[iamoneagain]

I should have my Expanse tomorrow and will be comparing against the Focal Utopia out of a Naim HE. I really like the slam of the Utopia, so hopefully that won’t be a deal breaker for me with the Expanse.

 

[dfiled]

I should have my Expanse tomorrow and will be comparing against the Focal Utopia out of a Naim HE. I really like the slam of the Utopia, so hopefully that won’t be a deal breaker for my with the Expanse.

Please let us know!

 

[OneEyedHito]

I am not a fan of the fairly constant byline of scrutiny of “bass slam, macro dynamics, foot tappiness” that is all the rage around discussing DCA products. Mainly because I have experienced that both Stealth and Expanse as well are highly chain dependent and you get out of them everything you put in. Unlike many other designs where they perform fairly uniformly across the spectrum of input, if one reviews Expanse on a D90/A90 stack, you will just NOT be hearing what I’m hearing on a TT2/Enleum 23R. So that said….

In my chain I always had the full range of macro dynamics that I could want including PLENTY of bass in all varieties and quality in Stealth, where the regular lineup of VC, Rognir, Denon, even 1266TC always came across as over emphasized bass, and for VC and especially Rognir, boomy and muddy bass.

In the Expanse I think emphasizing the bass 100-250hz was a good play to retain all of that amazing quality and correctly balanced quantity of bass present on the Stealth, while allowing sound energy to be lost in the open back design. The macro dynamics to me are excellent and these are if anything creating a greater inherent natural and “real” presence of the music to give even more macro dynamic fun to the mids and treble in space.

This sounds like just the description that Dan gave in his interview here and it makes this my most intriguing Flagship set on the Horizon for certain.

 

[XERO1]

I should have my Expanse tomorrow and will be comparing against the Focal Utopia out of a Naim HE. I really like the slam of the Utopia, so hopefully that won’t be a deal breaker for me with the Expanse.

Those are two very different sounding beasts.

But the amp section of your Naim Unit Atom HE might not have enough juice to properly drive the quite inefficient Expanse.

 

[iamoneagain]

Please let us know!

I’m hoping the the Naim HE’s fun, rhythmic character will come thru. I have feeling that the Expanse is very revealing of source, so if paired with an analytical setup, that’s how they’ll sound. Was worried about pairing a Meze Elite with a setup that house sound might be too much. Looking for a good balance of highly revealing while not being analytical.

 

[yeboyi]

I hesitate to use the word "slam" because it seems to be defined differently by different people

Best word to use in my opinion either ''dynamics'' or ''tactility''. It's about the feeling the movement of the driver excursion quickly moving forward and backward.
I guess you don't feel that physical excursion on planar drivers as much but the Abyss and HE6 pretty popular in this aspect. I wonder how it works scientifically since the measured loudness can be same yet the feeling can be different.

I feel like lack of sub bass can improve this trait since sub bass can do masking there. I perceive better tactility on my headphones without harman bass shelf to be honest. Also this might be the reason why dynamic drivers ''slam'' better because planars generally have more sub bass.

Interesting stuff. While i adore tactility, i end up preferring soundstage in the long run. Since i wear my headpones all day, it's more convenient to have spacious staging instead of overwhelmingly intimate and punchy sound.

 

[iamoneagain]

Those are two very different sounding beasts.

And the amp section of your Naim Unit Atom HE might not have enough juice to properly drive the quite inefficient Expanse.

Saw a few people that said the Stealth paired well. The Naim HE is staying, so if it’s not a match, then I’m stuck with the Focal Utopia. Such a hard life.

 

[XERO1]

Saw a few people that said the Stealth paired well. The Naim HE is staying, so if it’s not a match, then I’m stuck with the Focal Utopia. Such a hard life.

You can always use the Naim's preouts into whatever high-powered headphone amp you like, which would easily solve the problem.

 

[iamoneagain]

You can always use the Naim's preouts into whatever high-powered headphone amp you like, which would easily solve the problem.

Sure but I like the simplicity of the all in one box. The Expanse would have to really have the edge over the Utopia for me to want to go out and buy an additional headphone amp. I have my setup on a small end table by my couch. I also like to sometime move it to the bedroom. I had a Chord Dave/mscaler and was such a pain to move around, so not going back to multi box solution.

 

[adrianm]

Sure but I like the simplicity of the all in one box. The Expanse would have to really have the edge over the Utopia for me to want to go out and buy an additional headphone amp. I have my setup on a small end table by my couch. I also like to sometime move it to the bedroom. I had a Chord Dave/mscaler and was such a pain to move around, so not going back to multi box solution.

Sounds like the Bravura or Aperio might be in the cards for you

 

[iamoneagain]

Sounds like the Bravura or Aperio might be in the cards for you

Haha, the Bravura seems cheap in comparison. Really do hope the Naim HE has enough power. Definitely fuller sound out of it than the Dave with the Utopia.

 

[adrianm]

Haha, the Bravura seems cheap in comparison. Really do hope the Naim HE has enough power. Definitely fuller sound out of it than the Dave with the Utopia.

Well Dave as a dac and as an amp are worlds apart...

 

[iamoneagain]

Well Dave as a dac and as an amp are worlds apart...

Well I found out the hard way. And I also didn’t want another box. So maybe harder to drive headphones are not for me. Hopefully the Expanse will work. Might have to try the Meze Elite instead if it doesn’t work out. I know the Naim HE has enough power for them.

 

[adrianm]

Well I found out the hard way. And I also didn’t want another box. So maybe harder to drive headphones are not for me. Hopefully the Expanse will work. Might have to try the Meze Elite instead if it doesn’t work out. I know the Naim HE has enough power for them.

Been there as well, but against my better judgement I might still be going for the Lina over the Aperio. The Elites are great, I see them as being very similar to the Utopias, but definitely an upgrade. They really do scale up though, and I can barely go back to the Dave after having heard the Lina, idk how you do it with the Naim

 

[Beagle]

I’d love to see how the Stealth FR compares to the Aeon 2 Noire, if someone could post a graph comparison.