I am aware of that, Val, but I'm just trying to get Martyn back to listening again. He has a preamp and I'm suggesting that he tries it.
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I am aware of that, Val, but I'm just trying to get Martyn back to listening again. He has a preamp and I'm suggesting that he tries it.
Whereas I appreciate the efforts to help me listen, I spoke to Stan about a week ago discussing the use of a lightspeed which he suggested I steer clear off for technical reasons beyond me or to difficult to explain. He emailed me and suggested someone was having reasonable results with an NVA passive preamp, this is not powered. the icon audio passive was the nearest thing I could find
The icon audio uses hard wired circuitry and uses a simple pot to control output many people use their CD players to drive active speakers. I couldn't get the Bushmaster to work through the Icon at all no distortion nothing apart from the severe motor boating which it initially displayed see the original post
I tried the Bushmaster straight from the Wadia dock this time nothing I reconnected my system into the Caiman lo and behold it played. Even manually connecting the right coax input.
I then tried a new connector direct from the Wadia and the Bushmaster worked via the headphone outlet ... Go figure.
Something I'm doing is fundamentally not right i am concerned that putting a powered preamp into the system may make things worse or colour the sound. I am not an electronics engineer but if the output from the DAC is high enough surely a straight wire with no gain is preferable now confused Martyn
Silly question - are your headphones permanently plugged in to the Bushmaster?
Good point - I believe that mutes the line outputs.
No they weren't I used the headphones to listen to the Wadia using a short length of coax and it worked for a period of time then stopped, plugged the Wadiia back into the Caiman as in my normal system voila back to normal.
Regards Martyn.
Martyn, can you separate out the two possible issues here please so that we can help you?
1) digital source is not being locked? What sources & cables have you tried? Are you verifying with headphones? Is it just the auto seek mode that doesn't work, or will it not lock manually?
2) locked source works via headphones but not out to a pasive/active preamp? What happens, do you get any sound at all? Have you tried a different preamp line level input?
Is this in the auto or manual mode? And did you try the Wadia again in the BM after that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Psion770
what are these technical reasons? i run mine through a lightspeed without probs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Psion770
I believe the reason will be due to the Bushmaster having a slightly high output impedance (due to it's passive output stage) and the lightspeed (and all other passive attenuators) having quite low input impedance and high output impedance.Quote:
Originally Posted by barry-potter
Simply by the nature of their designs they are theoretically a slightly bad match. They will work but you may not get the full dynamic range and frequency response that's possible as the DAC will be having a tougher time driving your amp. This is the unfortunate trade-off with passive attenuators.
The output impedance of the Bushmaster isn't very high though, so the effect is likely to be subtle. Especially if the input impedance of your power amp is high (50K plus).
I used my Caiman (with the passive output mod) with a passive attenuator feeding amps with both 50K and 100K input impedances. With both amps I seemed to get plenty of dynamic range etc. Results will vary between systems though depending the equipment used. I think Stan is just trying to ensure that his customers are getting the best out of his products, which is understandable. :)
Ah - that's interesting!
Over the last week or so I've been using a TVC passive pre with the Bushmaster, where previously I had used only active pre's, and the treble is just a tad rolled off and smooth. So I slipped in a slightly 'hot' interconnect and all is well with the world. :)
... mind you, some reviews of the TVC pre (a Bent Audio NOH) say that it's a bit on the smooth side, so it may not be down to interaction with the BM at all, just a characteristic of the pre.
Dynamics remain full-bloodied and pretty damn awesome from the BM!
I've got my bushmaster now but I can't easily do a comparison with my naim cd5i because I only have one set of analog phonos, chord crysalis. Is there an analog stereo phono you guys recommend?
We can recommend loads, but don't buy from a dealer, since they often add 250% at least to their buying price from makers who have a substantial range of cables to sell. Good basic interconnects can be got online from £20 or so (even cheaper of you know what to look out for), but now the Mark Grant HD1000 is around £50 and others here are doing similar priced wires, have a look here and see what floats your boat.
