Vicioussid
02-10-2009, 01:15
Hi Everyone,
My name is Tomas aka Vicioussid, in my 30's. This is my first ever forum that I have joined. I'm located in Sydney Australia. My interest in music are mainly Metal but I have leanings to Jazz and Classical as well.
Metal bands I'm into vary from Alice In Chains to Zakk Wylde, extreme (Black Metal) stuff like Immortal, Satyricon, Dimmu Borgir - Melodic Death Metal > Soilwork, Arch Enemy, In Flames - Thrash - Kreator, Sodom, Coroner - Metal (your potato variety) Metallica, Corrosion of conformity, Black Sabbath - 80's metal - MSG, Iron Maiden, Blue Murder and so on.
Jazz - a lot of the 60's material John Coltrane (all his material) Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson. Lately I've been getting into the ECM label a fair bit with the likes of Tomasz Stanko, Tord Gustavsen Trio, Bobo Stenson Trio, Jan Garbarek, David Darling and the like.
Classical - a lot of Johann Sebastian Bach, love the work of cellist Pierre Fournier (JSB Six Suites for Solo Cello + Dvorák: Cello Concerto; Tchaikovsky / Karajan, Rostropovich). There are some excellent soundtracks too - Sunshine, Solaris, Aliens, Blade Runner, ok there seems to be a slight Sci Fi leaning. Also some more ambient stuff like Lisa Gerrard etc
Rock as well - Neil Young, Nick Cave, Iggy Pop stuff from the 70's, 80's, 90's and now.
I guess musically I lean to melancholy kind of material.
Sorry am I rambling on?
Anyway, how did I find you guys? well it all started with me being interested in a little thing called a DAC. I've been listening to music since forever and only about a year ago started buying some decent hi fi items. Previously it has been handme-downs from here and there.
My first major item was the Pro-ject Debut Esprit turntable which was hooked up to a Pioneer AV Receiver with a built in Phone (90's model). 5 mths ago I bought the NAD C326BEE Int. Amp and the Cambridge Audio Azur 540P MM Phono. Now, I have more digital music (250GB. 120GB Metal / 30GB Classical - the rest a mixture) than vinyl (350+) so the next step was the DAC. I have been looking at the CA DacMagic but the price here is murder ($700), so I had a look on eBay for a cheaper price, maybe get it from the states. There I found cheaper dacs made in china and the like, AUNE HIFIDIY.NET Mini USB DAC + Headphone Amp MK2, Zero DAC and the more expensive (US$350) Matrix mini-i 24/192 Balanced DAC + Headphone Amp. it was however hard o get any reviews and I always fell back to the DacMagic. I would go to forums and read reviews and than it happened someone mentioned the Bereford Dac, first the TC-7510 and then the TC-7520 and finally the Caiman. The price was great and the reviews were getting better and better as you go up the model number. For a while the 20 was the only one available and it seemed just a tad under the CA DM Dac, but price wise on par. I than stumbled onto AoS and you guys raved about it and the Caiman was mentioned. Now this Dac just got better and better, it had the Wolfsen Chip the Opamps and it has the Headphone amp above the CA DacMagic, so that was it, all I have to do is get my hands on it.
I checked with the Aus distributor but no luck, they even said the Caiman is only available to AOS members in the UK. Noooooooooo! So there was my music domination shattered. So I was reading different threads on AoS and found some on the Caiman, you know hidden web pages and all, but some how got onto the Caimen page and it had a contact at the bottom, so I gave it a go and within hours Stanley contacted me and let me know he had the Caiman in stock ready to send. Wow everything is going to be ok. I ordered on the 26th Sep and it has arrived today 2nd Oct. Its at the Post office so won't get it until tonight but I can't wait.
So I guess I want to thank you guys for the info. I have already learned how to spec up the Mac audio from another member so I'm sure this will continue. I have some issues with electrical interference with all my hi fi gear - a low hum/noise - on my turntable(is earthed to Phono amp), amp (it slightly stops when I touch the amp chassis) and more obviously on my active headphones which I'll seek to get some advice from you guys. It might be an Earthing issues.
