It's been my impression that reviewers hold flagship products to a higher standard than more affordable models. It's pretty natural to do that as we expect near perfection for the top-of-the-line model. The G4 upgrade for a K50 G2 brought one of the most significant improvements that I've...

He was one of the first to introduce an audiophile switch. I actually owned his first one for a while. Very subtle improvement but I used the stock SMPS. His subsequent switches apparently got a lot better.

Glad to hear that my avatar serves its intended purpose. :xf_smile:

The PhoenixNET will make gains from a K50 even more profound. But it will do that as well for your K21, but it can't undo all the harm that your current server does to the music.

Myantipodes rarely stops working. If it fails to discover servers, the problem is typically with the device one is using to access that page. A VPN or something like iCloud Private Relay can prevent myantipodes from finding anything because they tell the internet that you are located somewhere...

Christiaan Punter has a review or two out there where he provides excellent insight into the benefits of going from a single to two box solution. While my preferences deviate from his slightly, his observations about Antipodes servers have seemed spot on. He has great ears and is excellent at...

I harm that I observed most with FMCs and SFPs was that they caused the treble to get hot so that it was more difficult to enjoy the music. It was quite surprising to be able to hear that even the FMC or SFP used upstream could cause that harm to be easily heard. I no longer notice that harm...

Not a bad place to draw the line. I embarked back when there weren't that many options for reducing the harm a network can introduce. That's not the case today, but I still don't have any plans to deviate from what I've done. I'm happy with the results.

Better to go for the U18 before a clock.

Always best though to let your ears decide. There’s a chance you might hear an improvement. It really depends on the rest of your system. The Finisar FMCs that I use cost me like $25 each on eBay. I don’t remember which model, but it could have been the FTLF1318P3BTL. Plenty of those on...

When the topic of fiber comes up, there tend to be some who are inclined to make generalizations. The problem with that is that fiber can be implemented in ways that don’t serve audio well. It can also be implemented in ways that serve audio very well, but it takes additional cost and care to...

The Mojo 2 differs from the Mojo 1 in that a component was removed from the output path. This component aimed to give the Mojo 1 a warmer sound so it was essentially acting as an EQ. With the Mojo 2 having EQ via DSP that component was no longer needed. Removing it improved transparency...

This section has been greatly expanded. Charts are now provided to refute the critics. Even if the myths don’t interest you, you may find the explanations awfully-interesting.

I hear benefits from HQPlayer with my ESS DAC - so much so that I recently upgraded to HQPlayer 5. If it was a waste for me to spend that money then I want to hear why so I can take that into account next time I need to pay an upgrade free. I can’t see why this wouldn’t be the thread to ask...

I’m glad to see you raising this here. It was said that the ESS chip will “undo” the benefits of upscaling. I would be interested to hear from a knowledgeable person as to whether this was a valid assertion.