[DefQon]

Yes read the first page of his review.

 

[preproman]

  prepoman did you have listen a lampi ?

Yes..  The Lampi ROCKS....

 

[00lunar]

  Yes..  The Lampi ROCKS....

To a point, yes

 
Funny story, Mr Fikus, owner and designer of Lampizator, lives about two miles from my place. A while ago (march 2013 or so) he was kind enough to drop in and let me to take care of his stage four device. Great sound indeed. Though build quality wasn't quite up there. It looks DIY all the way, not in my taste. But there's definitly something special about multibit + tubes, smoothnes, black background and detail. At first it all sounded veiled to me, but I've started to enjoy that sound sooner than I expected, and came to conclusion that my DCD-1510AE sounded too bright and harsh, not in the same neutrality and musicality league as L4. Just my two cents. Would I buy it? Nope, but only because of build quality, sound is exceptional. That's why my main target now is DP-777. 

 

[preproman]

 
To a point, yes

 
Funny story, Mr Fikus, owner and designer of Lampizator, lives about two miles from my place. A while ago (march 2013 or so) he was kind enough to drop in and let me to take care of his stage four device. Great sound indeed. Though build quality wasn't quite up there. It looks DIY all the way, not in my taste. But there's definitly something special about multibit + tubes, smoothnes, black background and detail. At first it all sounded veiled to me, but I've started to enjoy that sound sooner than I expected, and came to conclusion that my DCD-1510AE sounded too bright and harsh, not in the same neutrality and musicality league as L4. Just my two cents. Would I buy it? Nope, but only because of build quality, sound is exceptional. That's why my main target now is DP-777. 

 
And A mighty fine choice if I may say so myself..  

 

[3daudio]

I have a question for our friends in down under who have changed the audio board to SE status.
Do you guys give feedback to AMR on what you like about and what not etc... in other words: Are you beta testers?

From what I was told from the German distributor, there is no final layout of the upgrade yet. If that is true there could well be another version of the upgrade compared to what has been released in Australia ( as a test?)

Who knows more?

 

[00lunar]

   
And A mighty fine choice if I may say so myself..  

Why thank you, my good man! I believe this thing can finally make me stop upgrading my sources. NuForce DAC-9 and Xonar Essence III aren't as musical as I'd like them to be. Though EIII has ton of smothness in it.

I have a question for our friends in down under who have changed the audio board to SE status.
Do you guys give feedback to AMR on what you like about and what not etc... in other words: Are you beta testers?

From what I was told from the German distributor, there is no final layout of the upgrade yet. If that is true there could well be another version of the upgrade compared to what has been released in Australia ( as a test?)

Who knows more?

 
I do! I do!

 
What Oz has in DP-777 actually is SE, but in "33,33%", to be exact

. They indeed got QCDE in their units. But full DP-777 SE consists of QCDE + GE5670 tubes and AMR Tri-Core Output capacitors. So yes, final SE upgrade stuff is already known and firm, from what I know it won't change. Btw. Oz got their units for no particular reasoning, they wanted to test what was implemented already back then. In my book nothing shady or unclear is going on.

 

[Brian Beck]

They indeed got QCDE in their units

OK, OK, I'll bite. And what, pray tell, is "QCDE"?

 

[preproman]

  OK, OK, I'll bite. And what, pray tell, is "QCDE"?

+1  And the AMR Tri-Core Output capacitors?

 

[00lunar]

QCDE = Quad Core Digital Engine. What that is exactly, well, I have no idea. But my guess is that it's a bit different, maybe better implementation of AMR's Gemini Engine, which is dual DAC's based thingy, of course. I assume they tinkered here and there, changed this and that, to achieve SQ improvement or so. But I'm leaving this puzzle to your fantasies boys, as I have no idea what this is exactly

 
As for Tri-Core Output capacitors, well, those will be better than usual coupling caps, I think. Yet it's another mystery to be solved regarding "Tri-Core" part. For now I don't know whether names of those upgrades actually mean something, or are like that just to make us all curious as hell. If so, nice marketing trick as we can go theorycrafting all day long

 
But preproman, really, I don't think one can go better than your Duelunds

 
And no, I don't work in AMR or for AMR

It just happens that I know a guy who knows a guy in there.

 

[Brian Beck]

  QCDE = Quad Core Digital Engine. ...

Thanks for the latest AMR glossary. AMR loves those cute acronyms and trademarked names for their technical features, don't they? We already have 

Gemini Digital Engine

®

(GDE), Zero Jitter Mode, Global Master Timing

®

(GMT), Intelligent Memory System

® (IMS)

, HD Valve Digital input (HD-VDi), OptiValve® Output Stage, Bit Perfection®, 

OptiTrans®, Direct-Coupled/Buffered Analogue Volume Control®, 

Organic Digital Algorithm incorporating SMART®, and OptiSampleHD®. They mi

ssed

 one - for those little plexi windows on top: OptiViewHD

®.
 
IMO, it's a good thing for AMR's sales that this DAC sounds so wonderful, because such marketing hyperbole does little to increase demand when your market segment is sophisticated customers, such as those who tend to buy $5K DACs. Provoking eye-rolling just doesn't sell $5K DACs.
 
