[gto88]

+1, Yeah, the user interface can take some improvement.

 

[antdroid]

I should have mentioned, I really am liking how this thing sounds. It's extremely clean and detailed! The Dirac Sensasound feature surprisingly works well. It adds vertical height, and depth to music, while still retaining good width. Basically gives you a very natural sound field that doesn't seem to lose any or much detail through the processing in my limited listening of some bluegrass music via CD. You do lose some richness/fullness. It doesn't sound like some other virtual surround sound DSPs. This one seems like it was made for music. I'll have to try it out on some movies and games in the future.

 

[Packdemon]

I should have mentioned, I really am liking how this thing sounds. It's extremely clean and detailed! The Dirac Sensasound feature surprisingly works well. It adds vertical height, and depth to music, while still retaining good width. Basically gives you a very natural sound field that doesn't seem to lose any or much detail through the processing in my limited listening of some bluegrass music via CD. You do lose some richness/fullness. It doesn't sound like some other virtual surround sound DSPs. This one seems like it was made for music. I'll have to try it out on some movies and games in the future.

+1 That's the impression I got, too. It does well to give vertical height, though might take out a bit from the width. With the fullness gone it takes out the immersion and makes it sound more like the music is live in front of you. While great on a lot of music, l would say it doesn't do well with cinematic tracks since you lose the epic immersive feel. Movies are the same in that sense, and most games already are mastered with headphone in mind, in which case the speaker like effect of Dirac becomes more of a detriment. It's certainly fun to play around with, and I still am trying to narrow down everything that benefits from it being on.

 

[Baten]

Mine is scheduled for Monday delivery damn it worst time to ship something I guess with Black Friday and everything

 

[Packdemon]

Okay, I figured out how to set off the Over Current Protect feature. It happens when your headphone output cable isn't plugged in properly or when you pull it out while it's outputting a signal. I'm glad I finally figured that out.

 

[antdroid]

These are just some initial quick impressions on the amp and it's feature set:


Sound:
Very clean sound in normal operations. Has balanced XLR and 1/4" single ended output. Sounds very transparent to me. I have nothing more to comment right now.


Power:
Has plenty of power in balanced operation. HE560 planar is plenty loud at -35dB and Elex/Elegia at -50dB


Inputs:
Has USB, Digital Coax, RCA, TosLink, Balanced XLR and AES. I have used USB and Digital Coax from a CD player


Output:
Just has line out to RCA. For whatever reason they didnt put balanced XLR output here. There is a guide to mod the XLR input to do output, which I may do in the future. The board itself is a little cramped but I think I can do it.


Dirac Sensasound:
Neat feature. Adds a lot of soundstage virtualization to music. I definitely hear improved vertical/height and depth to music. The width stays relatively the same and may sound a little less because of the virtualization (some of the width is converted to depth). Overall, for some music, it sounds very natural and organic. For some tracks, it does lose some of the needed rich/fullness sound in the lower end. I feel like this was definitely made for music and may vary depending on genres/artists/recordings.


Equalizer:
I have only barely played with EQ. It comes with Shelf EQ (standard bass/treble knobs on receivers) and 5-band parametric EQ which lets you customize the Frequency you want to modify, the gain, and Q-settings. It is a little cumbersome to use since it has a lot of menu presses and knob turning to set. I havent played enough to give a proper impression yet.


Line-Out:
Line out is not active by default. You have to enable it via settings menu. This is a little annoying since it's buried a bit. You have to press Menu, turn the knob to the last item, press Enter to go to SETTINGS, then turn the knob to Line Out, then press Enter and switch it.

Button layout:
The Menu button turns on and off the unit. The Enter button changes Input. Nothing to complain with here. But these buttons are on either side of the volume knob. This makes going through menus a little annoying. Its not the end of the world, but would be faster to operate if they were near each other.

General Menu:
The menu itself is a little clunky, but I'm not sure how to really improve it with the limited buttons. One of the things I miss using this vs my Topping DX7 is the remote control. The DX7 remote has quick buttons to line inputs and outputs and other menu settings, so quickly switching devices and outputs is easy peasy. This THX unit would have greatly benefited from an IR remote capability given its complex menu feature set.

Also there is a menu item for Dynamic Range Control. I dont really know why this is even an option and is a waste of
an option slot. I want my full range of audio. It's off by default.


Overall, this is quite a package. It has definite annoyances but I think I'll get used to it over time and more usage. There are people complaining about windows drivers for higher quality formats but this isnt something that is going to bother me right now.

 

[NaranKPatel]

It's always possible that they might release a driver in the future, but I'm glad that it works out of the box with windows and andriod.

I looked up the vendor id and product id, appears to be xmos based usb? I tried but none of the xmos drivers worked though, I do hope they release something soon, would be nice to get xmos thesycon asio drivers released (if that's really what they end up releasing)

 

[Baten]

I looked up the vendor id and product id, appears to be xmos based usb? I tried but none of the xmos drivers worked though, I do hope they release something soon, would be nice to get xmos thesycon asio drivers released (if that's really what they end up releasing)

I would definitely raise that to their attention =/

 

[Baten]

Can any happy owner here maybe take a picture of the power brick? What does it perform at?

 

[CAMSHAFT]

@antdroid How does the amp section compare to that of your Cavalli Liquid Spark? I am running Audirvana+ > Reveal Plugin > Mojo > Liquid Spark > iSine 20

 

[antdroid]

@antdroid How does the amp section compare to that of your Cavalli Liquid Spark? I am running Audirvana+ > Reveal Plugin > Mojo > Liquid Spark > iSine 20

I have not A/B compared them yet. The Spark is at work. From audio memory, I think the Spark is more full-bodied and rich, but less detailed. The THX is cleaner and more detailed and probably has wider stage. This is even more apparent with the Dirac DSP enabled, but YMMV because it can mess up the sound signature. I'll consider taking the Spark home from work to A/B them when I get back into the office Monday.

 

[CAMSHAFT]

I have not A/B compared them yet. The Spark is at work. From audio memory, I think the Spark is more full-bodied and rich, but less detailed. The THX is cleaner and more detailed and probably has wider stage. This is even more apparent with the Dirac DSP enabled, but YMMV because it can mess up the sound signature. I'll consider taking the Spark home from work to A/B them when I get back into the office Monday.

Thanks!

 

[CAMSHAFT]

delete

 

[wadec22]

just got mine. so when i set the sampling to 24 bit, 96hz or higher - it says it takes the change but with the start of any application with audio - it defaults back to 16bit, 48hz. is this a driver limitation at the moment via usb - or has someone figured out a way around that?

 

[Baten]

just got mine. so when i set the sampling to 24 bit, 96hz or higher - it says it takes the change but with the start of any application with audio - it defaults back to 16bit, 48hz. is this a driver limitation at the moment via usb - or has someone figured out a way around that?

Can you use ASIO or WASAPI to get around it?