See other threads. Many here with 82 or 282 went from 1 Hicap to 2 and several them got a Supercap. Of course, the Supercap is needed if and when you want a 52 or 252 anyway.
Many reckon that adding a second Hicap is good but that replacing both with a Supercap is a bigger step. I am in the minority who thought both changes real but modest. Mind you, I thought going from 82 to 52 (or 282 to 252) to be a much bigger upgrade. To me, a Supercap’s key virtue is that it moves you toward an even better preamp.
Other disagree with vigour, so the right answer clearly varies with at least one of ears/ system/ room/other. Given that, why not hear a Supercap and then see what you think?
I tested with a SuperCap Nick and decided that my twin HiCap config was genuinely as good as it gets for a 282 for me.
If I were considering a 252 then I definitely would have gone SuperCap, but I will jump straight to 552 if I ever decide to upgrade again.
Gosh, I just looked that up, what a lovely shoe-box streamer. It can even be upgraded with a seperate power supply. And you can plug in a CD drive to play or rip CDs. Very nice, and the Aurelic app is very good too. Wait, there’s more - an analogue ladder volume control, so I guess you can use that with a fixed volume level on the NAIT50 for remote volume control. A perfect 2 box setup really.
The Vega S1 is a streaming DAC, but the streaming side can completely be turned off, and used in direct DAC mode. If one has a separate streamer, it could be an option.
I’ve tried it with my Innuos ZenMini3 and there is definitely an uplift in sound quality.
I absolutely would have bought a Nait 50/ND50 pairing if they done it. Coupled to a pair of PMC Prodigy 1’s, it would have been my perfect bedroom system🤷🏻♂️
From the Auralic marketing material I understand that when used in Direct DAC mode the Vaga S1 shuts down all streaming sections and uses its on board memory to cache the incoming data before sending it to the DAC section. So they claim this improves SQ.
I have not done extensive testing, but from simply going from streamer/DAC to just DAC, I noticed an uplift in SQ, but maybe that was just a placebo effect
Thanks. No I think you could be correct in your findings. There is a definite difference in sq between my Aries G1 played in to the Vega G2.1 when compared to the Vega G2.1 on board streamer. How that is I don’t know. Whether that is in the streaming chip, or the implementation in the internal circuits, power feeds etc I don’t know. I can’t seem to find any explanation on the web even though a number of reviews of transports do note that there are differences between streaming transports.
and the nice thing is that there is that PSU option for the Vega S1. Which I think would lift it up or even exceed what the unit sounds like in Direct DAC mode, on its own.
I have the Innuos streamer so will probably use it with the Vega as a Dac only, for now.
I also prefer the Sense App on the Innuos better. it’s more visual and to me bit more intuitive. But that could be due to only using the Lightning DS app for a few days.
Could not find Radio Paradise FLAC stream in the DS app for instance.
