Re: Funky audio chain issues, time to upgrade! (Towers)
Originally Posted by
nball
You've given me a lot to consider here, thank you! The Schiit stuff has been on my radar but I didn't think to purpose them to the speakers for some reason. I am only using HDMI to pass audio up to the AVR for DAC purposes. With a USB DAC there's no need for HDMI at all, which is nice.
Bifrost -> Saga -> XPA Gen 3 could be a sweet set up. Heck at this rate I may want to upgrade the towers to the RAAL model while I am at it!
Would you consider the Emotiva XPA a good deal at $900 for a pair of towers or is that overkill? I could get a decent used NAD for half that.
You're welcome! A lot of people don't consider Schiit since they were so desktop/headphone oriented in the past, but the advantages of multibit technology in two channel systems is amazing. Jason Stoddard, one of the co-founders of Schiit, has written about it a little bit in his blog on Head-Fi.
I don't think an XPA Gen 3 is overkill, but that's just me. I think the value of that amp is pretty staggering, but some people are critical of the "Class H" topology, I really don't know much about it, but my Gen 2 sounds great and if the Gen 3 is an improvement, I say go with it.
I have not heard an NAD amp before, so I can't really comment on that. I just know that the combination of Schiit and Emotiva is a monstrous value proposition. You just have to wait a week or two for Saga to appear on the website.
Last edited by sludgeogre; 10-17-2016 at 07:06 PM.
-Alex
PS4/Nvidia Shield --> Emotiva XMC-1 --> Emotiva XPA-5 --> Ascend Acoustics Sierra Towers and Horizon Center w/ RAAL tweeters (L/C/R), HTM-200 SE (Surrounds), 2x Rythmik F12 subwoofers