Rodney_Gold;393534 Wrote: > As an audiophile , you should consider the SB as a very high quality > extremely cheap transport with all your music on it..... > IE use the digital output and get the DAC of your choice if you want > substantial improvements over stock rather than spend money modding it > > It really isnt a great "audiophile" piece of equipment if used in one > box mode. Rodney, I dismissed the SB3 stand-alone after comparison with my audiophile source showed it to be inferior. It was many months later that I got dissatisfied, tried some blind tests and got some surprising results. In fact the blind test didn't tell me about the SB3 stand-alone (it was used as a transport in that test) but it did open my mind up.
When given a chance - using matched levels, which is absolutely and completely essential - and a fresh mind I found the SB3 performs well compared to my old transport/DAC. I think the issue is that people have a DAC to hand (or active speakers) which they like and they plug in the S/PDIF. I have no argument with that, it is logical. But that means they never really test their assumptions about the SB3 stand-alone. Certainly very few try living with the SB3 day in day out to see what it can do, because they don't have to! We're back to what Pat said on the other thread about beliefs... For example, it may be that the switchmode PS that came with my SB3 sounds absolutely fine. I wouldn't know because I have a linear one which I use instead, because I believe it produces less RFI. I've done very little listening with the switchmode PS and that was long ago. But that is no fault of the switchmode PS. :) Darren -- darrenyeats SB3 / Inguz -> Krell KAV-300i (pre bypass) -> PMC AB-1 Dell laptop -> JVC UX-C30 mini system ------------------------------------------------------------------------ darrenyeats's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10799 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=59264 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
