As I prepare for a major overhaul of the music room, my main stereo system is in pieces all over the basement.  For fun, I hooked by Benchmark DAC to the output of my trusty Mac and pulled the headphone out through my etymotic headphones.  Although the Mac is a high-end computing device, it is not so much a high-end music device.  At least using the rig I have.The results are astonishing.  I hear

If you love your music and really want to hear what it actually sounds like, please buy yourself some decent cans (headphones for the uninitiated audiophile). Those little white earbud things that come with the iPod make much better cat toys that headphones. I'm going to suggest tossing them as far as possible if you don't have a cat. In addition to all the pretty hip things you can do with your

I have owned Etymotic Research earphones for quite a long time and have always loved their sound. Particularly when traveling - the in-ear design blocks out everything but the music. (Quite useful on my current flight from Stuttgart to Atlanta.) When the ety8 bluetooth model came out, I ordered a pair immediately believing correctly that they would sound great. They are the first decent, much less

My wife just sent me this link to an Amazon page advertising a Denon audio cable on sale for $499.99 down from $500.99. I am in pain from laughing so hard at the reviews. Be forewarned that if you believe in mega-expensive audio cables, you will not like this one bit...

All you folks who've tried to sell me on golden power cords and thousand dollar speaker cables and interconnects need to put The Amazing Randi's money where you're mouth is! Mr. Randi is offering $1M to anyone who can prove there is a sonic difference between jillion dollar speaker cables and regular Monster cable. Seems like a fair test - Monster makes reasonably good speaker cables, not zip wire

I'm officially on the upgrade trail. My music room is electronically a mess. I have a two channel stereo path sort of mixed in with a 5 channel path. The Snell C/Vs are still driven by the Bryston 3NRB which is in turn getting outputs from the Classe 47.5. The Benchmark DAC is the only source. However, I now get digital input from my Apple TV and my DVD player. The 5 channel path has PSB speakers (very

My faithful CAL Delta transport finally gave out after about 12 years of service. It's not dead, but the display is out and I don't want to fix it. I still have my Alpha D/A and still love it, but it has never synched well with any transport other than the Delta. The obvious solution is to buy a new transport, but this is audio and the obvious solution is never what we do. So, I bought a new D/A.After

Not many chages in my system in quite awhile. That's generally quite good. I have switched to Flat Line speaker cables to accomodate my current room a bit better. No real performance changes that I could notice.I have also added an Apple Airport Express to my system and use the digital out as on input to my Cal DAC. I like this setup quite a bit, but need to learn a bit more about DAAP, the protocol

The M-Audio FireWire Solo just arrived and is now in my playback system at work.The M-Audio Solo is a pretty simple device that provides an outboard interface to your computer's sound core via a FireWire connection. Pretty spiffy. The Solo has digital in and out, balanced in and out, standard in and out, guitar and mic inputs and a headphone out. It's target market is singer/songwriter types who want

Lots of my friends ask me how to get started in high-end stereo. I strongly suggest looking at Rotel, Acurus or Adcom components before you spend the same money at Circuit City or the like. Even NAD and Sony have some excellent models for your money. Go to your local audio specialty store and see just how much music you dollar can buy!Things to keep in mind during your search:Mass market producers

This is a listing of my current stereo system. I just had the opportunity to upgrade my system by adding a Classe' 47.5 preamp. I'm finding it to be wonderful! The current system:Transport - CAL DeltaDAC - CAL AlphaPreamplifier - Classe' 47.5Amplifier - Bryston 3 NRBSpeakers - Snell Type C/VTransport -> DAC - Nordost MoonGloDAC -> Preamp - Audioquest TopazPreamp -> Amp - Straightwire EncoreAmp -> Speakers