Wheeew!... Comparing the NX-03 to the RPX-33 proved to be hard work (good hard, of course
). So, right here, I’ll give you my headline: “The underdog goes down kicking!” If you think about these competitors, one of them costing about twice as much as the other, I’m sure you’ll agree that Dr. Rudi Stor would have to be the biggest lunatic in headphone-audio history if he let the larger, costlier amp lose this fight. Ah, you bet I’d love to report that he was a lunatic! We’re all bargain hunters, aren’t we? Well, rest assured I am. I do my homework before I buy anything that comes within a country mile of what I paid for these amps. I read and I research, and then, before I open my wallet, I come back and read again, and then I read between the lines and psychoanalyze every review I can find. (And, like many of you, I see the professional reviewers pathetically trying to hide their tracks as they scramble for some dignity while trying to suck up to manufacturers and dealers. I come close to sympathizing as they beg us to read between the lines. Sometimes, on weekends, in the shade, if the lemonade is good, I sympathize a little. Most of the time, I just totally hate them for the hard work they give us. But I say this with love, of course.
) I’m a militant cheapskate, a bargaining guerrilla, if you will. The term “value-conscious” doesn’t begin to describe my commitment to bang-for-the buck. Heck, I’ve even (candidly) called my Head-Fi persona “Soundinista”!
Unfortunately, however, Dr. Rudi doesn’t go nuts when pricing his products. So, I can’t report on a miracle. But, still, the whole story here is how close an unassuming entry-level amp comes to this dual-mono colossus that a Stereophile reviewer drooled over in his review for that mag. Here’s my tale of two RudiStor amps – in instalments; this time, with the JVC HP-DX1000 on my head.
The weapons
I think I’ve assembled a fine collection of DVD’s for this task. Why DVD’s only? Because I feel you get a better assessment of the ambience if you can see the venue, not just infer that it has such-and-such characteristics. Yes, I understand how the recording technique (placement of mikes, etc.) may produce something of a mismatch between what you hear and what you see (large venue sounding smaller than you’d expect, etc.). Still, there is something to seeing that the ambience is
plausible, isn’t there?
Well, be that as it may, here’s the musical program. (I can’t resist throwing in a rambling line or two about these DVD’s. So, bear with me...)
* Eric Alexander Quartet: Prime Time (HighNote, recorded in 2007). Largish hall acoustics. Well-done be-bop. Mostly generic be-bop to my ears – but my be-bop years are long gone anyway. When I looked back at the best swing jazz (Count Basie et al.), there was no turning back. (I can really enjoy cool jazz, though, primarily Bill Evans and Chet Baker. Generally speaking, you don’t get that kind of introspective stuff from swingers. But don’t get me started on how a Ben Webster, or a Scott Hamilton, blurs the lines between swing and bop and cool.) This is well-recorded, a real audiophile joy to listen to. It’s a CD/DVD set. The CD puts me to sleep for the most part. I think it’s marketed as a CD with a bonus DVD. Get it for the DVD, if you can.
* The Paladins: Power Shake (DaVid 5/Rounder, recorded in 2004). Small open-air-arena acoustics. Scholastic rock’n’roll in the classic power trio (guitar/bass/drums) format, with a couple of 60’s-style blues-rock numbers thrown in for good measure. A no-brainer recommendation for rock’n’roll buffs (despite the weak vocals). Jerry Lee’s kids are all right! (I’d have used the musically amazing Blasters’ DVD if it were audiophile-grade. It isn’t. Somebody committed a crime there. Alternative pick for sonics and top-notch blues-rock: The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Invitation Only.)
* Carey & Lurrie Bell: Gettin’ Up (Delmark, recorded in 2006). I concentrated on the Rosa’s Lounge tracks. Tiny blues club acoustics. A sonic knockout! The material? Do you know what a wounded coyote sounds like? Meet the fantastic Carey Bell, owner of one of the most gut-wrenching harmonica sounds in music! (If you don’t know the man, check out his Alligator CD’s, and you’ll see what a great, surprising singer he was 10, 15 years ago.)
