I agree with you, until the person says they don’t want it. After that it’s a turn off, annoying at best and badgering otherwise. I’ve been on the unpleasant end of that and it takes the fun out of it. Just sayin.
I prefer to answer the questions asked, and will make suggestions like others do, unless the OP has already stated that’s not what they want. People have different goals for their systems, and that doesn’t necessarily make it wrong, just different. I get the source-first thing, but I believe it’s also about balance and what makes one happy.
Dunc - did you run your Superline with a SC2 or a SC2DR?
I’m wondering whether it really “needs” to be a DR or whether a serviced but non DR SC might be a better option.
Non dr, did think about dr, but I decided to go a different way as the costs for just a phone stage was getting silly, especially for the amount off vinyl I have
I think there is a bit of confusion over ‘streaming’ here. @cavemanz has a Uniti Core, so has a stored library of digital music. This makes an NDS a great suggestion as an alternative to the nDac. Rather than feeding the signal via a coax cable from the Core to the dac, the signal would be sent via ethernet cables over the home network. The NDS is a superb way of doing this and it may well be better than using the nDac.
What the OP doesn’t do is use internet streaming, so some of the new features of the new streamers aren’t relevant.
I asked above if the OP had already got dedicated mains and a good stand and don’t believe that was answered. I stick by my view that these should precede any hardware upgrade.
I’m not offended. I just think it’s odd that people will say they don’t want something and everyone jumps in afterwards to say they should spend thousands to get it anyway. It’s happened to me before here, and I found it so frustrating I gave up on trying to get an answer to my question. Enthusiasm turns to badgering sometimes. Maybe I’m out of line to say that.
I’m following the discussion with great interest. for myself could have spent money upgrading my preamp from 282 to 252 or 250DR to 300DR, but put my money in upgrading my source.
Would I have been happier with preamp or power amp upgrades. Here is the thing. I don’t feel any urge from upgrade my amplifiers at all.
I’m pretty sure putting money on source was the right thing to do, so I I would recommend to go from NDAC to NDS. That is what I would do.
yes everything sounds better with 552/500 but it still just opens the windows on the all important source. it is the source that drives the amplifier and speakers.
In this case the cost of upgrades are comparable, if not cheaper (250 to 300 v Dac to NDS) and no one is suggesting the OP couldn’t possible be happy unless he buys a statement!
The other week my daughter asked me for 5 pounds, I asked what for and she said I want to go into the city centre to meet a friend. So whilst she asked for 5 pounds what she really wanted was a lift to the city I.e. that was her nominal demand.
All I’m reading here is someone wants an upgrade, they have come on the forum with their thoughts and others, myself included, have shared our experience that there may be a better bang for buck going down a different option especially bearing the other boxes they already own (core).
In my case the source upgrade from NDAC to NDS was very sizeable and was bigger than previous jumps I have made in power amps albeit I have never owned a 250.2
I’ll park it there and leave it as with with the exception of the Brexit debate (none of us covered ourselves in glory in that thread!) this is a generally pleasant group of people with a passion for music.
I made the switch from 250dr to a 300dr with Sopra 3 speakers at the time. Then I switch to a 552, then it was to the 500dr. I may be in the minority, but from a 250 to a 300 wasn’t that big of a difference. Now from 250 to 500 was huge. But the change to the 500 was also to a 552 and 555, so the comparison is not fair. Upgrading is an addiction, it never ends. If you love your music now, I wouldn’t do anything (except add the nds).
On other threads I complain about this lack of punch on a song by Zeppelin, Kashmir. And that’s with my 500 series system. 40 years ago we fixed that by pushing the “loudness” button on low volume. Now I’m not “with it” because I want a loudness button or tone controls. My missing punch is the “bass”, yours may be something else. If possible, I would try and demo a 300 at home. Sound “memory” is so subjective and inaccurate. For that particular problem with your system it could be remedied by many things or maybe none, i.e. 300, fraim, speaker wires, different source, or may I be so bold SUBS. GOOD LUCK, I hope you find your solution.
When I was running a nDAC/555PS/282/SC/250.2/Focal 1028be and was thinking about upgrading the power amp I first had an in-store demo using a clone of my system but with Sopra 2s instead of my 1028be. The step from 250.2 to 250DR was ‘different’ but not huge. However when the 300DR was plugged into the system, the Sopra 2s seemed to grow significantly. The bass was the most obvious improvement in terms of scale but there was also more detail across the board. After a home demo I bought a 300DR and was pleased with it for some years. In my view the Sopra 2s really do step up when driven by a 300DR so I would encourage you to try it.
