With a serious case of frigid weather induced cabin fever, this morning I decided to take the best of my spare gear and put it in my bedroom. This also happened because I didn't feel like carrying the VAC PA 100/100 upstairs.
So in place of the amazing but 15wpc Leben CS-300x, running off of my BlueSound Vault2 as a source, underpowering my Elac UB-5s.... I ended up with this.
All of which needs a good dusting, as the DAC and preamp have been unused for many months if not a year.
The signal begins with the aforementioned BlueSound Vault2, a streaming device/music server. It's loaded with several hundred CDs and counting, and also streams Tidal.
From there via Coax we get to the BMC PureDAC, which is also a very good balanced headphone amplifier and digital preamp with well handled volume control.
After that, we get to the Bel Canto SEP-2 preamp. From the owner's manual:
"The SEP2 gain stage is a zero loop-feedback single-ended triode design. This gain stage provides high gain and low noise with very low distortion and low output impedance for load drive. It uses a pair of dual 6DJ8/6922 triodes having long life and ready availability. The output is coupled through a selected Polypropylene film and foil capacitor...."
Blah blah blah inverts output so switch the speaker outputs on the amp.
After that comes the gigantic and gigantic sounding VAC PA 100/100, which sounds better with an active tube line stage ahead of it than an all-warts-revealed transformer volume control. And it grabs the Elacs and throws then around quite nicely. "Please show us some mercy!" they say.
Which is to say, the Speakers are the Elac Uni-Fi UB5s, finally on proper stands dug out from the wilds of the basement with only a sore back and a great improvement in sound to show for it.
The last little bit? Audeze LCD-2 headphones.
It's all just warming up, but man..it sounds awesome.
So in place of the amazing but 15wpc Leben CS-300x, running off of my BlueSound Vault2 as a source, underpowering my Elac UB-5s.... I ended up with this.
All of which needs a good dusting, as the DAC and preamp have been unused for many months if not a year.
The signal begins with the aforementioned BlueSound Vault2, a streaming device/music server. It's loaded with several hundred CDs and counting, and also streams Tidal.
From there via Coax we get to the BMC PureDAC, which is also a very good balanced headphone amplifier and digital preamp with well handled volume control.
After that, we get to the Bel Canto SEP-2 preamp. From the owner's manual:
"The SEP2 gain stage is a zero loop-feedback single-ended triode design. This gain stage provides high gain and low noise with very low distortion and low output impedance for load drive. It uses a pair of dual 6DJ8/6922 triodes having long life and ready availability. The output is coupled through a selected Polypropylene film and foil capacitor...."
Blah blah blah inverts output so switch the speaker outputs on the amp.
After that comes the gigantic and gigantic sounding VAC PA 100/100, which sounds better with an active tube line stage ahead of it than an all-warts-revealed transformer volume control. And it grabs the Elacs and throws then around quite nicely. "Please show us some mercy!" they say.
Which is to say, the Speakers are the Elac Uni-Fi UB5s, finally on proper stands dug out from the wilds of the basement with only a sore back and a great improvement in sound to show for it.
The last little bit? Audeze LCD-2 headphones.
It's all just warming up, but man..it sounds awesome.
