thomaspf
1000+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2003
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I was fortunate enough to get a Lavry Black unit form the first production batch and I picked it up yesterday.
The LB is a DAC with digital XLR, coax, and optical inputs. It also has an integrated headphone amplifier and comes with a digitally controlled analog volume control. This volume control is not a single chip solution like the PGA2311A from TI but built from discrete components. The same is true for the analog output stages. No integrated op-amps here but all discrete.
It uses the AD1955 flagship DAC from Analog Devices and support S/PDIF and AES input with 16/24 bits from 44.1Khz to 96Khz in crystal and narrow clock mode. It also has a somehwat unusual wide mode that syncs to frequencies in the range of 30-200Khz. So I suppose you could say that it supports 24/192Khz but according to the material on his WEB site Mr. Lavry is not a big fan of operating in 24/192 mode.
Sound:
I have to admit, I had never heard a Lavry DAC before and must say this is different than anything I have heard so far. I had a couple of people listen to it on headphones and they all pretty much responded with the same attribute. This DAC is smooth! It is somehow very detailed without exaggerating the highs.
Compared to my Bryston SP1.7 I can drive my Harbeth Monitor 40s at lower level while still getting a lot of detail. I tried the headphone output with the Super.fi Pro 5 (low impedance), Etymotic er-4s, and my HD600. It drives them all with ease and the sound is ... smoooth. In fact the Etymotic can be a bit etchy but on this amp even the er-4s sound sweet. It does not have the dryness that some other professional DACs in this class demonstrate. At this point I would probably summarize the sound as refined.
I tried the distortion detection test on this web site with the ER-4S and on the first try scored my best result so far.
http://www.klippel.de/aura/instructions.html
I also checked the well known udial.wav test clip. The LB renders this clip perfectly with a black background at full output and no siren sounds whatsoever.
I have been listening to it for about 8 hours now with a cross section of music from my library and seem to enjoy it a lot. While I had planned this unit as a replacement for my Earmax Pro I will leave it to also drive my main speakers for now.
Cheers
Thomas
The LB is a DAC with digital XLR, coax, and optical inputs. It also has an integrated headphone amplifier and comes with a digitally controlled analog volume control. This volume control is not a single chip solution like the PGA2311A from TI but built from discrete components. The same is true for the analog output stages. No integrated op-amps here but all discrete.
It uses the AD1955 flagship DAC from Analog Devices and support S/PDIF and AES input with 16/24 bits from 44.1Khz to 96Khz in crystal and narrow clock mode. It also has a somehwat unusual wide mode that syncs to frequencies in the range of 30-200Khz. So I suppose you could say that it supports 24/192Khz but according to the material on his WEB site Mr. Lavry is not a big fan of operating in 24/192 mode.
Sound:
I have to admit, I had never heard a Lavry DAC before and must say this is different than anything I have heard so far. I had a couple of people listen to it on headphones and they all pretty much responded with the same attribute. This DAC is smooth! It is somehow very detailed without exaggerating the highs.
Compared to my Bryston SP1.7 I can drive my Harbeth Monitor 40s at lower level while still getting a lot of detail. I tried the headphone output with the Super.fi Pro 5 (low impedance), Etymotic er-4s, and my HD600. It drives them all with ease and the sound is ... smoooth. In fact the Etymotic can be a bit etchy but on this amp even the er-4s sound sweet. It does not have the dryness that some other professional DACs in this class demonstrate. At this point I would probably summarize the sound as refined.
I tried the distortion detection test on this web site with the ER-4S and on the first try scored my best result so far.
http://www.klippel.de/aura/instructions.html
I also checked the well known udial.wav test clip. The LB renders this clip perfectly with a black background at full output and no siren sounds whatsoever.
I have been listening to it for about 8 hours now with a cross section of music from my library and seem to enjoy it a lot. While I had planned this unit as a replacement for my Earmax Pro I will leave it to also drive my main speakers for now.
Cheers
Thomas
