Modded Duet has been in house for a couple of months now

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Brad

I ordered the Duet back in January to see how it worked compared to the SB2.
I really liked the user interface better than the SB2, but the sound was relatively flat and uninvolving, so it was time for Wayne to perform some of his magic.

I got the full Enthusiast Mods, along with some new regulators Wayne is using, and also one of his fancy power supplies that includes one of Hugh Dean's feedforward modules. (and a Bolder umbilical)

I listened to it for a little while once I got it back from Wayne and was NOT impressed - those caps need some break in time.
So, I put it on repeat, driving my preamp, with the amp turned off, for about 3-4 weeks whenever I was away from the house.

The time proved to be all the Duet needed to bloom.
Tone is great, details are terrific, soundstaging is wide and deep - just a wonderful source for my system.
It probably has another 200 hours on it since breaking in and continues to sound better and better.

It is comparable to the SACD section of my Marantz, and better than the Redbook section.
I use lossless compression and am streaming wirelessly to the Duet.

Thanks Wayne!   You were very patient as I asked 300 million questions figuring out what I wanted.

Btw - the modded Duet will be on display at Lone Star Audio Fest this year if anyone near Dallas wants to hear it.
Here's a link to the LSAF website
http://www.lonestaraudiofest.com/

Wayne1

Re: Modded Duet has been in house for a couple of months now
« Reply #1 on: 21 Apr 2009, 04:08 pm »
Thanks for the comments, Brad.

Nice to know a modded $150.00 network media player playing lossless, compressed 16/44 files can sound as good as a $1,000.00 Marantz SACD player playing SACDs...  aa

and better than the same player playing redbook CDs  :o

Giving the mods some time for the caps to fully form is always a good idea.

I'm glad you like the unit. I'm one who will never go back to playing the shiny metal discs. They only exist to transfer data to my hard drives.

face

Re: Modded Duet has been in house for a couple of months now
« Reply #2 on: 9 May 2009, 04:07 pm »
Thanks for your feedback.  I need to jump on this soon, the analog and digital output of my Duet sounds like garbage compared to my Cambridge 840C.