One of those sources I cannot comment on due to my promise of having sealed lips…
I’ve also heard Mikey’s Caliburn in person. Holy freakin crap. If only I had 65K sitting around for a used one. 
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Yes, I understand…a lot of fascinating stuff is not or not yet official, self made, tuned aside of open market possibilities, built with components which are not suited to be reasonably priced for the open market or simply too big and expensive to appear in any magazine or at any reviewer.
I think this year I will hopefully manage to listen to such a source (due to COVID it wasn’t possible so far). Mikey is told to have said, he never heard this level before. And I know he unfortunately won’t be able to review it due to several circumstances, among others, very big to ship and special to set up I think there’s quite some gear around like this.
One also has to be prepared for experiences to quickly forget again in order to be able to listen to the own setup again
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Yup, you got it. If it isn’t obvious already, I love hearing what others are doing and believe firmly that developing your ear and being aware of what’s out there can only benefit you as a designer/company. We spend so much time listening to our prototypes and making sure we are happy with what we release. If we aren’t absolutely thrilled, it doesn’t get released. Period. Then its back to design to fix the sonic short comings etc. A part of that process is knowing the competition and gaining respect for those who are proficient. References are everything.
A great wine producer didn’t just start making some of the worlds best wine by accident or out of pure luck. They respected some of the worlds best wine, studied it, and through that gained the understanding of what it takes to create a wine that is truly proficient in that particular varietal. The producers with that passion, understanding, and openness are the ones that will most likely rise to the top, not the ones that have just gotten drunk on their own koolaid…or I guess it would be literally wine in this analogy. 
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Absolutely. This makes you and your products so trustworthy and I think that’s quite rare. Some may constantly roughly know a lot of products, but I think most don’t go in depth and analyze/compare or still use limited references because as you say they’re too busy with and stuck in their own isolated environment.
A propos references…the use of e.g. digital and analog sources as two-way references in different characteristics is imo what makes both following solutions quite expensive but also quite perfect…just as you expressed, it doesn’t really help even a digital source to just throw money at it to reach a very high level. At the beginning I was hoping so, but it turned out to be at least as difficult and elaborate as with analog.
Jazznut great points. Our list was neither complete nor pre-structured. I think this topic deserves a part 2 later on.
my favorite source…. Favorite DAC I guess I would say is the Lampizator Golden Gate 2 with all the goodies. That counts for me as a source having so much influence in the sound, and besides the bridge in my DSJ I haven’t had much experience with different streamers in my system. I’ve tested a gajillion of them but not listened critically.
Others I like are the DirectStream, MSB stuff like the Platinum Diamond IV, the DCS Vivaldi, Aqua La Voce, Denafrips stuff, things like that. That’s just what I can remember — there are many great DACs out there.
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Was able to catch up and listen to episode 48 & 49 this week. With my new turntable setup, it’s much less constricted in the upper mids and highs, but the 800-2k bump that you called @DarrenMyers on the Craft cable much more evident now as well. Appreciate the feedback and looking forward to see how @Duncan_Taylor progresses with his DIY PCs.
Interesting podcast on the RF/EMI stuff etc. again guys!
We should care more about this in the setup and equipment you say at the end? Well, I do since about 5-10 years fortunately 
I was especially listening to the chassis info you gave, as I thought about replacing the DS top cover by an aluminum one allowing some ventilation. Not sure if this still is a good idea as the original one makes the unit quite hot inside but also is quite a shielding cage with its bent side walls. Would be interesting if you think an alternative aluminum plain top cover is worse….might have to ask @tedsmith , too 
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Very good recent covering of the balanced phono input topic @DarrenMyers and @Duncan_Taylor ! Extremely informative with the right depth and focus, I learned quite something.
It was clear that for cheaper phono stages, balanced inputs make less sense, and I also assumed that the advantage of balanced inputs for the money could probably be better spent otherwise even at more expensive phono stages. It matches the information I got from another manufacturer.
But that it only makes sense at all (and could lead to worse performance otherwise), if the cable is a proper balanced design, that single ended phono stages can even have less noise and a few other things mentioned, set a new perspective.
Two, ok three questions came up for me:
This means, in cases where audiophiles use a transition-free tonearm cable to the preamp (for example shielded after the arm), balanced input would generally not make sense, just if a separate (featuring common mode rejection, of which I honestly don’t know how this can be identified) balanced cable is used after the tonearm (including the several involved add. connections)?
Will your upcoming bigger phono stages still pass on balanced input, so that you more or less see it’s potential quite irrelevant even in more expensive designs?
And what makes a balanced cable supporting common noise rejection and therefore as I understood, the differential character of the balanced input stage which is also necessary?
The higher end PerfectWave phonostage will have the option for either balanced (via XLR) or quasi-balanced (via RCA). You can view the quasi-balanced input as a high impedance differential amplifier with the non-inverting input connected to the signal and the inverting input connected to the RCA ground with a 10 ohm resistor running to analog ground. This reduces ground loops when running in SE.
When operating in balanced input mode, the cartridge is connected to a true, high impendence differential amplifier with excellent common mode rejection. I believe the balanced input to be the ultimate approach, but because of how a lot of lower cost tables are wired, lack of JIS or way/budget to rewire, a balanced input on a less expensive stage would compromise what I could do in the actual signal path, without offering any advantages to most of the users. With less money in the signal path a lower cost stage with a balanced input could be pulled off, but this violates my philosophy when it comes to the design of Stellar components.
Signal path/sound first, bells and whistles last.
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Thanks much Darren!
Can a usual tonearm cable (the usual 4 connectors + tonearm ground) be connected meaningfully (to enable full balanced features) to a balanced connector or does it need a special balanced constructed cable? I’m still not sure what kind of connection makes the 5 cables coming out of the cartridge enable common mode rejection/differential mode or not. Sorry if my lacking technical understanding makes it difficult.
Will you design for usual large XLR connector use or Lemo?
Yes it can. Most arms are essentially shielding these wires until they exit the arm, where they are then exposed to the outside world. So its very important that the balanced construction starts there with a grounded shield around both phases.
The input to the phonostage is XLR and the most common connection will be running JIS to XLR from the exit of the tonearm. The ground, which is grounding the tonearm, is connected directly to chassis and the differential amplifier looks across the + and - out of the cart. Most noise that is commonly picked up between the two phases is rejected.
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