You might have to wait a bit for a good answer on this. Very few have heard the Counterpoint yet, and nobody has heard the Buffalo32S.

I am in the same boat as Shaman.
I have MUX/Buffalo24/IVY setup with TP power supplies trying to decide on a direction. I am also more interested in sound quality than experimenting.
Now that the counterpoint is available, I thought the Placid power supply board was designed for the counterpoint. When will that be available?
Since I am SE I am curious when the balance to SE boards be available. To avoid the turn on turnoff problems cant one just leave the counterpoint on all the time?

There is no BAL/SE converter required for Buffalo32S. You can use it balanced, SE or both at the same time.

Counterpoint does not require a special power supply. Its constant current design makes it very flexible PS wise.

Cheers!
Russ

Ehm, I know I was bold enough to say "money is not an issue" but seeing the 32S prices just published I think I'll buy that pair of Counterpoints after all.

Um, that's the reason counterpoint is beta. :) What promise are you referring to? People begged me to make the counterpoint available. I did. What more can you ask? I have made no further promises other than that. If I can figure out a good solution for the SE thump, or if any of you have any ideas that prove to work, I would be glad to move beyond beta. :)

I have no intention of leaving anyone behind. Really, you should know better.

Counterpoint is a really cool experiment which worked really well, but its not perfect. I am still not sure how to get through some of the rough edges. This is just proof I am still learning. :)

I understand the sticker shock for Buffalo32S for some folks. Unfortunately it is what it is. Costs are costs. Brian and I are being as reasonable as we can.

Cheers!
Russ

Edited by user Sunday, April 5, 2009 8:20:21 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Did not mean to be upsetting, I love my Buffalo/IVY solution and it beats anything I have compared it to and all that I have learned about digital during this process. I just got excited about the improvements talked about the counterpoint, then discouraged over the turn on/off problems. I just remember a discussion about additional pcb that was coming to solve the problem. I apologize if I misremembered.

Noone said (or thought) anything different, Russ.
Costs are costs, you and Brian are obviously not trying to get rich out of TP and, believe me, I have been "advertising" your work in every single forum I participate in - not because I have shares in TP but because I don't like people seeing people pay 10x times as much for 1/10th of the sound quality of Buffalo.

What I'm merely trying to say is that with the current prices previous owners will have a hard time deciding to upgrade. For new customers perhaps this is not an issue - but they don't have an option to buy the previous board anyway.
Being a previous customer of yours, I find it unreasonable to sell my Buffalo + Counterpoints and shell out some serious cash as far as DIY projects go ($200+ extra from what I might get if I sell the previous DAC) to upgrade to Sabre32S when, at the moment, noone is in a position to confirm it will be an actual upgrade sound quality-wise. Perhaps previous Buffalo owners are not your primary target group for Buffalo32, but I sure ain't the only one who was hoping to upgrade (as hard as it might be to believe there can be an upgrade!).

In other words, the value-for-money factor seems lower than that of your previous Sabre DAC offerings.
I'm hoping it's due to diminishing returns kicking in (= having to spend a lot to improve an already great product).

Perhaps it's just me that I see it this way, perhaps not.

I have already made some suggestions in the Diyaudio forum, but I'll post them here as well:
- There could be a Buffalo32S kit with the board semi-populated (for example you could leave most IVY II parts for the customer to solder), which, I suppose, would give you some price reduction margin.
- For previous customers (early adopters and people who helped spread the Buffalo name) there could be an option to buy a Sabre32 chip from the Parts Bin and upgrade their Buffalos - at their own risk ofc!

Just my 2 cents.

Keep up the good work!


P.S. I'm beginning to think the whole Counterpoint "thump issue" was mostly due to Russ being a perfectionist. Even if you have such an issue, there are more than enough ways to counter it!

Edited by user Monday, April 6, 2009 12:07:55 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I now have the Buffalo24/IVY and was going to go with the Counterpoint I/V upgrade when it settles out but that looks like it will be awhile. So I have decided to dump that whole project and go with the Buffalo 32 when its available.