Ok, some further changes!
As much as I've enjoyed he ES9018 equipped NFB-3(2014), I still found myself drawn to the tonal goodness of the PCM1704UK-equipped audio-gds.
So, I posted a WTB ad on the SNA forum in Australia and waited...
A fellow SNAer contacted me to advise that he had a DAC19DSP for sale, and that he believed it to be the exact unit that I bought new from Kingwa back in 2012.
Sadly, I had no record of the serial number of my unit, so I initially struggled to verify this. However, with a bit of detective work, I established who I sold the unit to, and who the unit was later onsold to. When the third owner sold the DAC on SNA, he posted photos
The DAC went through another two owners after that. After checking the photos on SNA... lo and behold - the DAC being offered to me matched the photos, so it is indeed my original unit! Pretty damn cool if you ask me!
So, baby is now home to roost!
Speaker-wise, I sold my JM Lab Cobalt 816s and have been using either a pair of Sound Dynamics 300ti which I tweaked a few years back (a favourite bargain speaker of Harry Pearson from The Absolute Sound) or a pair of Paradigm 5se MkIIs. Both sounded quite decent in fact, but probably a tad bassy for my particular room configuration (can anyone say room modes??)
I've scored a pair of very clean Orpheus Minotaur standmount speakers. These speakers are designed by Brad Serhan and were used extensively as monitoring speakers in various TV, radio and recording studio applicaitons.
The cabinets are 19mm thick 7 layer Brimsboard lined with 3mm thick bituminous pads across exactly 50% of the internal surface area. The cabinets are very inert indeed and have external dimensions of 430mm x 210mm x 260mm and weigh 10kg each.
They were RRP $AUD1400/pair in 1990.
The woofer looks to be a SEAS which is a cross between the T14RCY and P14RCY (black cone of the latter, phase plug of the former). I might research further. The tweeter looks to be a SEAST 25T series tweeter as per my recently departed JPW Ruby 2s.
So... how do they sound? Bloody superb! The imaging and sound staging is uncanny! Superb clarity and coherence - bags of detail, but a certain 'musicality' to the sound which can be lacking when you're chasing out-and-out detail retrieval. These babies have soul! I reckon Brad has done a super job with the driver integration. They work VERY well in my room and don't excite any room modes.
I reckon I can kick up my heels, relax and enjoy the music for a while (after re-arranging some speakers to reduce clutter and to let the Minotaurs really breathe). The presentation that this combination of gear gives me is just fantastic and is EXACTLY what I've been after following the sale of my beloved Focus Audio FS68s and audio-gd Reference 5 a year or so ago. It's not an ear-blasting rig, nor is the scale and dynamics up there with bigger systems. It is intimate, inviting, seductive. I like it!
The sound is easily as good as the decent standmount speakers that I've owned over the past few years (Lenehan ML1s, ProAc 1S clones, Focus Audio FS68) and way ahead of the Usher S520s, Wharfdale 9.1/10.1s.
It's a funny game this audio journey! Sometimes, you don't realise how good your existing system is, and you head off in another direction for something bigger/better/faster/shinier/DIFFERENT... but end up returning to almost the same place that you were previously at!