Haha, another great review. Yup, the Schiit Lyr is an amazing oveperformer for the price, especially with tube rolling. In someways, I find it better than my maxed out woo wa5. Waiting for the upcoming Schiit "Statement" Dac and Amp though. Hoping they will really set a new standard.
Am not surprised coz I myself prefer the LCD-2 rev1s more with the Lyr (Mullard E88CC) than with the WA22 (EH 5U4G /TS 6SN7/ TS 7236).
My HD800s are much better suited for the WA22, though.
A mouth-watering prospect would be the Cavalli LF Vs RWA AE in the typical SKYLAB FINAL COUNTDOWN FOR THE BEST LCD-2 AMP.
Am not surprised coz I myself prefer the LCD-2 rev1s more with the Lyr (Mullard E88CC) than with the WA22 (EH 5U4G /TS 6SN7/ TS 7236).
My HD800s are much better suited for the WA22, though.
A mouth-watering prospect would be the Cavalli LF Vs RWA AE in the typical SKYLAB FINAL COUNTDOWN FOR THE BEST LCD-2 AMP.
Yup, the lyr is awesome but I'm suffering from upgraditits. Haha, think you should add the Schiit Statement amp to the final showdown for best hybrid (somewhat affordable) LCD 2 amp. IMO, it will be between the Apex Peak/Volcano, the Liquid Fire, the RWA AE and the upcoming Schiit Statement Hybrid. I do suspect that the Schiit will look the most attractive though as I believe if I'm not wrong that it is going to be around $1000-1500 which will make it a nice bit cheaper than the others.
We (Alex of Audeze, Ken at ALO, and myself) really appreciate you taking the time to listen to and evaluate the Audeze Edition System, and are glad you enjoyed it! Your review was exceptionally thorough, thoughtful, honest, and well-written.
Enjoy your Audeze Edition System!
Also - I have worked out some internal mods to the Pure i20 that I need let you hear (I'll send you one when it is finished) that will make it clearly better sounding than the stock unit (removing the internal switching power regulator is key). We also have a CD Transport (RWA CD-T1) that can plug into the 12Vd output of the Audeze Edition amp/dac, as you can see on our facebook page. This will all be in our room at RMAF.
Everything is LiFePO4 battery powered and transportable (no matter if you plug in the Pure i20, Wadia iTransport, or our CD Transport).
One more thing to point out (as I have received some emails about this):
The Isabellina Pro dac board in the Audeze Edition has provisions to connect I2S directly to it, and that I2S is galvanically isolated and fed to the d/a converters on the board.
Special thanks again to Skylab - we'll see you at RMAF!
Vinnie thanks for agreeing to send out the review loaner. It was fun reviewing the AE. While it was more effort than a typical amp is to review, the effort was well worth it in the end!
I had owed rwa's dac. It is disappointing that the dac has to be connected to the wall power all the time although it has a built in battery. Once tried staying with the battery till the last minute and the battery was drawn and could never be recharged. To me if its a dac has battery it would work well as long as the battery goes. Don't know if its changed or not for the time i had the dac it was like that and I guess all products from rwa are all similar. Just mhop.
I had owed rwa's dac. It is disappointing that the dac has to be connected to the wall power all the time although it has a built in battery. Once tried staying with the battery till the last minute and the battery was drawn and could never be recharged. To me if its a dac has battery it would work well as long as the battery goes. Don't know if its changed or not for the time i had the dac it was like that and I guess all products from rwa are all similar. Just mhop.
Was this our older SLA battery power design, or the new LiFePO4 battery (LFP-V Edition).
When we first came out with the LFP-V Edition, we found a design flaw in the chargers, so if the voltage was too low, they would not "see the battery" because a relay expected to see enough voltage to connect the charger to the battery. We quickly resolved this issue and all the chargers do not have this relay, so you can play on battery until it shuts off, and it will charge no matter what.
Our LiFePO4 battery pack is OEM designed and has a custom circuit board that monitors and balances each cell in the pack (8 cells for the 25.6V pack), and the cycle life is rated well over 2,000 cycles. You can also run on AC mode with no time limit. Doing this or running in battery mode and fully discharging does not reduce the life in the pack in any way (this was an issue with the older, SLA battery powered design).
Both this custom battery pack and the charger are over 10x the cost of the older SLA battery, but in terms of longevity and sonic performance (mainly due to the much lower ESR of the pack), they are well worth the cost and we'll be using them in all our products going forward. The days of Red Wine Audio and SLA batteries were over since August 2010 and we have not looked back...
As always, another awesome review and one that fellow Head-Fi'ers can put alot of stock into. As for me, I have had a running dialog with Vinnie about upgrading my Isabella to get the full balanced LCD-2 experience and I think your review has just about pushed me to pull the trigger. Once I do it, I will have all the features of the AE, plus analog inputs!
While some have questioned the expensive nature of the AE, as an owner of the Isabellina and then an upgrader to the Isabella, I have never looked back regarding the price-to-performance ratio of Vinnie's products. Additionally, the advantages of going "off the grid" should not be discounted when considering the RWA line. My days of worrying about power cables and conditioners are long gone. The transportable nature of RWA amps is also a feature that I wouldn't want to give up. Rather than being chained to a desktop or an equipment rack, my Isabella (or the AE) can spend the evening on my patio with my MacBook Pro and that eponymous glass of red wine.
excellent review rob!
a very enjoyable read !
i just want to add,that not only is vinnie an excellent audio designer,he is also one of the nicest,honest,and sincere person
that i know!
I've been using the Isabellina HPA with my LCD's for some months now and was pretty happy with the combo, but, curiosity always kills the cat...
Now I'm using the RWA Isabellina NOS DAC feeding the Schitt Lyr, and, I must say I am thoroughly impressed. I prefer the Lyr for amping, and haven't even ran it in yet. Maybe the balanced RWA version is better for amping the LCDs but I've always been skeptical of balanced thingamajigs.
Nice review, I think RWA is pretty much the terminal for driving LCD-2, battery power / full balanced / tube stage...fulfill all the needs in one time, no more fooling around.
If after reading this review you're interested in buying one, mine will be on the for sale forum soon, it's simply not what I was looking for/expecting, I won't hijack skylab excellent review so PM me if you want details/pricing
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