[Norway]

There is little buzz about AURALiC here on Head-Fi, which is weird, as they are a high end audio company with great products for head-fi. And they've also received very good reviews from 6moons. I've had their fully balanced headphone amplifier, AURALiC TAURUS for quite some time now, and it's an amazing headphone amplifier with tons of power, especially when using balanced mode. I've done a regression plot of the values from their product manual in Excel to produce the following chart.
 

 
Personally I got to know about AURALiC through a much smaller but equivalent forum to head-fi.org for us Norwegians. After reading 6moons review on TAURUS, I decided to get it, and I was not dissapointed. TAURUS drives all my headphones very well, and I absolutely love it with both Audeze LCD-2 (r1) and LCD-3. With Audeze LCD-3 I've found it to really pull out the midrange, there are tons of details but it never runs harsh and the bass is to die for. For Sennheiser HD 650 the blurryness is replaced by more detail and the bass is more controlled, while the midrange is just slamming – something Grace Design m903 couldn't do to the same perfection! Other people in the Norwegian head-fi forums have reported it to sound gread with HD 800, but never tried that myself. I also own Woo Audio WA6-SE and Woo Audio WA2, and while those are absolutely awesome tube amps, the TAURUS has qualities they don't! Head-fi is perfect as we can have the greatest from both worlds without breaking the bank!
 
Yesterday I got one of AURALiC's DACs; the AURALiC ARK MX+, which looks absolutely fantastic together with TAURUS. It is far to early for me to say anything in depth about it, but 6moons reviewed ARK MX+, and that's a worthy read. I'm so excited about the sexiness of these that I made a photoshoot of the ARK MX+, TAURUS and, probably my favorite pair of headphones, the Audeze LCD-3. Here is the result (all towels used in this photo shoot was completely clean).
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
I realize that many of the photos look very similar, but I'm amateur when it comes to photography so I tried different settings in hopes of catching a scoop. Since a visual scoop is subjective, I posted most of them, hehe.
 
Hopefully, there are more proud AURALiC owners here so we can get this thread started. I will write a more in depth review of this combo with some of my other headphones, which, for the time being, includes Sennheiser HD 600, HD 650, Audeze LCD-2 r1, LCD-3, Beyerdynamic T1 and Denon AH-D7000.

 

[Vitor Teixeira]

You're not alone
The Taurus is an excellent headphone amp, makes the HD800 feel like an absolutely brilliant headphone, no kiddin' 

 

[Szadzik]

How about your WA2? You already got rid of that?

 

[Norway]

Quote:

You're not alone
The Taurus is an excellent headphone amp, makes the HD800 feel like an absolutely brilliant headphone, no kiddin' 

 
Great! I know for a fact that there is at least one other member on here who owns Taurus, so let's hope he joins our party soon!

 
Yeah, I keep hearing that Taurus + HD 800 is great in the Norwegian Head-fi forums. I'm sad to say I've never heard HD 800 as some has said that the bass is a bit lacking, but that might not be the case with Taurus, or?
 
Quote:

How about your WA2? You already got rid of that?

 
Hi, old friend! Absolutely not! Your old WA2 is still safe and happy with me. With the stock tubes it didn't sing well imo, but got some really great tubes for it. With Sennheiser HD 650 and a pair of 6AS7G-tubes the sound is big, bold and smooth like butter! Fantastic amp! I actually prefer these tubes over TS5998 (which are expensive in comparison). The only catch is that WA2 is very sensitive to the 6A7SG-tubes (hence Jack stopped selling them), so it's not completely silent, but it's easy to get used to as the sound is so consuming.
 

 

[twizzleraddict]

Nice pics! 

 
Another Chinese company with high-end aspirations?

 

[Norway]

Quote:

Nice pics! 

 
Another Chinese company with high-end aspirations?

 
Thanks!
 
What can I say? The alliance between China and the US works very well in this case! I think this company has the goods, now they only need to get more publicity. :]

 

[ardilla]

Auralic is quite interesting. 
 
There are two other threads around here that I am aware of. 
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/570583/auralic-amp
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/644547/auralic-taurus-or-bryston-bha-1

 

[Norway]

Quote:

Auralic is quite interesting. 
 
