I didn't get any quality time in the DCS room today, was just way too crowded every time I tried. But I spent a good amount of time with the Bartok last year and realized that their dacs really do something unique with the music. I'm not sure I particularly like it, but it's certainly not the same sound as every other dac.
I tried the Bartok last year and indeed, I thought it did something unique. However, I remember the Bartok sounding quite soft. Lina did not sound soft to me. It's engaging, it's clean, it's rich, and many more adjectives I can't think of right now. I just became more and more flabbergasted with each headphone I plugged in. Planning on bringing my HD660s tomorrow (maybe the LCD-X) so perhaps I'll have a better idea using gear I'm more familiar with.
Stop it. I'm totally in the market for a new "endgame" DAC and now you're making me want to go back tomorrow and fight for a spot with Lina. Although I suppose I would convince myself that the dac without the clock wouldn't be worth it and there's no way I'm spending $20k on a dac, so crisis averted.
I listened to the Viva with the planar headphone (Meze Elite?). There are too many variables at canjam IMO to reasonably assess amps & dacs unless you bring your own headphones, but fwiw it sounded spectacular. I didn't realize from photos how HUGE they are, though.
Yeah, seems to me to be just as much a showpiece art sculpture as it is functional piece of equipment. And the Meze Elites sound good on almost everything I've tried them on. =)
Stop it. I'm totally in the market for a new "endgame" DAC and now you're making me want to go back tomorrow and fight for a spot with Lina. Although I suppose I would convince myself that the dac without the clock wouldn't be worth it and there's no way I'm spending $20k on a dac, so crisis averted.
I have owned the VIVA EGOISTA 845 with the UTOPIA and the HD800s for almost 3 years. I confirm that it is an amplifier out of standard.some quick observations before dinner:
1. EAR micro blew me away with their T10, which are wireless and have the DAC and DSP in the tiny earpieces. The soundstage was fantastic on everything I heard.
Their focus, besides sound, is the luxury market with custom charger units that have to be seen to be described, like something from hogwarts, and the basic carbon version of the charger is about $3k with the sky the limit for customization (not my thing). The engineering is outstanding with claimed 300m bluetooth range supporting up to 24/96. This was absolutely unique, very techie but also great sounding. Apparently, the ear pieces can be opened with one screw and the battery and/or dac/dsp can be changed or upgraded in the future.
2. My best sound of show, hands down, was the Meze Elite and the Viva 845-based headphone amp. The soundstage and detail were incredible, enough so that I feel I'll have to consider this a real contender versus my stax009/T2 combination (yes, blasphemy from a 50 year stax user) today. Even with roon on an Aurender, the sound was exceptional, and I hate roon.
3. Justin's new Grand Canyon amplifier (prototype) is definitely a TOTL contender for electrostatics. I didn't have a chance to A/B with the BHSE but there definitely seemed to be improved bass.
4. I got to hear the Chord Dave and Upscaler, which I've always enjoyed in the past. First, Roon had streaming problems and kept stopping. Then I tried to use my USB stick, and roon was unable to load it even though the macbook pro could see it. Finally, we shut down roon (did i mention that i hate roon?) and played the USB stick with the output going directly from the macbook pro to the upscaler, whew............ As in past listening, the upscaler/dave combo is impressive. This time, I came with a special set of my test tracks, one in 16/44 WAV and a 2nd version upscaled to 768k via PGGB (thank you @austinpop). So the first case uses the chord upscaler while the second has the upscaling done by pggb offline, using parameters optimized by a group of expert pggb users who own dave dacs. In every case, the pggb files sound better to me than the 16/44 upscaled by the chord upscaler, more detail, better soundstage and depth. It was very nice with the chord upscaler but even better with pggb files. Of course, pggb files are HUGE and require massive storage compared with 16/44 files.
5. I really wanted to hear some of the OTL amps in the Bloom audio room, but it was too crowded and i never got a seat
I do indeed recommend it. I had the VIVA EGOISTA 845 and now I'm switching to STX to power my next X9000.
I tried so many TOTL headphones today like ZMFs, Abyss, Focals, the Susvara. Yet that was probably the only distinctive one. Nice combo of bright and slam. I might buy one but my Shure 840 is still very solid and adequate.
No, their DACs definitely do something unique (better?) with sound. The best way I've heard it described is "it puts you not in the front row, but right in the center 8 rows back where the sound has room to breathe."
After owning Audio-GD r2r-11mk2, I think almost everything I heard today lacked some body lol. The Holo May in NOS had nice sense of body, but lost it in OS. Lina wasn't quite as full or thick but still had very nice sense of body and presence to them methought.
