Remember this:
I think the usual response here would be: +1 (or is it 2x? 2x might be a fish forum thing).
No, I don’t have hundreds of hours with it, more like a dozen or so since it arrived Tuesday evening. I did get the benefit of one loved and used by someone else, so I don’t think burning in is an issue.
Count this as initial impressions, perhaps even still in the infatuation stage of things.
Before putting it to use I spent some time going through some of my test tracks as a refresher. After connecting it (and belatedly remembering my desktop was now coax 2, rather than USB and being able to hear the music), I went through those same tracks. It was indeed “startling”. I was using the HD800s (yeah, yeah, I’ll LCD-2s a chance sooner or later). The improvement in imaging, for me meaning where the instruments are in space in relationship to one another, was huge. It was as though they suddenly snapped into place. Much, closer to a sense of being live and in the audience, with damn good seats. There may have been an increase in sound stage, but we’re talking HD800 and my perception of this may have been biased by the radical improvement in imaging.
Clarity and detail also took a sizeable jump. “Deh! Tu di un umile preghiera” (Donizetti’s Stuarda if you’re wondering) opens with a brief passage for solo harp. Each note was distinct. In Dead Man’s Hand by Harpeth Rising, there’s a rapid aggressive fiddle passage. In addition to hearing the attack, I swear I could tell she was bouncing the bow off the strings. I wouldn’t have thought it really possible to notice any increase in the separation of instruments beyond what the Dac2 and HD800 already brought to the opening of the prelude to Das Rheingold. In part because, well, it not supposed to be clear. It’s all about subtle texture, and the gradual layering sound -- an E flat chord played and built slowly over 136 measures. However it did and in a good way. Entrances were easier to note, the ever so slight accents in the 2 sets of double basses that provide an ostinato rhythm are just enough more evident to add to the overall effect.
The dynamics sound much better. It’s like they opened up at the top and bottom and added gradations in between. Might be something y’ll assume would happen in conjunction with the other improvements, but I wasn’t, and was really surprised and impressed.
Now that it’s too late, if you want it in a nutshell: I went back to listen to my laptop. W4S usb to Dac2 usb in, everything else the same. Tracks are the exact same ones, as in copies of one another. It took about 10 seconds to go, “What! Where’s my music? What did I screw up this time in connecting things? I can NOT listen to this crap.” I stopped the music and looked back over everything. Nope, unless I’m missing something the difference lies between the 2 computers and what they’re feeding into the Dac2.
Whether real or imagined, the differences have me in a grinning contest with the Cheshire Cat.
To hop down off the infatuated fanboy wagon, I have noticed a bit more sibilance, and what I’d describe as an edge (not to be confused with harshness) to some of the treble. This, I’m thinking is most likely the HD-800, but I'm not ready to take up the LCD-2s just quite yet. Over the weekend. Probably.
