i still don't have the job that'll give me some spending money to rent a house and start a system i can FINALLY listen to at modest volumes yet, but, right now, i'm convinced that this will be my system and that it even might be "so good", that i won't feel a bit of "upgaditis"
SOURCE: laptop > jitterbug > dragonfly red DAC
AMPLIFICATION: parasound Z amp (probably used... possibly buying a second for bridged mono, or even "dual mono bi-amping" in the future)
SPEAKERS: philharmonic audio philharmonitors
that looks like a "giant killing" system to me, AND i was VERY impressed by just how liquid a 1.0 or MAYBE 1.2 dragonfly sounded on a mc cormack/vandersteen 5A system. that was at least two dragonfly upgrades ago, so i'm confident in at least THAT component based on personal experience. that cheap DAC sounded unbelievably lush, maybe too much so for my tastes, but not for tube lovers, but absolutely NOT sterile & digital.
besides the super easy on the ears sound of grandpa dragonfly, i'm drawn to the red for its $200 list price as i like thumbing my nose at high priced gear when $100 infinitys were the FIRST speakers that sounded undistorted to me, and even as light as the bass was on them, it was lightning quick which made me an acoustic suspension mini convert on the spot with the conviction that expensive gear is a ripoff when you can slay giants with QUALITY minimonitors, and those styrofoam tweeters and translucent 4 1/2" poly woofers with foam surrounds were pure entry level, but exploiting sound (pun intended) acousic principles like small cabinets with radiused edges that lower diffraction and improve imaging as well as suffer far less box resonance for a given MDF thickness.
as far as i'm concerned, SMALL acoustic suspension minis is the ONLY correct way to build cone speakers. heck, at one pont, i went through a phase (pun intended) where i thought about building a "sweet sixteen" subwoofer out of 5 1/4" woofers for maximum speed.
i might even actually prefer some bass rolloff too, but definitely hate big resonant "giant marshmallow bass"
oh yeah... if i do get that system rolling, my next upgrade would likely be a dayton 10" class Dpowered sub. (i used to shun ANYTHING over 8") as that would suit my tight bass tastes