* Deep Blue Organ Trio: Going to Town (Delmark, recorded in 2005). Small jazz club acoustics. Another sonic knockout on Delmark Records! Be-bop, funky jazz and Latin jazz cooked to perfection. Chris Foreman’s work is Hammond B3 organ heaven! (If you know of more organ jazz of this caliber on DVD, please let me know.)
* Dave Specter: Live in Chicago (Delmark, recorded in 2007). Here, I concentrated on the Buddy Guy’s Legends tracks. Small blues club acoustics. Delmark audiophile-grade recording again. Specter is a minimalist guitar player who’s all about tone. He won’t knock your socks off with technique, I don’t think. And Specter’s killer, gamut-running taste in contemporary blues will remind you of the much more impressive Ronnie Earl (who, like Specter, hires singers when he needs the vocals). But, again, give Specter a fair shake by concentrating on tone. The band does a great job and the vocalists don’t detract much from the high enjoyability factor here. (Still, for the most part, I wish they got out of the way.)
Well, fact is, this was getting out of hand
fast. I was getting ready to bring more music DVD’s, and CD’s too, quite a few more, into these listening sessions. And I felt I would need much, much more time with them. There was no review of the amps in sight! I was getting overwhelmed. Then it hit me: “Stick to the tried and true”, I told myself. A flash of insight at last! I reached for two of my all-time favorites, discs I’ve had for several years now:
* The Rolling Stones: Four Flicks, disc 4, Olympia, Paris (recorded in 2003). This is one the best live recordings I’ve heard, bar none. There’s great dynamics here, from the back-of-hall screams to first-row gasps from the audience, from the softest strumming of an acoustic guitar to Charlie Watts’ visceral kickdrum. You get all the definition you need coupled with
a lot of ambience. The recording puts you in row 15 (minus the screams in your ears). You actually
feel how the people in the audience are packed like sardines in a can. It’s like you’re hovering half-way between the ceiling and the frantic crowd. The setlist is fun too. Granted, they got way too creative with some of the choices. (Who needs “Dance, Part 1”, and then “Going to a Go-Go” on top of it?) There’s sloppiness here and there. I’m not saying this is one of the best RS performances. It may not be. But there’s no arguing with “Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)”, or “No Expectations”, or “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”, or Keith Richards’ rendition of “The Nearness of You”. I concentrated on an old favorite, “Hand of Fate”, followed by “No Expectations”. These were two very revealing tracks.
* Joni Mitchell: Painting With Words And Music (Eagle Rock, recorded in 1998). Smallish arena acoustics. For the most part, a stunning audio experience. You get a wall-to-wall perspective, with the well-proportioned vocals right in the middle of what sounds like a much larger hall. A very useful recording, with vocals which are a little more sibilant than what you’d expect from a state-of-the-art recording. The material: I really only care for two songs here (though there are some other good ones), the phenomenal “Hejira” and “Black Crow”. These two masterpieces are alone worth the price of admission. Trust me on this one. They dwarf everything else – not only here, but, possibly, in Mitchell’s whole body of work. “Hejira”, in particular, is a jaw-dropping experience. From a musical/lyrical point of view, it places her firmly among those “official” guardians of “the deep” in popular song, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed. She plays ball with those black crows here. The thing is the kind of experience that the young & naive should be shielded from. I can’t begin to tell you how convincingly dramatic this performance is.
But, you know, even such an assortment of audiophile goodies won’t give you the deep-bass experience that you get from certain movie soundtracks. I have no movie DVD’s with me. But there are quite a few TV-series DVD sets on the shelves. (Did I mention I’m a cheapskate?). So, I reached for three of the best dynamic soundtracks I’ve come across recently: “Dexter” (season 2, on Showtime), “The Unit” (season 2, on Fox) and “Criminal Minds” (season 2, on CBS). There were plenty of deep bass tones in these soundtracks. (The two musical themes for “Dexter” are particularly good.)
