Lastly, the DAC itself completes the signal chain. And don’t forget the separate disc transport – I still use physical media now and then. That leads to a USB to SPDIF converter, and yet another outboard power source. Then comes a USB decrapifier powered by an external PSU. My reference system starts with a music server fed by an external linear power supply. Now my friends are giving me grief about it… and, I must admit, they have a point. My system sounds better than it ever has but at the cost of being vastly more complex. Those were the days.įast forward to the present, and the tables have turned. Meanwhile, my single-box solution was plug-n-play. I routinely gave my vinyl-loving friends a hard time about how many components they needed – table, tonearm, cartridge, stylus, phono stage, etc – and how complex it was to achieve an optimal setup. All I wanted/needed back then was a CD player, and I rambled my way through many of the best available at the time: Sony, Krell, McIntosh, Wadia, Lector, Meridian, Electrocompaniet, Simaudio, Linn, and Esoteric. Simplicity – does your system have it? Do you wish it did? I recall the good old days when my entire playback chain consisted of one box.

Elyse free blu ray ripper