I have ordered a Cantatis Overture,I have a sneaking suspicion it will be utterly fantastic:)

The yellow ones.

Thanks for the writeup m8

I didn't really mean that quad arc was worse than vanilla, but it is clearly different. What one prefers is probably a matter of taste, so I don't doubt what you write at all. Vanilla rocks more and has better rhytmic integrity, if you will, whereas quad arc has more room, space, 3d etc. (in my setup. Perhaps vanilla has better synergy with my Naim stuff). Do you think quad arc is better for rock music (you didn't say what kind of music you demoed)?

So am I to understand that you think the SE-90 is the better card for stereo? That is interesting. I really love it myself, so I appreciate qualified comments about its sound from others. Thanks.

No. I mean a mono button. My wife and I have a gigantic desk we both sit at. When I sit there alone, I sit in the middle. When we both are seated, we are both closer to one speaker. A mono button would be great in this scenario.

One more thing that can make a mono button worthwhile - I sometimes sit closer to one speaker when I use my computer, and then mono would be brilliant.

Yes. It is for mono recordings obviously.

I would love one in XXHE!

For rock:

Babyshambles -  La Belle et la Bête
Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster - The Dancing Girls
Them Crooked Vultures - Nobody Love Me And Neither Do I
and some esoteric Vivaldi perhaps, Naïve's Vivaldi Edition series has a few nice ones.

 

Why do words like cr*p, fuck and sh*t always get moderated on this forum? I don't like it. Censorship sucks - we are European, are we not?

Edit: Looks like it's auto-moderating some words. Fuck is obviously all right. Let me try a few more: piss, cunt, twat, knob

I think this is a very good idea; talking about the same tracks when discussing SQ could be immensely useful. Just let us avoid "audiophile" cr*p recordings.

Super duper!

Leo, it would be great with a comparison between the 200 Ltd and the 90 unmodded if you have the time.

Great to hear that you are pleased with the Onkyo Could you perhaps be a bit more specific regarding how you percieve the SQ with and without Arc Pred? Perhaps we are hearing the same things but have different preferences.

I have decided to try out the Cantatis card, will report back eventually. Moreover, I have just recieved two Black Gate caps that are going to do the power filtering on the Onkyo card, the two main power filtering caps that are there by standard could perhaps be improved on. Will have to get the soldering iron out (and I am cr*p at soldering).

Good to hear! You are using the cards analogue outs, right?


I am seriously contemplating getting one, it looks as though it might be a winner. And I love that they actually have made it in the UK and not in China. It is, after all, very inexpensive in hi-fi terms, and Cantatis have a return policy so there is really not much to loose here.

The card is based on the VIA Envy chipset, which guarantees stable and well working drivers, auto sample rate selection and 64bit support (same chip as the Audiotrak and Onkyo cards use). Three expansion PCI cards are also coming, with digital inputs, analogue inputs and also an FM(!) card.

Hi guys;

Yes, the card does 88.2 and 176.4, the pics posted on Head-Fi are mine. You can get the latest drivers from VIA, no need to use the drives from Onkyo.
On Win 7, I get an error when installing the drivers with the setup.exe. To install correctly to Win 7, in the Win device manager, just point Windows to the folder with your VIA driver, and it will install the driver properly. Then copy the VIA control panel app to your hard drive manually and run it from there.

Congrats on the card, let us know how you think it sounds after you have run it in for a while. Also, it would be interesting to hear your impressions of Arc Pred. and how it sounds with the card; I find that it makes everything worse with my Onkyo.

On the subject of PCI sound cards, there is a new contender. Dual BB PCM1794 dacs, nice opamps and claimed proper power filtering. Designed and made in the UK. Looks interesting.