PAROXYSMAL DISCHARGE

If the ultimate goal is the best sound possible, there is no point in taking little intermediate steps when upgrading as that will just throwing money away. So with the speakers, I bought the best I could possibly afford. I would very much like to continue in the same way with all other components, but the research and auditioning is tiring work, when all I want is for it to be over with so I can forget the model names and technical data and just play music. This longing makes it dangerously tempting to slip into a mindset of looking for good enough rather than the best possible equipment. To trick myself into maintaining focus and determination, I’ll go over less optimal upgrade paths first and save the dreamy swooning over ultimate fantasy rigs for later posts.

A problem with integrateds is that you can’t upgrade single components. In my case it’s not just pre and power amplifiers that are in a single hull, but also DAC and DSP room correction. I can’t buy a new DAC since the amp has no analogue inputs, and with no analogue outputs other than speaker terminals, I can’t use it as a preamplifier either.

I actually can play vinyl still, but it’s cumbersome; My DJ Mixer also functions as a USB sound card. This means that it has built-in AD/DA. But to get that digital signal to the amp, I have to connect the USB to my Macbook Pro and then use it’s jitter-ridden optical output to the amp. Not only do I get USB and optical cables hanging like trip wires through the livingroom, but it also occupies my computer. On top of that, I don’t think the A/D of the mixer is quite top notch, regardless of how well its analogue parts perform. So to solve the most immediate problem which is that of vinyl playback, I’d need a proper A/D converter.

I’ve bought a Roland JP-8000 synthesizer, but I haven’t used it yet since I don’t have a sound card with MIDI. I could actually solve that as well as the ADC issue with a higher quality firewire sound interface, which I could also use for ripping vinyl to FLAC (Ican with the mixer too, but there’s that ADC quality concern…). But in order to make that investment really worthwhile, it should have a really good DAC section too. The RME Fireface 400 looks to be one of the finer products in the category (compared with cheaper options like still fairly potent TC Konnekt 24D) but considering how many things it does for the price, its digital circuitry is unlikely to stand even a sliver of a chance against something from Weiss or other single-purpose hardware. But those on the other hand are so expensive that I’d be better off putting that money towards an analogue amplifier, as the very point of the ADC route is to spend less money by getting to keep the Lyngdorf amp.

There is some middle ground however; The Metric Halo ULN2 is an external firewire interface just like the RME unit. At more than twice its price it’s still half of what I last saw the Weiss ADC list for, so it’s somewhat viable. The ULN2 has been getting a lot of attention in the computer audiophile circuit, where it’s used as a DAC. So I could then get an ADC to use with the Lyngdorf for now (and for vinyl ripping) as well as a good DAC for later when I upgrade the amp, and not immediately feel the need to upgrade again. So far so good, but of course there’s a drawback: It doesn’t have MIDI, so I’d still need a separate unit for music production. At it’s price, I would have needed all three legs to stand on to justify the purchase.

Even if I were to find the equivalent of a ULN2 with MIDI, I’d have to move it from the studio room to the livingroom each time I wanted to play vinyl. It would also mean that I couldn’t be making music in one room while my girlfriend plays vinyl in the other, so ultimately this path will not lead to a satisfactory solution. Perhaps if I found some sort of decent quality ADC for €100 or so, I could justify the purchase as a temporary fix. But it feels very uncomfortable pursuing a solution that is so short sighted and flawed. Back to the drawing board…