My source is Flac CD rips/JRiver/WASAPI, with or without SoX upsampling. There shouldn't be any coloring. Neutral gear tend to sound lean, cold and boring, Pavane sounds rich, warm and fun, that's why I think there is some coloration going on, no complaints though
My brother has it. He works in the building next door to them. I had been there and heard it is really good. I would say better than anything Sigma Delta until you get to like over 10 grand. I mean maybe DAVE is a little better to me but moving up from there you are into DCS,MSB stuff. So it is pretty impressive. It is not the same as a oversampling DAC if that is absolutely your thing but others may find it an excellent value. It seems to be very built too.
Just wanted to register my appreciation for what the Pavane Level 3 has done for my Utopias, which had fallen out of favor in my setup for the last few months. The Pavane has given it more body and smoothness, and 'microdynamic' musicality.
Edit: And the soundstage has expanded at the outer edges on my solid state amp that is very satisfying. I have active speakers simultaneously connected to the DAC and sometimes I'll forget to mute them when using headphones. On a couple occasions, I've taken off the Utopias in a quick panic, thinking I'd left the speakers on, but hadn't!
My ambre, after a week of use is sounding spectacular. I have it connected to a pavane (Dac 1) via a i2s (new i2s module). Until this point the cd transport gave the best results. Now transferring cd collection to ssd hard drive.
My ambre, after a week of use is sounding spectacular. I have it connected to a pavane (Dac 1) via a i2s (new i2s module). Until this point the cd transport gave the best results. Now transferring cd collection to ssd hard drive.
My ambre, after a week of use is sounding spectacular. I have it connected to a pavane (Dac 1) via a i2s (new i2s module). Until this point the cd transport gave the best results. Now transferring cd collection to ssd hard drive.
That's good to hear. I've had the Ambre for about two weeks as well. I posted my early impressions in the Metrum thread. I couched things in a pretty cautious way at the time in terms of my A/B observations, but the differences between the two setups I described there have become more apparent to me since then, and I'll be keeping it in my system.
That's good to hear. I've had the Ambre for about two weeks as well. I posted my early impressions in the Metrum thread. I couched things in a pretty cautious way at the time in terms of my A/B observations, but the differences between the two setups I described there have become more apparent to me since then, and I'll be keeping it in my system.
Sorry about the delay in responding. I meant simply that the differences in terms of degree (quantity) are more noticeable to me now that the Ambre's been running for longer. I actually don't have anything more I would add or modify in terms of the overall characterizations I made...
One more 'data point', for what it's worth, is that I've since added the Auteurs to my headphone rotation, and am noticing the same general positive differences when switching from the KTE SU-1/AES to the Ambre/I2S -- the highlight being deeper bass extension.
Sorry about the delay in responding. I meant simply that the differences in terms of degree (quantity) are more noticeable to me now that the Ambre's been running for longer. I actually don't have anything more I would add or modify in terms of the overall characterizations I made...
One more 'data point', for what it's worth, is that I've since added the Auteurs to my headphone rotation, and am noticing the same general positive differences when switching from the KTE SU-1/AES to the Ambre/I2S -- the highlight being deeper bass extension.
Thank you for the idea. I have now left the custom upsampling on all the time on roon and found possible sound quality improvements, mostly from vocals, which are clearer and with more separation.
The ambre with i2s is sounding excellent to me. I was previously using a cyrus cd xt signature direct into the pavane or Roon core through a Mutec 3+ usb to pavane. With the ambre there is a marked improvement in transparency, stereo image and well..... excitement to the music.
I too like to upsample before the DAC. Too much HF roll-off in NOS, it is fun to listen to and some material sounds very good, but generally NOS a flawed approach to D/A conversion. Moderate 4x upsamling retains the overall sound signature of the DAC and improves high-frequency response. I don't know what Roon uses for the upsampler, but you can pair it with the HQ Player which has many interesting digital upsampling filters to play with. You can't use HQP with Ambre though.
Well, I don't actually use HQP I'm currently mostly a Spotify user and there is no good way to integrate the 2, plus a failry steep HQP license price... I use JRiver/Sox which is "good enough" for me at the moment. I did play a bit with the trial HQP version. If memory serves I thought the poly-sinc filters were very good. The polynomial is worth a shot too as it doesn't ring but it doesn't filter out the ultrasonics either. Were I a Roon user with a NOS DAC I'd definitely give HQP license purchase a consideration.
Yes, and that's what I use. The options are limited though. They support SoX since some 2 releases ago but don't allow to change the filtering parameters, so you're limited to Linear Phase (FIR?) with sharp roll-of, which technically is what you should be using but it would be nice to have more settings to play with. There is also Shibatch's SSRC in JRiver which is the default/original method, somehow I'm not very impressed with the results it produces. I can route Spotify through the JRiver DSP engine, which is mainly why I use it.
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