Thanks! I connect the iPad to the DAC/AMP via USB using the Apple Control Camera Kit (CCK) connector (the one that also has power supply port). I can use the iPad as control but prefer to leave it on the stand and control with my iPhone or my laptop. I only use it for listening with headphones. There’s a pre-amp output via RCA that’s available if I ever want to send this to a receiver or another amp for speaker use.
My own personal money pit 
Custom fanless low power linux Roon endpoint with x2 Teddy Pardo PSU (mainboard, SoTM USB board)
Chord Blu2/DAVE
Illusonic IAP4 (preamp, x-over and room correction)
x2 Sanders Magtech Power amps
Sanders 10 hybrid speakers
13 Likes
Very nice! SOTA! Congrats 
Thank you, you are most kind
Playing around (I’ve got it on demo) with a Metrum Acoustics non-oversampling DAC and connected to their Forte amp.
Mighty set.
Amazing!!
Can I visit???
Sure! Anytime
Where are you located, if I my ask?
In the southwest coast of Norway 
3 Likes
Was there on holidays last summer.
Otherwise a “little” too far for a quick listening session.
Cheers from Liechtenstein
1 Like
+1 ATC 50 legendary speakers used by the late Gordon J Holt
1 Like
latest addition 
still unsure wether I prefer it to my 2A3 SET (sound is way warmer than tubes) but… this thing is amazing!
So: do First Watt amplifiers sound like tubes? Definitely not, but they do have a lot of “tube magic” + quite some great SSs character 
yes: must buy longer RCAs and pull those books from underneath the pre 
oh, and to stay IT… the Mac Mini running Roon Server is on the lower shelf, on top of a JS-2 LPS
3 Likes
When you use your Illusonic IAP4 as a preamp with room correction (assuming between your DAVE DAC and the Amp), does it do a second conversion A/D/A? If so, does it defeat the purpose of using a SOTA DAC like DAVE? Thanks
14 Likes
Excellent question @thyname over which I have agonised at great length
The short answer is ‘yes, the IAP4 does do A/D/A conversion in order to implement room correction and the crossovers for the speakers’ and so I too worry I may not be getting the full benefit of the Blu2/DAVE
I can say that I am extremely happy with the sound I now get, and it is a BIG step up from the previous DACs I employed in exactly the same way (Exogal Comet, and before that a Lampi Level 5)
How might I get around this? I would be most interested in your or anyone else’s take on this but I can only see two closely related choices
Get a room correction unit with a digital out upstream of the DAVE (say a DEQX) and then either use a dedicated crossover for the active Sanders speakers (say a Marchand) or junk the Sanders for some passive models
In either case I would be losing the IAP4 (which I can live with assuming I can write the cost off against the DEQX/Marchand) and potentially the speakers (which I am very loathe to do)
I have hesitated to do this as I see it as a bit of a trapdoor decision and as I say I am very happy with what I have … but it does nag !!!
Can you think of any other way around it?
I certainly don’t have an answer, or solution. One of the reason that I have not purchased one of these units with room correction built in. I don’t want to mess with the amazing sound I get from my Ayre QX-5 Twenty.
This one just launched:
what’s the analog set up, and what looks like a levinson piece under the TT?
I can say that when I toggle the room correction on/off the improvement is quite definitely night and day
FWIW one of the reasons higher end in-car stereo can sound so good is that they do DSP correction for the acoustics of the car, which are known (unlike most listening rooms!)
So, it is done (but not finished):
Many of you gave me ideas and input during the research and planning phase, so thanks for that!
I ended up with Roon Core running on a ROCK (best decision so far, I cannot believe how different the experience is compared to running core on an iMac or Win10 box.), feeding over wireless ( so far) to a Raspberry Pi, dietPi, IAAudio HAT, unbalanced into a Schiit Freya, into a Schiit Vidar, feeding Tekton Double Impacts.
I maaaaaaay, change out the DAC for a RPi with HiFiBerry balanced outputs (but am disappointed that they HAVE to be in their fuggly case, no option (yet) for a screen and Ropieee), perhaps hard wired CAT6 (the networking here is crap, despite the house being close to new).
The debate at the moment is if the speakers are naked, or with grills. The balance is naked at the momen ta) as the home theme is NerdHouse and b) I’m afraid an ape with a bone will leap out from behind the black monoliths.
For the rest of the house we have two offices with Roon endpoints on notebooks and on the (former core) iMac feeding all sorts of ELACs, Schiit Fulla with OPPO 3s, Onkyo for the home theater and more RPi for the screened porch speakers and for the bedroom.
Controlled by a selection of iPad, iPhone, notebook and (recently) Fire tablets. Still not found the answer here…
Thanks again for all the input and encouragement.
Cheers
Graham
10 Likes
Regardless of how they sound, the cherry red finish of those speakers is most aesthetically pleasing… 
Hardwired Ethernet is always best. But if the Wi-Fi is over 5GHz, then it may do ok. 2.4GHz is unusable in lots of places these days due to how over-saturated the radio spectrum is. Where I live, I see about 45 (no joke!) different Wi-Fi networks around me, and 60% of the 2.4GHz duty cycle is consumed just for the management beacons the APs all shout out continuously. Can’t do any kind of transfer over 2.4GHz here, it always craps out because of so much interference. Yet on 5GHz, very few of my neighbors have routers that support it, so the spectrum is wide open. But Ethernet is still the way to go if you can run the wiring. (I have Ethernet all over my place because lots of devices are defective-by-design and only support 2.4GHz, even newly designed stuff.)
1 Like