Let's get digital

tom,
remember dac's aren;t magic, you get what you pay for in most cases. even the scot nixon / nos dac's are base on designs costing a few grand (47 labs, audio note, etc.) so you can save money but it's rare. if i were you i'd be looking for a dac that cost between 2-5k in the late 90's these should now be available for about 500 quid to 1.5k which seems to be about your budget.
you may also want to consider - the msb link dac(s), perpetual technologies - with upsampler and hefty psu upgrades, wadia (pm tony for which ones), chord dac 64, c.e.c., also there are some good looking (no idea what they sound like though) dacs comming out of china nowadays.
to be honest if you like the naim sound i'd be looking at something that uses a multibit dac chip, has no upsampling and minimal (4x or 8x) oversampling and careful attention paid to psu's.
cheers


julian

 

Just to keep this alive. One important thing to remember.

My Rega P9 is still my primary listening source.

 

Just from the convenience side of this Squeezebox thing is amazing. For us Saturday is traditionally a day for Jazz. Got up this morning, created a playlist of various styles to suit the times of day and let it run. Haven't needed to go near it since. Mind you I've spent a lot of time just sitting listening rather than doing anything useful today.

Ordered a 400gb Seagate Barracuda HDD & SATA controller today. They should come Monday so by the end of the month I should have all my CDs available.

 

I bought the Squeezebox, sold my CDS2/XPS, ordered a Scott Nixon "Chibi Saru" & 3Xdc and a new 400gb HDD. So far I've spent less than £500 so I am well in budget.

Now to order a PC

 

Bugger. HDD & Controller just arrived. Fits beatifully except one small issue; The HDD needs a powersupply which has a different connector than the one on the existing power bus. Now what?

 

Stating the obvious perhaps, but have you checked to make sure there wasn't one in the box?

 

Tom,
PM me your home address and I'll send you one gratis

rgds //lamboy

 

Damn! I purchased an empty box and it had no 400GB harddrive in it! Any chance of sending me one?

 

Mo - Yes I've looked in the box, thrice. I've emailed Dabs.

Thanks Lamboy - you have a PM.

 

Ikk, dabs, I ordered things from there twice, and twice they went back (Although there dosn't appear to be humans working there so this was very difficult process.

Never again.

 

I wish you'd said earlier. I keep getting automated responses that they claim "efficiently" fail to answer my request for the missing part. I am extremely grateful to Lamboy for his kind offer. With out him I'd be stuck.

Won't be using Dabs again. Strange how many complaints I've found oabout them on the internet whilst trying to find their customer services 'phone number.

 

I don't see that Dabs have made an error here. Unless you ordered a power adaptor?

If you know exactly what you want then I've found them very efficient. The only problem I've ever had was with Parcelforce losing a printer and they sorted that out immediately.

Paul

 

i must admit i've not had any problems with dabs either (both my sata drives have conventional connectors on as well as the sata power connectors). the squeezebox i ordered from them was delivered less than 24 hours later. i ordered it at 6pm sunday evening, it arrived monday lunch time.
tom,
is there no pcworld or an indie pc shop nearby? could you not get an adaptor from there if there is?
cheers

julian

 

The adapter is neccesary to connect the HDD to the power supply and is part of the package I ordered. Without it the HDD does not work and it was missing from the box. Dabs have singularly failed to respond.

Although it Dabs should supply one I went to my local PC shop who claimed they'd never heard of such a thing and I haven't seen on for sale on the Dabs site either.

To be honest if it weren't for Lamboys kindness I'd be stuck.

 

i believe if u order oem drives, u wont get one. may also be true for "retail"
i never expect to receive one with a drive, same for the signal cable.
dabs do sell them, part RB-414, £2.54 + vat

p.s. they usually come as standard with a shuttle supporting sata. everything u need should be in the shuttle box.

 

I checked back on the Dabs site and the HDD wasn't listed as OEM and even then they claim that you get everything you need to get it to work.

I'll buy a Shuttle and use the HDD in there. That'll free things up.

 

I looked up the 400GB Seagate SATA at Dabs and there is no information. What exactly did you order?

I would have expected the adaptor to pop up in the line of 'might also be interested in' items you usually get. But it doesn't.

I have a SATA drive in my general purpose PC, but that's supported on the motherboard so was easy. I've no idea how it's powered, I'll take a look next time the case comes off. This PC was built from bits ordered from Dabs, FWIW and I appear to have a 150GB SATA Seagate.

Paul

 

I went to the Seagate site where it states that the adaptor goes out as standard. That coupled with a) no mention of OEM on the Dab site & b) Dabs claiming all OEM go out with the necessary to make items work leads me to think the adaptor should be there.

Either way I can't get a response out of Dabs. They are ignoring my emails apart to send out automated responses which are garbage.

 

Possibly a 160Gb.

Some lesser drive companies released a sata drive with a legacy power connector - which isnt part of the sata spec. moving forward it will be up to the psu suppliers to provide sata connectors (and 3.3v support!) as pata will die soon.

 

If your local PC shop has never heard of a power adapter for serial ata drives, they must suck even more than Dabs!

FWIW I have gone through 5 S-ATA drives, all purchased OEM, and none came with the required power adapter to make use of the 7 pin S-ATA power connector - though some of the sites I bought from made it clear I'd need to purchase an adapter to make use of the 7 pin power connector.

The Seagates though (I have 2x 200GB 7200.7s) are the only S-ATA drives I've seen so far which do not have the 4 pin pin legacy connector as well as the 7 pin one mind you, so generally unless you're buying Seagate I expect few people are faced with the problem