Wow that's a deal for SGD pricing! Congrats!

Do you use the May on NOS or with HQPlayer to DSD512 with the Bliss + Susvara setup?

Yep. Not big enough to extract every little nuances of a 300B circuit :)

I forgot about the headphones too. With Hifiman headphone sound signature, I prefer the NOS presentation with SET amps as the OS does sound more "mechanical" unless the OS is DSD oversampling which I generally find more musical sounding than PCM oversampling

Those selling the Nautilus are just funding for that upcoming Red October XL I suspect

Don't forget to add some Snake River Audio Mamushi interconnects too. They matter a lot at this level as well

I also have a similar observation, but it can also be not just the implementation of the authentication, but also the quality of the storage and memory of the NAS/Fileservers. Storing music files on laptop and streaming it through Roon is at times more often than not worse sounding than Qobuz...

Sennheiser HE-1 is somewhere in between Caldera and Susvara in the tonality and even soundstage area if one is considering it. It's an incredibly musical headphone first but with effortlessness presentation

I'll buy your Aegis Trireme Special Edition version if you're gonna sell it :wink:

Anyone finding tube amps generally pair better with NOS DACs (no HQPlayer or any other external oversampling software)?

Most likely he's using HQPlayer to oversample 44.1/48KHz or 88.2/96 to 768KHz with 9th order noise shaper

Try this track with Yggy and be mesmerized by the layering and soundstage that Yggy can resolve. MiB's resolving prowess is on full display on this track

Indeed! I rolled some NOS 5691 and TAD KT66 to give it some classic tube vocal realism without sacrificing power and speed that much. Very versatile amp indeed

I have the Forge and have no desire to upgrade. That amp is just ridiculously good for the money I paid for it

We're on the same camp in terms of bass. Increasing perceived bass texture doesn't mean dial down the bass. Good bass to me comes with a perfect balance of authority and texture hence why I use Audioquest Diamond for my source and DAC because of that effect

A well designed DD that is Focal Utopia technical level for bass (speed and delicate texture while slamming like a truck on the impact and tactility of super fast DD and not just rich and creamy) is hard to implement on an IEM I think

Yes. MiB to me is the best Schiit DAC for MJ3 according to my preferences

Nobody has both and has done a direct A/B. It's not about driving it, it's more about the presentation and the balance of bass texture, slam and bass spatial cues and scale (all these three are also called grip/control) that separates an average Susvara amp to a God tier one. However, the Aegis...

Tubes are magical and have that vocal realism that only the best of SS amps like the MK465 can reproduce. Best part is that you don't even need the Aegis for that, even a similarly priced tube amp like my Forge provides that quality easily, but Aegis is such a versatile amp though and worth more...

If I had that setup, I'd be willing to upgrade to the Voila cable since we're already in a cost no object system

They're OCC silver cables, hence the price :beyersmile:

Any DDC would make quite a noticeable difference. Also, they're more susceptible to upstream cables so get a quality USB cable and a quality I2S cable for the Iris. I recommend Tubulus Concentus I2S and USB cables

Supra would be great! I don't use a DDC (no conversion, just reclocking) though so I went with the AQ Diamond which gave the best sighted listening improvements to my system

If the Iris behaves like the Schiit Unison USB from my DAC, I would predict that the USB Supra cable or even the Audioquest one that I use will be a great match to your system as well