Hello All,

I’m a passionate music listener, who is short on the audiophile technical know-how. I’d like to think that I have a fairly discerning ear, but I’m hampered by my lack of technical knowledge of hifi audio. Thus, I would really like to get help/feedback from smart people out there on several things…

Backstory:

I recently upgraded my Paradigm Titan V.5 monitors to the Sierra RAAL Towers (note: Sweet Helen of Troy, what a quantum leap in sound quality!). I have a friend who is an audiophile who recommended several options at the price point I was looking at, which is how I found my way to Ascend (note: he said something like, “…despite not owning any Ascend products myself, their metrics are astonishingly good, and it’s almost impossible to find a negative review of their products anywhere online”). For those interested in other things I was considering, I also auditioned Monitor Silver 8’s, Totem Hawk’s, Paradigm Prestige 75f and 85f, and KEF ls50’s.

I am really really pleased with how everything is sounding so far. Legitimately, the speakers might be a future proof purchase for me. However, I want reevaluate my overall setup to see if I have any glaring “weak links in the chain,” that may be significantly hampering the potential of my Sierra RAAL Towers.

My current setup is as follows:

I play all music from my computer (i.e., all my music is either Mp3 AAC 256 kbps purchased from the iTunes store, or Mp3’s at 320 kbps). My understanding is that sound quality could be marginally improved if I decided to switch to using CD’s. However, for practical reasons, I don’t see myself going this route unless it offered a profound improvement.

I stream music from my Apple laptop to my apple TV, which is connected to my receiver. My receiver is a Marantz sr5005. I use a receiver because my listening set up needs to include a TV and video game consul. My setup is stereo, and I have no interest in doing surround sound. Although I need my setup to be versatile enough to incorporate an apple TV and video game consul, I am much more interested/focused in listening to music. In short, I need versatility, but I’m much more interested in erring on the side of the best possible music setup.

When I listen to music, I turn my receiver to Pure Direct mode. This sounds much better to me. However, it is my understanding that Pure Direct mode shuts off the MDAX, which I believe is Marantz’s DAC designed to improve the quality of compressed music files (note: this is the technical stuff that I don’t understand, so what I’m saying here could be totally incorrect). However, this confuses me, as I seem to get better sound by turning off the device that was designed to improve the sound quality of compressed digital formats.

Also, I feel like I’ve got a good handle on speaker placement in the room, so no worries there. After a lot of tweaking, I’m very pleased with the speaker placement.

Here are things I’m wondering about:

(1) Specifically, what is an ideal set up for playing high quality digital music files? That is, do I need at some point to get a receiver with a better DAC (…if so, does that mean I would not use the Pure Direct mode on that receiver). Do I need to get a dedicated DAC device? Or is my current set probably pretty solid, with only marginal gains available?


(2) General recommendations you have on where to tweak, or areas that you see potential for major improvement?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this matter!