I gave the Stratus a serious workout yesterday, with fairly extended listening sessions between football games
. For reference, my speaker setup consists of efficient (rated 96db with benign roughly 6 ohm impedance curve) Daedalus DA-RMa speakers, driven by a custom Wavelength Audio 45 SET amp, with an Aesthetix Calypso preamp. Source (both for spkr rig and headphone setup) is currently a Meitner MA-1 DAC.
Despite my love of the sound of tubes and affection for tube equipment, noise or background hum/hiss has always been one thing I can't stand to hear. That being said, I'm a 'lazy' audiophool and must have remote volume control, and my setup is such that my listening chair is 10-12 feet from my equipment. Even with my high efficient speakers, there is absolutely no discernible noise (when no track is playing) in my setup. I've never been fond of using the volume control in my software music players (battery powered Mac Mini with ss HD, music files on external FW drives, using either JRiver MC 19 or Audirvana to play music).
Donald and I discussed my potentially feeding the Stratus from my preamp output (to maintain remote volume capability), and he suspected that I might run into a 'too much gain' issue (and in my mind, I feared two things--loss of fidelity due to having 2 volume controls in the signal chain and the potential for a bit of noise).
Using the Stratus this way, with my less efficient HE-500's, I have almost no noise and the sound is sublime; with my much more efficient W3000ANV's, I can't avoid a bit of noise--remember this is using the Stratus in a way it's not designed for, i.e. feeding it a signal from the pre's gain stage. Even taking the bit of noise (and it's very slight), the Stratus just sounds sublime with either headphone!!
Late yesterday I connected another set of interconnects directly from my DAC to the Stratus' second set of inputs......wow! Absolutely quiet, no noise whatsoever, even feeding the much more efficient/sensitive W3000ANV's
! And as I suspected, I think the sound quality/fidelity improved a bit (even though I have much respect for the Calyso pre, as I have had numerous well thought of preamps, both ss and tubed, in my system--the only one I've owned that I liked better, sound quality wise, than the Calypso was a Shindo Monbrison, which loved the sound of, but I went to a source with no volume control, thus had to give it up due to no remote volume capability). So, I have a Placette RVC on the way to see if I can have the best of all worlds for me--have it's remote volume capability with the Stratus.
At all times previously, I would guesstimate that unless other circumstances necessitated using headphones, my listening was 70-75% speaker listening, and 25-30% headphone. With the Stratus, I predict that headphone listening will become a much greater part of my listening habit, as so far listening on my phones through the Stratus almost seems addictive!!!
I think this post has run on long enough without really describing the Stratus' sound; first, I'm not great at describing what I hear, and I'm still a 'noobie' as far as experience with the Stratus; so I'll only offer a short attempt at describing what I'm hearing--the sound is almost seductive, with a magical midrange (where the music lives for me) and silky smooth top end (another personal must, as I can't stand a sound that is even borderline bright or too aggressive). Maybe a better way of describing what I'm hearing is that it just sounds very real and natural to my ears--I don't think the Stratus necessarily lends that bit of sweet burnished hue to the music that I remember the Shindo possibly adding, yet the Stratus is plenty sweet and juicy (as an above poster stated he was looking for), and I'm already pretty convinced that the Stratus's sound is all I could ever lust for!!
To those of you in line; the wait is well worth it!!!
Randy