Reminds me of a story: When I was a young dude in college, I sold hi-fi. With every turntable we sold, we tried to convince the customer to also buy a ~3-ounce glass bottle of green stylus cleaning liquid with a little brush attached to the inside of the cap, for perhaps $4 or $5, a lot of pocket change in the late '70s. I forget the main name of the product, but the byline printed on the label was "Now with GFC!" I asked my boss what GFC meant. He whispered that it was merely drug-store isopropyl alcohol with a drop of Green Food Coloring added.  At least AMR's names describe real technical features which apparently do imbue meaningful performance, but my advice would be to go easier on the cutesy names in the future...

 

[3daudio]

If this is true...
 
Quote:

 What Oz has in DP-777 actually is SE, but in "33,33%", to be exact

. They indeed got QCDE in their units. But full DP-777 SE consists of QCDE + GE5670 tubes and AMR Tri-Core Output capacitors.

 
then all current OZ SE upgrade owners will have to change their unit once again, if they want the full deal?
 

 we can go theorycrafting all day long

 
yeah.... let's go....
 
Dual, Tri, Quad.... who offers more...?
 
 
On a more serious note - when will be the official release of the upgrade in Europe and the rest of the world? What will it cost and how will it be done? Do I have to send my unit to my dealer or can I do it myself?
 
What does your inside friend tell you, Brian?
 
Cheers....

 

[DefQon]

  Though build quality wasn't quite up there. It looks DIY all the way, not in my taste. 

 
QFT. That's the main problem that put me off as well when I was 99% going to pull the trigger last year (Mr Fikus is a fine gentleman to exchange conversation with dabbling on these electronics that I also love majority on modding). I have seen 2 or maybe 3 units (2 units in my hand) that had very good build quality and the third one was a picture on audiogon. But the rest I've seen have so many inconsistencies, I mean I can fix it up and rebuild it to a clean standard myself but what's the point of doing that after dropping $4500 on something that should be near perfect in the first place? High end sound absolutely yes, unfortunately same can't be said for the build quality (and some particular parts used).

 

[00lunar]

   
QFT. That's the main problem that put me off as well when I was 99% going to pull the trigger last year (Mr Fikus is a fine gentleman to exchange conversation with dabbling on these electronics that I also love majority on modding). I have seen 2 or maybe 3 units (2 units in my hand) that had very good build quality and the third one was a picture on audiogon. But the rest I've seen have so many inconsistencies, I mean I can fix it up and rebuild it to a clean standard myself but what's the point of doing that after dropping $4500 on something that should be near perfect in the first place? High end sound absolutely yes, unfortunately same can't be said for the build quality (and some particular parts used).

What's QFT

?
 
And yes, cases of 4 500$+ bricks should be built differently. I can't say much about innards of L4. To me it all looks like a kind of "artistic mess", Łukasz says that everything inside is "in air" because he wants to have routes between points as short as possible. But we all know that even expensive electronics break. And to me wires in the air give me reason to worry. Maybe it's just me, it's my subjective opinion. Anyway, outer case in brick as expensive as L4 should be some kind of fancy aluminum, and CNC machined body, at least in my book. That's what I personally expect. It's not that I deny robustness here. But just look at X-Sabre... damn... I want things not only to sound, but also look nice. There, I've said it

 

[00lunar]

DP-777 premiere will be somewhere early April, but folks bear in mind that it isn't specified yet, producer doesn't have this date on a roadmap. Regarding upgrade cost, price of DP-777SE will be 5 to 10% higher than it is now, maybe a bit more. Details of upgrade process are unclear to me. I don't know whether older units will have to be sent to original suppilers, or SE could be bought as a DIY package, and applied by skilled persons. Let's wait and see, April is just around the corner.

 

[Brian Beck]

I just had a nice long chat today with Darren Censullo, of Avatar Acoustics, the US distributor of AMR. Darren said that the SE upgrade should be available in the US at the end of the month or in a few weeks, putting it in April sometime. The price has not been set yet, primarily due to AMR still ironing out production costs for the capacitor portion of the upgrade. The upgrade will be available as a retrofit into our existing DP-777s. Customers may either ship their units to Avatar to have them install the upgrade, or buy a kit for those who are handy to install themselves at home. Some soldering skills will be needed for the caps. The digital board and tubes will be essentially plug-n-play. The upgrade comes in three parts:
 
1.) New output caps. This is a design proprietary to AMR. Darren said they might use copper foil and paper and oil, and a wood case (!). He didn't sound sure about the internal materials though. The old caps will have to de-soldered and gently rolled on the board to break the adhesive. The new ones must be staked down with something similar before soldering.
 
2.) NOS GE5670s tubes (same as WE 396A) will be provided. The pin-out of the 5670 is different from the existing tube's pin-out, so there will be adapter sockets included which Darren says will have some "noise filtering" components built inside them. The tubes also have a different diameter so they will include new copper shields and damping rings. These tubes will be available separately for those that don't want the other two upgrades.
 
3.) The biggest change will be a new Redbook four "core" digital processor card that will replace the existing "daughter" card. Note: the processor upgrade ONLY affects Redbook; the existing HD section remains unchanged. (However, HD playback will, of course, be impacted by the new caps and tubes, as will Redbook.) The existing 777 design uses the last-generation multi-bit DAC from Philips, the UDA1305. These weren't quite up to the original TDA1541A (Crown versions or not) in performance, but close. The new board will have four UDA1305 units running in some sort of averaging or combining technique along with Philip's Dynamic Element Matching to tweak performance to higher levels, approaching, if not equaling TDA1541A Double Crown performance.
 
I inquired about DSD. Not this go-'round. The MK II unit will be designed for DSD and DXD, but won't be available for at least another year. It will be a far more extensive mod.