Hi FR, as vinyl has pulled even further ahead of streaming since the arrival of the very RED cartridge, we need a pre-amp to accommodate all the inputs.
There is also the small matter of a pre-amp which costs one and a half times the cost of a whole DAVE, so it should do better than DAVE’s built in pre-amp.
On streamers, DCS, MSB and possibly the new Linn one are on the shortlist, though there is plenty of time (a year) for the list to change.
Servers and Ethernet switches are also up for change if that’s where the benefit lies. No rush though.
We are incredibly fortunate to enjoy music at this level as it is. We’re currently playing Led Zeppelin’s Celebration Day concert on vinyl at realistic volumes and can’t stop grinning. It doesn’t get much better than this!
This approach has worked superbly for me too. I don’t shout it from the rooftops on the Naim forum, that seems a little unreasonable despite the openness here. It was never my intention to move away from Naim either, but having found a system that sounds better, costs less and has 3 fewer boxes has been a revelation. Easier for me too, as I no longer have an analogue source.
Not sure in what way price of a preamp compared to price of Dave in any way indicates that it “should” sound better than the Dave without a preamp? A stand-alone preamp capable of taking low level analogue signals, switching and amplifying them up to the level Dave outputs is doing an awful lot more than the output circuitry of Dave, so an even half decent preamp should cost very considerably more than Dave’s output circuitry. And the cost of the digital and conversion circuitry/ algorithms of a DAC bear no resemblance to any part of a preamp so price of one is completely immaterial compared to the other! They are simply different beasts, regardless of which is more expensive than the other. (This is not an observation on whether or not Dave sounds better direct to power amp or through whatever pre you chose to the same power amp, as I’m sure I won’t have heard/compared that preamp.)
The short answer is no, I didn’t get to listen to them, I was sadly short on time.
I did though listen to the Kaya 25’s, the 12’s big brother, which are just out of shot in this picture.
I thought they were very impressive, and probably my preferred option above the 12’s, and even possibly the 45’s - on a purely on design spec alone.
Though a little out of my current price range, I plan to return and listen to the 45’s soon.
Would defiantly recommend giving the Vivid range a listen.
And how’s the Denon tuner holding up? I have the same model and still listen some local radio stations from it every now and then, although the NDX2 gets most of the torque with Radio Paradise these days.
Time for a few pictures. Listening to some good music while the sun is setting outside. The home office system (LP12/200/202) is taking a break while I’m enjoying the new speakers in the living room.
