Hi @dcpillai ,

Sorry to hear about your health issues. Hope you are doing good now. And thanks to our hobby - you have one of the best possible medication. Just a dose of 1 hour of music should help you bounce back!

Thank You for sharing your experience with the Chord Hugo TT2. And going through different upgrades myself, it is easy to understand how the power cord could make a difference. I have been advised the same by a few folks - to upgrade the power cable to my conditioner. At some point I will do it - just not in the near future. I have to replace the Oppo with a dedicated DAC - I know this will make a positive change. The Oppo sounds amazing in my system - but I keep dreaming of what a dedicated DAC would bring to my system.

By "scale of music", I meant the vastness or expansiveness. Like going from an apartment to a single family home - feels huge - right? The ease of generating realistic space is something that the smaller ones take a lot of effort and sometimes cannot achieve. As far as "losing the mid-range magic" is concerned - I think this might be because the speakers are loading your room with lot of bass. I do not see bass traps in your system. If you notice my room, I have bass traps in all corners. These speakers can generate a phenomenal amount of solid bass - but you will need a big room OR control the bass. Fortunately I have not experienced loss on midrange. But then I have so many traps in the room. In fact I went to audition the D30RS, but ended up getting these because of the way they make music - especially the realism.

Your room looks so amazing. Love the setup. I think the newer panels from GIK or the Vicoustic panels will look great in your system. My room is in the basement and is a dedicated audio room. So the plain-Jane traps don't look out of place. You might need something more eye-pleasing in your setup. I suggest that you look into this before giving up on these amazing speakers.

Hope you feel better soon and are back to normal. Good luck and take care.

@dcpillai 

Congratulations on the ProAc D48R. This is a fantastic speaker that you will enjoy for many many years. I have them for 5 years love to listen to them each time they make music. Great idea on the Townshend. For me the Gaias worked better then I replaced the granite plinth beneath them, with the matching spikes which contact the floors directly below the carpet. Try some toe-in with these speakers. Mine are toed-in such that I see a sliver of their inner side from my seat. So the tweeter axis crosses, just slightly behind my head. Of course each room and listening preference is different.

Please do share your experience with the Proacs+Chord DAC. That is on top of my mind.

hey dcpillai,

That is a great story. And lucky you - that your dad was an audiophile. That makes you start at level 6 instead of level 0 like me. And about the Bose; who cares? Truth be told - when I got my first serious system, way back in the early 90s, I purchased a Bose AM5 Series II + Sony Receiver + Kenwood CD player. But I had no audiophile dad.But one scary common thing is - my dad's hearing has become worse. He has vertigo and damage to one hear. He can hardly hear. So what happened to your father's equipment?

On your opinion on the Chord DAC - this is the MOST no nonsense opinion that I have seen online. Very very few people give such straight forward opinion, especially when they own an expensive DAC. I wish all the online and printed professional reviews were like this. The only problem would be that they would all shut down in a month as no manufacturer would want to let these guys review their products and provide honest opinion. So Thank You for the opinion. I had high hope for the Chord Hugo TT because I recently found that a certain R2R DAC that I was interested in, does not do pure DSD. I was told that ALL R2R DACs internally convert DSD to PCM. BTW, you have far more experience with DACs than I do. I am debating whether to sell the Oppo UDP-205 or to keep it as a BluRay player, and then get a new DAC.

You got a nice system going there! The D30Rs were the ones that made a solid impression on me at AXPONA 2017. I love how they handle vocals. You got great components too.

BTW, one of the pics mention "Day 1 of my audiophile journey". So tell me more - did you suddenly get into this hobby or did you listen to some system that made you realize that you are missing on the delicious music/sounds? Just curious. And welcome to this awesome passion. Yeah, this is a passion for me, not hobby.