Article: Part 1: RAAL-requisite SR1a Earfield Headphone Monitor & HSA-1b Headphone & Speaker Amplifier Review

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1 hour ago, taipan254 said:

I've been waiting for this review for what seems like ages - Rajiv (with Taiko Extreme and PGGB) vs. the most hyped headphone system yet.

Part 2 is where the rubber meets the road. Coming very soon!

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1 hour ago, Sagittarius said:

Thanks Rajiv,

If I remember correctly from another review, you had a clock that synchronized the SOTM and Uptone Audio network switches and a USB interface. Did you remove it after adding the Taiko server?

 

 

Yes, there has been a sea change in my approach after I bought the Extreme, and more recently, due to my use of PGGB. I used to have a Mutec REF10 SE120 reference clock supplying a 10 MHz reference to the eR, the sNH-10G, and a tX-USBultra. The tX turned out to be unnecessary, and in fact an impediment, in the Extreme's USB chain. As for the network, I now live by the credo "no network is better than the best network." Since all my critical listening is with local PGGBed files, I just hit play and power down the switch chain. The only time my 3 switches as shown are active during playback is for non-critical discovery listening with Roon/Qobuz/HQPlayer. A reference clock is overkill for this use case.

 

For more discussion, see the section "Dispensing with the network" in my post from earlier this summer: 

 

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Part 2 of the review is now available.