Listening to my Pulse X right now! Got it hooked up for initial testing, just making sure everything is working right, no serious listening just yet. Packaging was good, everything came through unscathed. 1G USB cable was included in the box along with a card extending the warranty to 2 years.
There's also a packing slip that indicates a purchase price of $1,799. That's cute. Unpacking the unit itself... well it does not look nor feel like a nearly $2,000 component. I'm not complaining as it is perfectly in line with what I actually paid and perhaps a few rungs above that, but I'm not sure I'd say it exudes even half the MSRP. Perhaps I'm out of touch with where things are at today. Of course, it's what is under the hood and how it sounds that really matters, at least to me.
A couple first impression quibbles, quirks and glitches:
- The smoked cover over the display has some scratches on it, like someone was trying to plug in headphones in the dark and kept missing the jack. It's not very noticeable, but there is no protective layer over the cover that the user usually peals off.
- The wall-wart power supply looks really cheap, especially at the retail price. Like something you get with a cell phone. I know, I could have upgraded to the LPS. Again, as long as the sound is OK...
- I'm doing my initial testing with the coax SPDIF input. Upon first firing it up I got nothing from the right channel. Checked the connections - good. Changed sources back to USB, then back to SPDIF 1 - BINGO, sound is there now.
- After confirming that it could make music, I paused the source and had dinner, then came back to listen a bit and before long noticed that a strange flapping helicopter like sound was coming from the left channel tweeter. Cycled through the inputs again and BINGO - problem solved.
OK, enough belly-aching. I've got it hooked up as follows: Squeezebox Touch > coax SPDIF > Pulse X (line out mode/full volume) > Harmonic Technology Pro-Silway XLR > Wyred4Sound mPRE > Kimber PBJ XLR > JBL LSR305 active monitors. No headphone use just yet, planning to do that at work tomorrow.
What about the sound? First impression is that is very smoooooove, perhaps a bit too much so? It's got a softness to the top end that makes it seem almost dulled somewhat. Bear in mind this is brand new out of the box, slapped down and played with no special setup. My speakers are not even optimally placed and I've had to keep the volume down somewhat since the kid is sleeping. But all that said, my initial thought is that holy cow, this easily trounces the ESS 9023 DAC section of my mPRE and others I have heard. It's got a ton of detail, but not in your face, just properly proportioned. Soundstage and imaging are fantastic, plus it leans toward the warm side of neutral (perhaps because of the smoothness?) with a tremendous low end. Actually, as I'm sitting here typing I'm taken with just how spacious, and open and NATURAL it sounds. I may have to pull out my Magnepans and big monoblock amps this weekend to see how it sounds with those (they are being "divested" due to system downsizing, so not currently hooked up, which I worry might entice me to keep those).
Tomorrow I'll be using the Pulse X with my Macbook Air running JRiver and either AKG K7XX or Sennheiser HD650. I've also got high-res PCM and DSD tracks to put it through its paces.
More to come.