Sorry if this has become a bit of an essay, but I thought I might get it all out now.
My name is Tomas aka Vicioussid, in my 30's. This is my first ever forum that I have joined. I'm located in Sydney Australia. My interest in music are mainly Metal but I have leanings to Jazz and Classical as well.
Metal bands I'm into vary from Alice In Chains to Zakk Wylde, extreme (Black Metal) stuff like Immortal, Satyricon, Dimmu Borgir - Melodic Death Metal > Soilwork, Arch Enemy, In Flames - Thrash - Kreator, Sodom, Coroner - Metal (your potato variety) Metallica, Corrosion of conformity, Black Sabbath - 80's metal - MSG, Iron Maiden, Blue Murder and so on.
Jazz - a lot of the 60's material John Coltrane (all his material) Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson. Lately I've been getting into the ECM label a fair bit with the likes of Tomasz Stanko, Tord Gustavsen Trio, Bobo Stenson Trio, Jan Garbarek, David Darling and the like.
Classical - a lot of Johann Sebastian Bach, love the work of cellist Pierre Fournier (JSB Six Suites for Solo Cello + Dvorák: Cello Concerto; Tchaikovsky / Karajan, Rostropovich). There are some excellent soundtracks too - Sunshine, Solaris, Aliens, Blade Runner, ok there seems to be a slight Sci Fi leaning. Also some more ambient stuff like Lisa Gerrard etc
Rock as well - Neil Young, Nick Cave, Iggy Pop stuff from the 70's, 80's, 90's and now.
I guess musically I lean to melancholy kind of material.
Sorry am I rambling on?
Anyway, how did I find you guys? well it all started with me being interested in a little thing called a DAC. I've been listening to music since forever and only about a year ago started buying some decent hi fi items. Previously it has been handme-downs from here and there.
My first major item was the Pro-ject Debut Esprit turntable which was hooked up to a Pioneer AV Receiver with a built in Phone (90's model). 5 mths ago I bought the NAD C326BEE Int. Amp and the Cambridge Audio Azur 540P MM Phono. Now, I have more digital music (250GB. 120GB Metal / 30GB Classical - the rest a mixture) than vinyl (350+) so the next step was the DAC. I have been looking at the CA DacMagic but the price here is murder ($700), so I had a look on eBay for a cheaper price, maybe get it from the states. There I found cheaper dacs made in china and the like, AUNE HIFIDIY.NET Mini USB DAC + Headphone Amp MK2, Zero DAC and the more expensive (US$350) Matrix mini-i 24/192 Balanced DAC + Headphone Amp. it was however hard o get any reviews and I always fell back to the DacMagic. I would go to forums and read reviews and than it happened someone mentioned the Bereford Dac, first the TC-7510 and then the TC-7520 and finally the Caiman. The price was great and the reviews were getting better and better as you go up the model number. For a while the 20 was the only one available and it seemed just a tad under the CA DM Dac, but price wise on par. I than stumbled onto AoS and you guys raved about it and the Caiman was mentioned. Now this Dac just got better and better, it had the Wolfsen Chip the Opamps and it has the Headphone amp above the CA DacMagic, so that was it, all I have to do is get my hands on it.
I checked with the Aus distributor but no luck, they even said the Caiman is only available to AOS members in the UK. Noooooooooo! So there was my music domination shattered. So I was reading different threads on AoS and found some on the Caiman, you know hidden web pages and all, but some how got onto the Caimen page and it had a contact at the bottom, so I gave it a go and within hours Stanley contacted me and let me know he had the Caiman in stock ready to send. Wow everything is going to be ok. I ordered on the 26th Sep and it has arrived today 2nd Oct. Its at the Post office so won't get it until tonight but I can't wait.
So I guess I want to thank you guys for the info. I have already learned how to spec up the Mac audio from another member so I'm sure this will continue. I have some issues with electrical interference with all my hi fi gear - a low hum/noise - on my turntable(is earthed to Phono amp), amp (it slightly stops when I touch the amp chassis) and more obviously on my active headphones which I'll seek to get some advice from you guys. It might be an Earthing issues.
Sorry if this has become a bit of an essay, but I thought I might get it all out now.