are they really making an upgrade?

[xtsili]

Dear "those of you who are to reply"

I find the KEF XQ40 for 2100Euros in Athens which is quite a bargain!.

Will they lead my current system to a better performance given that I buy music from e-music and itunes (not the standard in high fidelilty digital format I must admit)?

Cheers

Xtsili

 

[Anonymous]

Well, they'll definitely make your system sound different

but 2100 Euros better?

I got to where I am in terms of thinking about HD sources and DACs after a demo by Dynaudio of their then new DM2/6 speakers. Due to being at a hifi show with a Cyrus addict and Cyrus having a room across the way, I went to Dynaudio'sdemo twice in the day: in the morning they were using an iPod and dock as their source, in the afternoon they had a Chord Reference CD player. The difference was stark; with the iPod the setup sounded pretty average, not a big step up from one of those iPod docks with integrated speakers; with the Chord as the source it was seriously impressive.

If your current speakers sound good to your ears, I think you'll get a better sound upgrade by getting a new DAC, and spend a lot less in the process. Spend the difference at Linn Records or another source of HD music 🙂

 

[xtsili]

thanks for your reply. So If I understand right, what you are saying is,

"given the rather average quality of standard digital format such as emusic/itunes, the critical element in improving the sound - and not spend a fortune - is the dac and not the speakers ". (Yes I am happy with them, very honest speakers for the money indeed).

Fact is I don't find the music I want at Linn Records so for me it is not an option to look out for better quality digital music.

Thanks anyway

 

[Anonymous]

You'd need to spend a lot to better that DAC/PSU combination - think Benchmark or similar.

The weak link is definitely your speakers, so I'd be doing some auditioning - if you can find them then Q Acoustics are a good inexpensive (in Finland, anyway) solution, if not the Chario, Sonus Faber, Neat, Dynaudio etc which should all be cheaper than the XQ40s.

And the difference would be about 1000? better

Edit: Apparently your sound card is pretty good as a source. Stereophile seemed to like it.

 

[xtsili]

Well this is what I am thinking. I have a nice pair of DAC and sound card - especially ASUS has received rave reviews from various mags etc. Should I be lured by a 1300 euros stepup in the speaker domain (XQ40s vs Diamond 10.7) or by a few hundreds euros in the source domain?

Definitely there are a lot of choices for loudspeakers, the one I am suggesting sounds like a bargain though and this why I am making all the fuzz.

 

[Anonymous]

A few hundred euros in the source domain isn't going to get you a better DAC, you'd really have to spend upwards of a thousand.

Your best bet is to audition some speakers, preferable with equipment similar to your own, and see whether you think it's worth it.

 

[xtsili]

OK this is what I am tending to conclude.

Thxs!

 

[Anonymous]

xtsili:
thanks for your reply. So If I understand right, what you are saying is,

"given the rather average quality of standard digital format such as emusic/itunes, the critical element in improving the sound - and not spend a fortune - is the dac and not the speakers ". (Yes I am happy with them, very honest speakers for the money indeed).

Fact is I don't find the music I want at Linn Records so for me it is not an option to look out for better quality digital music.

Thanks anyway

Linn and others supply an ever wider range of music. They don't have a lot of mainstream pop (X-Factor stylee) because that is managed production and controlled by the big record companies; previous big hit bands are often still under contract despite no longer being mainstream. But the main sources of HD music cover pretty much all genres. What sort of music are you interested in?

And no, I'm not saying your digital music sources are at fault, just that an upgrade to your DAC (if you like the sound of your current speakers) has huge potential to improve your music. The V-Dac is good, even very good for the money. But reviews of other DACs have been more glowing; comparison in reviews with the DACMagic seem to favour the DACMagic, and Wyred 4 Sound's reviews have been extremely positive. Then there is Rega's DAC, Arcam's, etc. etc.. All except possibly the Wyred 4 Sound could be had for the same money. Maybe you should test those as well as the speakers. Just don't listen to the W4S and the new speakers together or your budget will suddenly double...

 

[xtsili]

Thanks for your reply putt1ck.

Well I am into any genre that has the word "jazz" in its description. I will explore the higher quality in digital music avenue but as upgraditis has already set off my immune system, I can't stop from setting myself back several hundreds Euros, thus the speakers or the DAC.

V-Dac is on par with DACmagic according to several reviews. The other dacs you are metnioning are very attractive and make an option. The ideal for me is a dac that can be a preamp and a streamer at the same time - wyred4sound does that, so the upcoming musical fidelity, may even so the Yamaha NP S2000. All these remain to be explored in the future.

