Although the following findings will not be news to some, or perhaps most, of the members of this forum, I felt I should share the learning experience I had this week:
I've have had an SB3 for about 6 weeks, and continue to enjoy rediscovering my music collection. As an audiophile (note the lower case 'a'), I've been looking at ways to achieve a sound quality similar to the Transporter at a price that's more in line with my current financial situation. An outboard DAC seemed an appropriate path - so when a used Channel Islands VDA-1 / VAC-1 pair (see http://www.stereotimes.com/acc010603.shtml for one of many reviews) appeared recently on eBay, complete with some ModWright-like improvements, I bought them. For those who are interested, they cost me roughly 1.2 times the price of the SB3. I added these to my system early this week, keeping the SB3 analog out connection to one input on my amp, and connecting the output of the DAC to another amp input. Comparing the two DACs was then just a matter of a button press on the amp remote. I was immediately impressed - the CI gear provided a sound that was noticeably more enjoyable to listen to. In case I was just hearing what I wanted to hear, I asked my dear wife to listen without telling her which was which. She easily identified the CI DAC every time. A number of glowing adjectives were exchanged in describing the sound but, in the end, we agreed on the description "more alive". Sometime later that day I started getting the uneasy feeling that I'd forgotten something - and then it came to me... were the levels of the two outputs matched? I'd read about the importance of this, when comparing hifi gear, in many places (including this forum) and thought it was something I fully appreciated - but I was wrong. Setting up my trusty RadioShack sound level meter and some pink noise on the SB3 I soon discovered that the output from the CI DAC was 2dB above that of the SB3 DAC. Making them the same was a bit of a challenge, as the output of the SB3 was already maxxed, but once it was done I had to swallow my pride and admit that the sound of the two was virtually identical. There may have been slightly more 'sparkle' to high frequencies via the CI but I could just as easily have imagined that. I'm certain enough of the results that I've put the CI combo up for sale again. Apart from the reminder of my own fallibility, this exercise has helped me internalise how vital level matching is in these situations. I have also gained a new appreciation for the remarkable job SD have done to provide a quality DAC in their entry-level product. To get a real improvement in fidelity I may have to start saving for that Transporter... -- westernboy "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." Albert Einstein ------------------------------------------------------------------------ westernboy's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12768 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38553
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