What was the last bit of gear you bought in 2023?

Ifi Zen Stream in to replace Yamaha wxad10 streamer.

Nice uplift in SQ and Yam on the way to daughters system.

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An MCRU power supply gives a nice noise cleanup on the ZenStream. I admit, the digital interconnect and power supply cost more than the ZenStream but it seems worth it.

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Leading me astray FZ, funnily enough was on Ifi site as I remembered seeing they did upgraded power supplies and just checked to see if the upgrade one was any different to the one in the box, looks like it is and about £70.

I’m going to let in settle in for a while before having a look but thanks for the heads up.

Currently sitting on wallet to fight the urge to get the new Nait 50, I’ve only just got the Technics and about to box up and send the Densen’s back for service etc.

When i was doing demo’s for a new streamer I directly compared a Lumin P1 in preamp mode into a Ultima 6 driving Wilson Audio Sasha Dawe speakers and it easily beat the Lumin P1 in streamer mode into 252/SCDR/300DR the Ultima 6 had so much more power, control, grip and speed.

When I was demoing for a power amp upgrade it came down to the Ultima 6 against Lumin’s Amp and with my Focal speakers with the Beryllium tweeters the Ultima 6 was just too bright for them so went for the Lumin Amp to perfectly match the Lumin P1 streamer/dac/preamp.

Very impressed with the Ultima 6 though.

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Selekt DSM Edition with dual mono Organik DACs.
Now I understand Space Optimisation. TT, digital and AV input (unity gain)…all with no bass boom, bass decay now just that (not room bass decay). Room effects banished. Just dynamic music.

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I bought second hand an Audioquest Vodka Ethernet cable at a great price. More clarity, resolution and better contour in the bass compared to the Audioquest Cinnamon. Nice upgrade.

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How do you find it at low volume levels?

Spent a couple of hours this afternoon doing a detailed comparison of my Beyerdynamic T5 Gen 3 headphones against Focal Stellia’s. Same streamer source, Violectric V380 headphone amp and balanced headphone cables. Very little difference between them for my 62 year old ears, maybe the Stellia’s were very marginally better with a wee bit more bass and resolution, they were more neutral sounding compared to the slightly more forward sounding T5’s which boogied more, which I liked better.
I wont be spending more money to upgrade as the very small sound quality improvement does not justify the large cost investment.
It was good to scratch the itch of potential upgrade as the Stellia’s get rave reviews, Im now really happy with what I already have.

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Nice! I have one too. It was previously placed at the centre between the speakers but has been moved to one corner of the room just lately.

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Mojo1 to 2

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Do you feel the mojo 2 is better? If so in what ways?

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More open, and faster, and the dsp is excellent and it run’s cooler . Still retains the original mojo’s musicality but is cleaner

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Hmm, I have stellias as well!

Indeed…it was always going to be the game changer for me when I could also SO my TT and R/L AV inputs. Didn’t really know how much influence the room actually had…but that’s gone now

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It’s very good at low volumes, to be honest it’s consistently good

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It is getting better. I am wondering if a Audioquest Niagara 3000 might give it some extra.
It is now connected on a blacknoise eight. Separate power group.

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