Man of Honour
Ignore cost, well if it was under £2k perhaps.... lol! But at £6k that's a stretch!
Maybe if I win tonight's EM, but then I'd just get the Blades hah.
Maybe if I win tonight's EM, but then I'd just get the Blades hah.
I ended up getting a teac a-h01 which was being sold at half rrp.My desk is small too, so bigger speakers are a no go. What amp did you go with?
Did you manage to sample the D 3020? I ask because I bought the Teac AI-301DA-X as an upgrade from the D 7050 I had which was starting to get problematic only to be dissatisfied with the sound quality., so interested to hear the thoughts on the a-h01.
I just found the way the highs and mids were presented felt restricted and "digitised" compared to how NAD presents the exact same music/voices which is very warm feeling and natural. Hell given the price of the AI-301DA-X at the time, I'd have rated the D 3020 even higher than it as I had the 3020 v1 back in the day. You get a lot of power and sound quality for the money with the NADs this much I can vouch for!
The Teac build quality and style though is superior to the all plastic NAD D series, but hey ho!
You also want to demo speakers in your listening environment as room acoustics in a store won't be the same as what you have at hone! Hence the recent foray into trying out potential upgrades from my Q300 but going back to the Q300 each time. As such I am keeping the Q300, even with the minor driver cone indents.
I don't think there is a large market for desktop amps at all, and glad NAD have stuck with it, I'd get the D3045 if my Teac blew up..Still baffling to me that almost a decade on and NAD still has the best small form factor speaker amp for desktop usage. You'd think someone would have tried to take a slice off of that already...
Hell, ASR even measured the D3045 recently and were actually happy to recommend it - not outstanding in any one area, but it did very well in every area (including the headphone output, which is normally an afterthought on non-dedicated HP amps) enough for it to pass comfortably.
Their earlier attempts like the D7050 measured like crap, but seems they've cleared this up.
Near field is 3 foot or less from your ear to the speaker.As for near field, yep agreed, these just seem to work so well near field although as you say, my desktop setup is quitie wide, so not as "near" as many, but still decently close to nbe enjoyed either sat at the desk, or doing something else in the room elsewhere.
Ah ok so mine is 5 foot approx so would not be classed as near field I guess.
Monitor Audio Bronze 50.
A quick question
If I bought a Rega Brio-R (or any stereo amplifier without a DAC) and had a ODAC/O2 headphone amp combo do I just use the RCA cable line out on the DAC/Amp to connect to the two input plugs at the rear of the Brio?