I'm not so familiar with the specs of TVC's but from the bits I've read I think they might have better input and output impedances compared against the more usual types of passive attenuators. So a TVC might be a better match with the BM than say a stepped ladder attenuator.Quote:
Originally Posted by jandl100
Out of interest, what was the "hot" interconnect you used?
In theory a cable with very low capacitance should help in this situation.
Ha ha - oops! - here goes my "audiophile credibility" -- again! :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by HighFidelityGuy
:whistle: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=180935954190
Stupidly low price, but very very transparent. But a little forward in the upper regions - which suits my TVC passive pre perfectly. :thumbsup:
Thanks Jerry. Belkin make some good cables from what I hear. I bought some of those silver ones that everyone went mad for a while ago. Unfortunately I put them away in a safe place for later use and now I've lost them. :doh: Hopefully I'll find them soon.
That sounds familiar... :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by HighFidelityGuy
What - you did that with your marbles? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by synsei
I lost those years ago Alex when I mis-laid my other head... :ner:
I was listening to my BM last night and found it a bit fatiguing, at least that's what I think it was. I have metal tweaters and I've removed the grills. I do find that vocals are very prominent with the dac compared to my old naim cdp. It could just be that I'm not used to music being as revealing as this. I've got my old squeezebox playing some flacs rather than my pc now though so may be a different spdif source will help the situation. For the moment it sounds to me like the treble is the cause of my issues..
The Bushmaster has a set of very low noise power rails and a passive output stage. These two combine to allow playback of frequency details that would otherwise get lost in the signal to noise ratio of a DAC or CD/DVD player.
Try some poor quality phono cables. Many of them introduce a significant amount of attenuation of the treble, which would in turn reduce the amount of detail in the music and perhaps bring the BM more in line with the frequency response of your Naim CD player.
Hi Stan,
Thanks for you message. I've just had a chat with another hi-fi geek at work and he suspects that it might be jitter from my poor spdif sources, an old slimdevices squeezebox or my asus motherboard. I'm going to try out a m2tech hiface 2 and see if I get a better sound with that. It does seem to be male vocals that were the problem. I was listening to blur parklife when I noticed it most.
Sometimes it can just be down to a more revealing system. Perhaps more revealing in the top end than the in the studio.. they are still reliant on good sounding DACs and monitors afterall.Quote:
Originally Posted by gilesw
I recently did a swap that got me some JAS Audio Oriors. The ribbon tweeter feels like it is very fast, detailed and extended.
Listening to Radio 3, is a mixed bag now! Speech can be sibilant and a little irritating but get to the music and it sounds fantastic - immediate and open in the treble. (and of course that is with bandwidth limited FM)
With CDs it's fine too in the top end - quite sweet when that's how it is, hard and fast when the sound is like that (on some electronica, noise music).
So, yes.. a more revealing system perhaps showing up sibilance from BBC presenters now but not from other things.
CAn you compare using two identical but cheap interconnects?Quote:
Originally Posted by gilesw
Another thing I'd recommend you try are THESE
They're felt rings that you put round your tweeters that help to tone down treble by reducing reflections. They can also help improve the stereo image. I have a pair and found they found they did both. I didn't have a problem with harsh treble at first but it got worse the more revealing my system got. So it sounds like you're in a similar boat.
If they won't fit your speakers then THIS company will make you a custom set.
The Russ Andrews ones are great value for money though, which is something I find can rarely be said about his products. :D
Thanks for that bit advice Dave. I'd forgotten about that kind of thing and might give it a go on mine.Quote:
Originally Posted by HighFidelityGuy
Jim, from Diffraction Be Gone, is a member here of long standing. If you buy from him, be sure to mention AoS.
Some of his postings are interesting - try this one
Well I've finally got to do some testing after a hectic weekend. I ordered a mark grant coax cable in the week so I thought of something I hadn't tried, using the coax output of my old squeezebox rather than the optical. I'm not totally sure yet but I think that the treble problems are much better with this output I haven't found it tiring yet... So I think my problems are jitter related, and the coax output is marginally better in that regard.
