External DAC with Connect

Good point about after-sales, if the manufacturer has a local agent then your cost of repair must be much reduced. Returning an item to the UK for repair must be quite costly.

In my experience here the specialist smaller manufacturers (like ARCAM) provide excellent service, when my old CD player stopped working, i made an appointment with them, took it up there (30 miles away) and sat with the technician while he repaired and tested it all out.

I have heard the DM5s and they have similar characteristics to the ADM9RSS with excellent imaging. The downside is they dont have a sub output and the LF is slightly less, but half the price of the ADMs.
Yes, they do provide service - Quad UK did a great job for me with a CDP, including a free firmware upgrade - but it was quite expensive to ship it to and fro. Having a local agent for sales is one thing, their service capability is another.
The ADM 9s seem very well specified - 250wpc for the bass seems plenty!
And circling back to the thread subject, although it includes a DAC, their site also says that DACs are virtually impossible to be distinguished these days.

Behold, the audio industry's target customer.

Empirical makes a living convincing gullible people like you to spend ridiculous amounts of money for nothing, so their opinion of anything is immediately suspect.

In this, we've asked users like you to provide independent, double-blind tests to confirm the superiority of these alleged high-end (or higher end, anyway) units. Nobody ever produces such evidence. I know why that is. Deep down inside, you do too.

You want to spend tons of cash on audio equipment? Go ahead. Some of us will continue to point out that the emperor has no clothes, no matter how questionable you think that may be.

NoBoB, a $350 piece of equipment is not going to contain much of a DAC. In a similar vein, nor is lamp cable going to provide much in the way of speaker cable. I think you belong to the silly fringe group that thinks otherwise. Deep down inside, you do too.

NoBoB, a $350 piece of equipment is not going to contain much of a DAC.
Really? Why not? Do you know how much a ""high quality" DAC chip costs? It isn't much...

Really? Why not? Do you know how much a ""high quality" DAC chip costs? It isn't much...
Right. The best Wolfson DAC chips retail for about £15 for a single unit. Less than half that in volume.

So presumably a 'proper' DAC must have a massive mark-up before a certain type of customer feels comfortable....

Really? Why not? Do you know how much a ""high quality" DAC chip costs? It isn't much...
Modern day electronics can be surprisingly cheap.
An extreme example - I bought a Chinese FM stereo radio last week to release a Denon RCDM38 box that was being used for that duty - it cost me all of USD 5! Poor fit and finish, but does the job, and even if it works for just a few months, who cares?!
And the Denon is now for about USD 200. It includes a CDP, AM/FM radio, 30wpc Amp, DAC, and a front panel socket for iPods. It is currently installed in my main system, serving a pair of Harbeth speakers, supplied by Connect, where the SQ is just as as good up to moderately loud levels as the Quad 909 it has replaced. Outstanding build quality too, nothing cheap or cheerful in that respect. Mini component sized footprint, runs cool in play, and takes 0.3 watts of power in standby. And it has a full featured remote too. A steal at the price.
And if a lamp cable can carry electricity, it is perfectly suitable for speaker cable use, as long as it is of adequate thickness for the length of the cable run.

A Wolfson WM8741 DAC cost £14 at a one off price in the UK, falling to under £10 for over 100 off. So thats about $10-7? This DAC is up to 24bit and quotes S/n of 128dB, dynamic range of 125dB, thd at -100dB etc etc etc. Providing the unit designer doesnt mis-design the board or psu, and fail to read the spec sheet properly, its all academic...

I think modern micro-electronics has pretty much killed snake oil!

Just off to buy my £500 mains lead for my £5 Tesco toaster.........and pop my tin hat on!

I think modern micro-electronics has pretty much killed snake oil!

You think??:)
It has just mutated, like a virus.

NoBoB, a $350 piece of equipment is not going to contain much of a DAC. In a similar vein, nor is lamp cable going to provide much in the way of speaker cable. I think you belong to the silly fringe group that thinks otherwise. Deep down inside, you do too.

Speaker cable? Bwahahaha! With ears like yours, maybe you should take this challenge:

James Randi Offers $1 Million If Audiophiles Can Prove ...

You could win a cool $1 million. Certainly a cable that costs $7,250 (which contains copper stock that tops out at about 40 cents a foot :rolleyes:) can be shown to be superior by your standards. But watch out, both the cable manufacturer and the "audiophile" critic backed out of the challenge. I wonder why that was? 😃

Speaker cable? Bwahahaha! With ears like yours, maybe you should take this challenge:

All a speaker cable has to do is conduct electrons from one end to another. Nothing better than copper, for this, and the technology to make decent copper cables is not rocket science, which is why decent copper cables are now a commodity.
There are some speaker cables that have things added on to them that alter/shape the signal - by definition, these are not hifi. And if one were to want cables with built in tone controls, a better way to the same result is to have tone controls where they belong, in the amplifier. Seeing the prices at which these cables are sold, it would be cheaper too.
Funnily enough, audiophiles that fall for these cables also end up buying "purist" amps - those that don't have tone controls.

Actually silver is a better conductor..