mods, and it's very true: vocal presentations are subtle, nuanced and dramatic, and the singer is right there in the room with me.
I couldn't be more pleased with these mods.
Tom Patton