Lastly, the source was the DAC in the Grace m902. If you can use the reference, Stereophile magazine has rated it as a class-A component. Both John Atkinson (who must be one of the most authoritative sources for electronics in the audio world) and Sam Tellig have praised it very highly. Atkinson put it against the DAC in a $17k CD player and thought it held its own. Tellig raves about it in the October issue. Somebody at The Absolute Sound has been using it as a digital source in his reviews. I like it immensely. Both amps were connected to the Grace by short, shielded, heavy-gauge interconnects. (In order to minimize memory loss while jumping between amps, I fed the NX-03 from the pass-through in the RPX-33. Not an iota of perceptible degradation vis-a-vis the direct connection to the DAC.)
The shoot-out
Are you still there?!
The easy part first. It didn’t take me long at all to notice that the RPX-33 throws a wider soundstage than the NX-03’s. It was also very clear – after a while – that the larger amp is more extended in the highs than the smaller amp. The 03’s highs are very pleasing and natural. But their slightly rolled-off nature combined negatively with the slight treble roll-off of the DX1000 to produce a little more politeness than I wished I had found in that area. By contrast, the RPX-33 was a
perfect match for the DX1000 in the highs. Simply perfect! Those who think the DX1000 sparkle-shy are advised to try out this combination.
Also easy: You know how sibilance seems to come in two varieties? There’s the “z-z-z-z” variety and the “sh-sh-sh” variety, right? When I played the Mitchell DVD, I got significantly more of the latter variety from the NX-03 than from the RPX-33. There were many other clear instances of “sh-sh-sh” sibilance through the NX-03 that were faintly noticeable through the RPX-33. (I’ve tried my best not to make that well-known mistake, blaming the equipment for flaws that are in the recording. I’m confident I didn’t make that mistake.)
And, now, the hard part: The sound of the RPX-33 is consistently more
three-dimensional than what you get from the NX-03. This is really hard to describe. Sounds are simply more natural through the larger amp. You know the cliché “there’s more
there there”? Well, I’m afraid I need that one here! This is really tough because you don’t know the difference – you don’t expect it, you can’t imagine what it’s like – till you find it. I’m throwing in the towell, folks! It’s simply a more three-dimensional soundscape, more
tactile, more conducive to the out-of-head experience, more immersive. In short, it’s more three-dimensional.
The amps were indistinguishable as regards dynamics (punchiness) and bass. But, again, this was noticeable after a while: The mids are
lush through the RPX-33. There is nothing obviously
wrong with the midrange through the NX-03. But the lushness, that satisfying measure of warmth in the low mids that you get from the RPX-33 is not there. This is one of those things that you may not miss in the sound of the NX-03, unless you A/B it against the larger amp.
In sum, the testimony of the JVC DX1000 leaves no room for doubt: the larger amp is better on all counts.
So, how about bang-for-buck? This is the toughest part. Bang-for-buck is a much more complex concept that we tend to make it. The comparison between these two RudiStor’s threw this fact into such a sharp focus for me. The problem is:
Which bang? How do I begin to put a price on the things that the RPX-33 does better – without making a complete fool of myself, grossly oversimplifying the matter? The following series of questions and answers is my best shot at giving you something to hang on to in the slippery bang-for-buck area.
Do I think that the satisfaction I got from the NX-03 reported on at #1 in this thread was a momentary illusion, a trick of wishful thinking that I played on myself? Hell, no! Would I have imagined exactly how the NX-03 would be bested by another amp had I not come to know the difference through first-hand experimentation? I don’t think so. Except for the RPX-33 (and before making direct and controlled comparisons with my other amps), do I remember having had a better headphone experience than the one I got from the NX-03? No. Did I find exactly what I was looking for – namely, visceral bass response and dynamic effortlessness – when I got the NX-03? Yes. Do I regret paying as much as I did for the sonic advantage the RPX-33 gave me over the NX-03? No. Would I miss the RPX-33 if I were to be left with the NX-03 as my only amp? Badly. Now that I know the difference between the two Rudi’s (as reported by the DX1000), if tragedy struck and I was left with the NX-03 as my only amp, would I still enjoy my headphone experience? Yes, a lot.
That’s as far as I can go for now. But I have reason to think that there’s better synergy between the NX-03 and two of my other phones, the Denon D5000 and the Beyerdynamic DT990-600. That’s for other chapters in my RudiStor adventure.
The RPX-33 may well be my last amp. Bravo, Rudi, bravissimo!