There are two other threads around here that I am aware of. 
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/570583/auralic-amp
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/644547/auralic-taurus-or-bryston-bha-1

 
Yes, you're welcome to bring your favorite tea and HE-500 and we can have a sausage party for two here.
 
Thank you for the update, and I'm active in the latter thread, lol!

 

[ardilla]

Auralic made a new DAC as well, the Merak which supports DSD
 
They have two headphone/preamp options - the Auralic and the Auralic PRE. Both have pre-outs, but the Auralic is a headphone-optimized amp with pre-put, the Auralic PRE is a pre-amp with headphone outputs. 

 

[Norway]

Quote:

Auralic made a new DAC as well, the Merak which supports DSD

 
I think you're talking about AURALiC VEGA, 6moons has already reviewed it, and according to them it comes with a tag of €3,300(!) so it won't be seeing my humble apartment anytime soon. It sure looks sweet though.
 

 
AURALiC MERAK is their 400W monoblock for stereo or HE-6, lol.
 
 
Quote:

They have two headphone/preamp options - the Auralic and the Auralic PRE. Both have pre-outs, but the Auralic is a headphone-optimized amp with pre-put, the Auralic PRE is a pre-amp with headphone outputs.

 
Yes, and according to 6moons interview with AURALiC their TAURUS PRE is brighter than TAURUS (which is not bright).

 

[ardilla]

Quote:

 
I think you're talking about AURALiC VEGA, 6moons has already reviewed it, and according to them it comes with a tag of €3,300(!) so it won't be seeing my humble apartment anytime soon. It sure looks sweet though.
 

 
AURALiC MERAK is their 400W monoblock for stereo or HE-6, lol.
 
 
 
Yes, and according to 6moons interview with AURALiC their TAURUS PRE is brighter than TAURUS (which is not bright).

 
You got me there - the VEGA DAC, yes.
 
Having auditioned the Taurus (not the pre)  twice, I cannot really agrree with you on the Taurus being unbright, though. The reason for the PRE being brighter is that it's meant to serve as a pre - and a good pre for speakers needs to have more emphasis on the high frequency beacuse the sound needs to move through more air - which filters the higer freqencies.... 

 

[Norway]

Quote:

Having auditioned the Taurus (not the pre)  twice, I cannot really agrree with you on the Taurus being unbright, though. The reason for the PRE being brighter is that it's meant to serve as a pre - and a good pre for speakers needs to have more emphasis on the high frequency beacuse the sound needs to move through more air - which filters the higer freqencies.... 

 
What DAC and headphones did you use when auditioning it, and bright compared to what? It sounds brighter when you run it single ended than when balanced, so do you know which mode it was in when you auditioned it?
 
Yes, that's what Xuanqian says in 6moons review of TAURUS PRE too.
 
Quote:

The Taurus Pre remains an excellent choice even if, perhaps, it sounds a little brighter than the standard Taurus. Since we cannot achieve perfection for all applications in a single still affordable circuit, both Taurus and Taurus Pre remain in our catalogue for different customers.

 
Quote:

During the evaluation stage however we found the sonics of the original optimized for headphones not as completely satisfying in preamp use. In the Taurus we had deliberately cut some treble because headphones are more direct. Their treble won't attenuate traveling long distance as it does with loudspeakers a few meters removed and facing a large room.

 

[Cante Ista]

 

[Norway]

Quote:

LOL, just so you all know; ardilla and me have a long history and we exchange 10+ emails every day, we have even fought on the phone. He seldom picks up when I call him, so I'm left to leave intrusive voice mails for him.

 

[Norway]

Ardilla, seriously. When you talked me into getting Sennheiser HD 650 and I laughed at how poor they were after testing them for a few hours, you went completely bananas and told me, I mean shouted at me, that I had to take my time with them, and that they would grow on me. I did as you said and later had to withdraw all my negative comments about them, and publicly declare that I had been wrong about my initial impressions in the Norwegian Head-fi forums. As you know I adore HD 650 today. You taught me a lesson there, but now you're doing the exact same thing!
 
You've been auditioning TAURUS in a store a couple of times, but for how long? Half an hour? You don't declare if the unit was hot, what DAC was used, which headphones, if it was run in single ended or balanced mode or what you mean about it being bright. Bright compared to what? Come on, man! This isn't very bright of you, and you know it!
 
(But I still love you <3)