Had no real plans to change anything, except maybe a dac, if I saw anything nice second hand.
First off was a Young dac, not with the battery supply unfortunately, but with an upgraded power supply.
As suspected this showed the previous dac, a MF v90 a clean pair of heels. And the Wyred4Sound I was using between Yamaha multidisc player and dac still, even with the much better dac, gave a worthwhile improvement.
Next after missing an Audiolab CDT, the vendor kindly alerted me to a demo model Brady's was selling for less than some people were asking for s/h.
It duly arrived, and gave a very obvious uplift in SQ, I was very happy, and the system sounded better than it ever had by quite some margin. Who would have thought houskeeping of digits would pay off so handsomely?
So, although the system now sounded pretty ace, there was some uneveness in the bass, a room issue.
When a Dspeaker antimode 2 came up on a forum, I jumped. While I was awaiting arrival, I pondered exactly how to connect it, utilising the Young dac and the Wyred4Sound. I went for CDT to Dspeaker, digital out, to Wyred4Sound to Young dac, out to my pre, a silver S & B transformer pre I had built myself.
This made the largest difference of any upgrade yet. Less bass, but it went deeper. More space and depth, bigger and more solid and palpable soundstage. Clarity plus.
The final purchase, and the most expensive, was a s/h Alegri plus. The silver traffo pre was retired to my workshop system, displacing a Khozmo to good effect.
As far as the Alegri went, it was the poorest sound for pound improvement - better space, more delicate treble, more space around bass instuments. But a far smaller transformation than the dspeaker had wrought.
The rest of the system is bi wired bi amped JBL 4430 clones with Harmon Kardon PA 2400 amps. Cabled with cotton dielectric silver/copper interconnects of my own construction.
Workshop system - Urei 811As with home built subs, Luxkit amp, Sony 557 ES, Hitachi ft-5500 mkii tuner.
