Just thought that I would share my recent experience with buying a new piece of kit. A bit of a tale so bare with me😁 I have been a regular customer of Doug Brady's in Warrington over the years a great bunch of guys in there been a few times just for a listen to some gear have a coffee and chat. Anyway I arranged to go in for a session as I was thinking of up grading my Kef R3 Meta speakers not that there was anything really wrong with them it was just because I had upgraded my Amplifier 12 months ago to a Rega Aethos this made a significant difference to the sound quality and I think I just needed to scratch that itch that was did the Aethos need better speakers. So after spending a good part of the day there listing to a number of speakers in the price range I could afford nothing was doing it for me the only one's that I might have considered were the new Dali Rubikore 2.
But I couldn't take them home to try as they were needed for that week but I could and get them at the end of the week. Anyway a few days later I rang them and spoke to John one of the staff and said I was not going to bother with the Dali Speakers , he agreed that they weren't really a upgrade from my Kef's just a different sound and I would need to spend a big chunk of money to get Speakers considerably better. This is now where the Dac enters the story he suggested to me that I should actually look at my front end as my Amplifier and Speakers are excellent, my source components were a Bluesound Node and Arcam IrDac, I have had the Arcam Dac for 10 years as I always thought that it was well made and sounded good and the difference between Dac's was subtle at best. I told John this but he said that I should come in and he can set up the Aethos amp and Kef R3 Meta's with a Auralic Vega S1 Streaming Dac I had nothing to lose if I thought there was no difference i would just have a morning having coffee and listening to music.
So it was set up with the Node/Arcam into one input and the Vega S1 into another allowing me to stream tracks I knew and switch between the two inputs, well I have to say it didn't take long to realise that there was a substantial difference between the two the sound from the Auralic Vega was stunning, the clarity and detail were on another level the Node/Arcam sounded flat and compressed when switching back to them. Also vocals were so airy with superb texture and projected out into the room everything was so much more musical. I was pretty stunned to be honest as I really was expecting to not really hear much difference. So needless to say I bought one and have had it at home for a week now and I am so happy with it. I am now also going through my CD's using the Pure Dac mode which switches all the streaming side of things off, and again they all sound superb. So unless I win the lottery that's my system sorted very happy.
Cheers Kev.
System. Cambridge CXC Transport
Auralic Vega S1
Rega Aethos Amplifier
Kef R3 Meta's
Rel T/5x Sub
Sennheiser HD800s
But I couldn't take them home to try as they were needed for that week but I could and get them at the end of the week. Anyway a few days later I rang them and spoke to John one of the staff and said I was not going to bother with the Dali Speakers , he agreed that they weren't really a upgrade from my Kef's just a different sound and I would need to spend a big chunk of money to get Speakers considerably better. This is now where the Dac enters the story he suggested to me that I should actually look at my front end as my Amplifier and Speakers are excellent, my source components were a Bluesound Node and Arcam IrDac, I have had the Arcam Dac for 10 years as I always thought that it was well made and sounded good and the difference between Dac's was subtle at best. I told John this but he said that I should come in and he can set up the Aethos amp and Kef R3 Meta's with a Auralic Vega S1 Streaming Dac I had nothing to lose if I thought there was no difference i would just have a morning having coffee and listening to music.
So it was set up with the Node/Arcam into one input and the Vega S1 into another allowing me to stream tracks I knew and switch between the two inputs, well I have to say it didn't take long to realise that there was a substantial difference between the two the sound from the Auralic Vega was stunning, the clarity and detail were on another level the Node/Arcam sounded flat and compressed when switching back to them. Also vocals were so airy with superb texture and projected out into the room everything was so much more musical. I was pretty stunned to be honest as I really was expecting to not really hear much difference. So needless to say I bought one and have had it at home for a week now and I am so happy with it. I am now also going through my CD's using the Pure Dac mode which switches all the streaming side of things off, and again they all sound superb. So unless I win the lottery that's my system sorted very happy.
Cheers Kev.
System. Cambridge CXC Transport
Auralic Vega S1
Rega Aethos Amplifier
Kef R3 Meta's
Rel T/5x Sub
Sennheiser HD800s
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