I'm one of those HIFI guys that's slowly figuring out what works and what doesn't work for me. This won't be well written or anything, it's just my random experience so far. I hooked up my Cherry Maraschino inline monos to my Magnepan LRS+ with a Chord Qutest into a tube preamp with an Orchard Audio RCA to XLR converter. Sounds great. Then, I unhooked the preamp and Qutest and ran my SMSL DO200 DAC directly to the Cherry amps since it's a balanced DAC and used it as a volume control. Still sounded really good. I honestly couldn't tell much difference. Streamer is an iFi Zen Stream.
I'm starting to think that as long as the gear is competently made, the less expensive digital stuff is so good these days that you're not at a disadvantage at all, not like you may have been years ago. I wasn't expecting a huge difference but I'm impressed by the SMSL. I tried my Gato Audio AMP-150AE on the Magnepans and the Cherries blow the Gato out of the water. Magnepans really do seem to thrive on power. The Gato is no slouch either - it's an excellent integrated. Anyway, that's my story. I'm on the hunt for a new preamp/dac/streamer combo if anybody has any suggestions. Leaning towards an Orchard Audio Pecan Pi+. I like Leo's gear, sounds killer and priced right.
I'm starting to think that as long as the gear is competently made, the less expensive digital stuff is so good these days that you're not at a disadvantage at all, not like you may have been years ago. I wasn't expecting a huge difference but I'm impressed by the SMSL. I tried my Gato Audio AMP-150AE on the Magnepans and the Cherries blow the Gato out of the water. Magnepans really do seem to thrive on power. The Gato is no slouch either - it's an excellent integrated. Anyway, that's my story. I'm on the hunt for a new preamp/dac/streamer combo if anybody has any suggestions. Leaning towards an Orchard Audio Pecan Pi+. I like Leo's gear, sounds killer and priced right.