But what I can say at this point is that I spot two lines of thinking in this thread a) dac is the king, b) speakers is the king.

It's getting interesting at least.

 

[Anonymous]

putt1ck:
And no, I'm not saying your digital music sources are at fault, just that an upgrade to your DAC (if you like the sound of your current speakers) has huge potential to improve your music. The V-Dac is good, even very good for the money. But reviews of other DACs have been more glowing; comparison in reviews with the DACMagic seem to favour the DACMagic, and Wyred 4 Sound's reviews have been extremely positive. Then there is Rega's DAC, Arcam's, etc. etc.. All except possibly the Wyred 4 Sound could be had for the same money. Maybe you should test those as well as the speakers. Just don't listen to the W4S and the new speakers together or your budget will suddenly double...I think you have this wrong. The V-DAC, with the improved power supply, is hard to better unless, as I said, you start looking at Benchmark or similar. Apart from having compared it to several others, including the Dacmagic and deciding there was little difference, reviews in some magazines - and I'm not a great believer in reviews per se - indicate that it's the equal of the MF m1 dac, which corresponds with my own conclusion.

But besides all that, the simple fact is, and I'd say that were the DAC Beresford, Dacmagic or whatever, it's the speakers which are holding the system back, and its changing them that will make most difference to the sound. Everything else in the chain is fine, and, frankly, if you put in an nDAC Chord or Benchmark DAC you'd be pushing to hear the difference. The Wharfedales are average budget speakers and don't pretend to be other than that.

 

[xtsili]

So to make the long story short, the Yamaha AS700 desrves a better pair of speakers! (the dac is fine, the digital music is fine, the soundcard is fine).

But price wise (if this is a criterion to match the components of a system), the Diamonds 10.7 conform to the rule of thumb that speakers should represent 50% of the total system value. So in theory is an equal partner to the rest of the components. But there is always room of improvement and speakers are the first candidates.

 

[Anonymous]

Don't really think that's a hard and fast rule - have a look at my signature .

In the days of CD I'd say it would be more like 70% on speakers, but that's just my feeling.

 

[Craig M.]

Grottyash:I think you have this wrong. The V-DAC, with the improved power supply, is hard to better unless, as I said, you start looking at Benchmark or similar. Apart from having compared it to several others, including the Dacmagic and deciding there was little difference, reviews in some magazines - and I'm not a great believer in reviews per se - indicate that it's the equal of the MF m1 dac, which corresponds with my own conclusion.
But besides all that, the simple fact is, and I'd say that were the DAC Beresford, Dacmagic or whatever, it's the speakers which are holding the system back, and its changing them that will make most difference to the sound. Everything else in the chain is fine, and, frankly, if you put in an nDAC Chord or Benchmark DAC you'd be pushing to hear the difference. The Wharfedales are average budget speakers and don't pretend to be other than that.

i agree, i think you will get a bigger upgrade from the speakers.

 

[xtsili]

so I am coming back to my 1st question posted on top of this thread. No answers yet 🙂

 

[paradiziac]

xtsili:

I find the KEF XQ40 for 2100Euros in Athens which is quite a bargain!.

Will they lead my current system to a better performance given that I buy music from e-music and itunes (not the standard in high fidelilty digital format I must admit)?

Hi Xtsili,

I agree with previous posters that upgrading your speakers is going to make the biggest difference.

Also you can do a few "tweaks":

- check your cables, in my system an upgraded Wireworld USB cable made all the difference for me

- iTunes itself isn't the best sounding software, Foobar (PC) is clearer

I have found that the difference between mp3 (160 and above) and uncompressed CD quality wasn't that much at all once my computer/DAC connection was optimised, so don't worry too much about buying iTunes music (though personally I've started buying CDs again--sample in Spotify and then get the used CD on Amazon, very reasonable prices these days and useful in case your hard disk crashes!).

 

[xtsili]

thanks Paradiziac for you advice. My problem is that altough a decent system (still a budget one) it doesn't shine. That's why I am concerned trying to find out the weak link, be it the speakers, the dac etc.

Foobar is by far better than itunes, however I cannot configure it to have an i-tunes like interface. So I am stuck with itunes.

I'll check the cable you are suggesting altough I am not convinced that cables can make an audible difference - even the vdac made hardly a difference over the soundcard.

I am not into cds, I never been 🙂 It is too late for me to make a new begining and even more so in the era of computer based music.

So I may buy the KEFs as they are a bargain at this pice and see what happens - unless I take a ccompletely different route, active speakers that is to say.