LCD-2 rev2 'so-so' soundstage ~ tried one of these? Audiophilleo 2

 Has anyone else heard the LCD-2 with one of these hanging off the back of their DAC (via Coax)?

This USB to Coax converter is simply phenomenal.

I was auditioning the LCD-2 rev2's with a selection of amps

and DAC's but the sources all had one thing in common

---> straight USB to USB connectivity from the laptop to

the DAC. We then decided to give this thing a go via

Coax to USB to see what it would sound like.

I'm happy to eat my words since I've said many a time

that the LCD-2 is a mids king and it reproduces bass

lines like few other headphones but boy, did this big

woody now have sound stage. Exaggerations are

all too common in this hobby but I would estimate

that for any given track, sound stage grew by 20%

across the sweep, new found detail and a complete

lack of grain emerged.

I was totally dumb founded. Forget my opinion, if

you have an LCD-2 and a decent DAC - you've got

to audition this thing and I look forward to your

impressions because I'm still reeling.

Since hearing this thing in action I've bee scouring high and low on everything related

to USB to Coax converters.

Audio-GD appear to be a very close second runner to the Audiophilleo product the

only ones who may have the necessary 'telecomms' know-how to get the jitter

specs down to ridiculous levels.

6 Moons once again comes to the party and delivers a 'thesis like' description

and review as to why perhaps the Audiophilleo stands alone as a converter

and allows certain DAC's that are so heavily weighted towards excellence

with Coax to really show their true colors when fed by a USB laptop.

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/audiophilleo/1.html

http://www.audiophilleo.com/comparison.aspx

DAC in question was the Rega, which let's be honest has been the

flavor of the month especially in Europe courtesy of What Hi Fi

and other publications. I bought it and have been running it off

USB. How does it sound? so so, it's ok, a little flat and 2D
dimensional on many tracks, pace is reasonable.

All of this goes out the window in a big way once the Coax

is fed in and the Audiophilleo takes over as USB bus master

~ it's just really surprising especially on the LCD-2 which

I had written off as 'sound stage challenged'.

Auditioning revealed that now using the Rega it was throwing

an image to almost rival the T1 on the same system ~

enough for me to finally admit it the LCD-2 is a real sensation of

a headphone when it finally finds a big image, musical

DAC to play with.

Will this work with any DAC?, doubt it, we had a 

Metrum DAC (Holland) on hand and it would not

respond with the same sound stage image and

yet there was still a difference nonetheless with

detail, pace and and graininess (or lack there

of!) when compared to USB.

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/metrum/1.html

Audiophilleo supposedly offer a free 30-day

trial which is also a first in this product

sector.

As per my original post if your DAC *supposedly*

can draw a big sound scape you have to start

running down to the audio store..like now!!

I will update this thread with impressions next

Wednesday concerning the Violectric V800

and the Burson 160D, no doubt a lot of you

will be keen to hear those impressions, I'm

hoping it delivers again.

One more thing,

Something that has become apparent is that many DAC manufacturers are hastily attempting to bring

very decent USB competent devices to the market, but they're falling over at the final hurdle when

attempting to address the shortfalls of USB as a medium for streaming a high end audio signal.

Violectric offer a DAC expansion board with their range of amps, Rega don't do Async mode

from the factory, many are redbook limited.

Alarm bells should be ringing in any Head-fiers head that with all the 'fluff' that surrounds this

hobby, many companies are reluctant to publish jitter specs because they know all too well

that while the hardware is competent they cannot fully conquer the demands of getting

it to perform over the USB medium.

It's just my opinion, but the Audiophilleo made that clear as a crystal bell..