The hiface2 is arriving next week so I'll get to try things straight from my pc. Keith @purite audio is also sending my a young dac to demo. I hope for the sake of my bank balance that doesn't sound much better!
I am using a Squeezebox SB3 with flac files off a NAS and then spdif co-ax (Belden 1694A) out to the BM and the performance is pretty amazing, especially vocals
Hi Maxrob200,
That's the config I'm using now. I've also got some of the markgrant analog cables and a linear power supply. I'm not sure how much difference those components make but I could definitely tell a difference after swapping that digi coax. I'm going to try swapping out the other cables tonight after a decent listening session.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jandl100
I wish Bushmaster has those fonts.
If there is one like this I am ordering straight away Stan
I meant this one!Quote:
Originally Posted by Jamtoast
is the bushmaster dac back up for sale again, as I haven't received an email stating there is no longer a waiting list?, put my details on the waiting list a few weeks ago, how much is it please and as I say can i buy one??
Wayne
Seriously?Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayne C
After seeing this today it didn't come across as I intended, it looked kind of rude. What I was getting at was just go to the site and order, Stan is willing and able to sell his products:)
Hi Wayne,Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayne C
I sent you an email to say they are back in stock, and I replied to your email last night. I haven't had a response from you in either case which would suggest that my emails are not reaching you. Check your spam box to see if my replies have been treated as spam.
60% of the time, when I try to change inputs I end up having to faff around to get the bushmaster to find a signal. In what I take to be auto mode it just keeps cycling then in frustration I press the select button but try as a might it takes ages of faffing to get it to work what am I doing wrong ?
must be me because I haven't seen any other issues reported
It has been discussed and I asked to be sent an email with details of the source equipment used.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.Ian
Just wondering if there is any news regarding the variable version Bushmaster?
After some starting minor niggles, is the Bushmaster still getting any minor updates or is the layout/electronics pretty much in their final implementation? Thanks
What's wrong with the layout :scratch:? There hasn't been any niggles reported with that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Legendz
I think I remember seeing in the early pages some input droping / auto detect problems? Sorry if I didn't explained myself carefully.
Despite needing the USB feature I'm really keen to try the BS. Would a usb to spdif adapter work flawlessly or will I loose audio quality somewhere in the path?
I don't use a standard USB adapter myself, but many people do and they are perfectly happy with the ones they bought.
I use a wireless USB to TOSLINK adapter made by Onkyo, but they don't make them (like that) any more.
:deceased: :deceased:
Bloody quiet in here, innit??
Marco.
All the chatter is on the Logitech forum about the discontinuance of the Squeezebox, which is very sad.
MKIIQuote:
Originally Posted by Marco
can you link it if it is related to Bushmaster?Quote:
Originally Posted by Labarum
I would like to continue to follow posts about Bushmaster
Only to the extent that the Squeezebox streamers work very well with all Stan's Dacs.Quote:
Originally Posted by RoboCopper
http://forums.slimdevices.com/forumd...ral-Discussion
I'm glad I sent mine back now, I predicted this was on the cards - a real shame however for all the faithful followers of the Touch.Quote:
Originally Posted by Labarum
What do you mean? I am from another planet :), not sure what is going on?Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim
It doesn't bother me as I have one and it suffices for my needs, which will always be secondary to my two primary sources. As for the Bushmaster, it's great, what else needs to be said? :eyebrows:
I've had Nick's (Lurcher) loaner ultra quite PSU for a week now on evaluation.
Been using an sBooster with the standard SMPS unit and been very happy with it although I did struggle to hear much of an improvement using it in my system. Over at the Coherent Sounds meet I did hear a small improvement in top end smoothness so its doing something right but its not a patch on Nick's PSU!
There's a clear improvement...the presentation is one of ease and depth, clear separation of voice and instruments all with better texture and detail. Really good.
I've known Nick for quite a few years and know what he's capable of but this took me by surprise! Nice One Nick.
A highly recommended upgrade! :)