[jronan2]

We know all this tho. I don't think anyone here that owns an Lyr is expecting it to beat out amps that are double triple and more its base price. Not everyone has 3 or 4 grand to blow on a high end system. I'm not expecting the Lyr to be the greatest amp for the LCD 2 or anything else. I'm hoping for it to be the best choice out of $450 of my hard earned money. Personally when I buy a product whether it be head fi, a gadget, a bike whatever floats my boat, I want to get the most out of my money, and that is what the Lyr does. Not to mention Schiit is making a name for themselves as far as customer service, and with a 5 year warranty.

 

[sphinxvc]

Quote:

We know all this tho. I don't think anyone here that owns an Lyr is expecting it to beat out amps that are double triple and more its base price. Not everyone has 3 or 4 grand to blow on a high end system. I'm not expecting the Lyr to be the greatest amp for the LCD 2 or anything else. I'm hoping for it to be the best choice out of $450 of my hard earned money. Personally when I buy a product whether it be head fi, a gadget, a bike whatever floats my boat, I want to get the most out of my money, and that is what the Lyr does. Not to mention Schiit is making a name for themselves as far as customer service, and with a 5 year warranty.

That it is, most definitely.  I'm not knocking the product at all.  In fact I still plan to buy one for my 5LEs.  I'm quite tired of fooling around with speaker amps.
 
But you know, if you take tonal balance out of the picture the biggest difference between the HE-4s, HE-5LEs and the LCD-2s is resolution.  So if you're going to settle for compromised resolution then I don't see the sense in investing in the higher end headphone in the first place, you can save about $500 of your hard earned money instead.

 

[jronan2]

That is something I know nothing about yet, which is why I need to get to a meet and try some of the best amps out there and really see what I am missing. But again I believe my ears aren't the best and I wouldn't call myself a true audiophile, I try and keep things very simple and just want to enjoy my music. And since I put my main computer rig together finally last week I have been toe tapping ever since, even my girl is using it and she used to make fun of headphones and what not.
 
 

 

[leesure]

Quote:

 
Revisiting my somewhat infamous post made two days ago in this thread:
 

And considering Grokit's earlier post:
 
Quote:

X2, that pretty much mirrors my experience comparing the LCD-2 out of the Lyr and the WA22. This is why I think the best match for the Lyr could be the K701, because the LCD-2 is capable of more resolution so it scales up better with higher-quality amplification, where the K701 likes the slam of the Lyr but doesn't benefit as much from the additional resolution of a WA22.

 
And leesure's post, to which Grokit was responding:
 
Quote:

I have a Woo 6SE and heard the WA5 and WA22 under met conditions and my Lyr as 1 day old at the time, so the following comments may be unfair...Compared to the Woo's, the Lyr lacked speed and 'layering'.  It was like the sounds were more homogenized with the Lyr while everything was airier with the Woo's.  The WA22 and the RWA also had better micro-dynamics.  The Lyr had plenty of slam ad macro-dynamics, but the small subtle dynamics...plucking a violin string for example, were better and more complete from the Woo and especially from the RWA.

 

[snip]

 
I just finished reading Tom Martin's review of the Apex Peak/Volcano (which, admittedly, is an unfair comparison to the Lyr, in terms of price):  
 
But when I read the following two paragraphs from Tom Martin's review, I realized that my comments regarding the Lyr's lack of resolution are inversely synonymous with Tom Martin's comments regarding the apparently excellent resolving power of the Apex P/V:
 
 
 
Having obtained Yuceka's permission to send his amp to Jason Stoddard to get his analysis, I'll be mailing it tomorrow morning, but I am increasingly concerned that Yuceka's Lyr could be "working as designed."
 
Mike
 
 

Ummm, you neglected to include the next sentence in my comment...
 
I have a Woo 6SE and heard the WA5 and WA22 under met conditions and my Lyr as 1 day old at the time, so the following comments may be unfair...Compared to the Woo's, the Lyr lacked speed and 'layering'.  It was like the sounds were more homogenized with the Lyr while everything was airier with the Woo's.  The WA22 and the RWA also had better micro-dynamics.  The Lyr had plenty of slam ad macro-dynamics, but the small subtle dynamics...plucking a violin string for example, were better and more complete from the Woo and especially from the RWA.
 
I've since heard the Lyr open up quite a bit and I've recently rolled some tubes in so some of these impressions are evolving.
 
If you're going to use my comments to futher your agenda, please include all the provisos.

 

[Kremer930]

To respond to Zilch's comments, I am quite surprised that more people dont come out in support of the resolving power of the Lyr.  I really dont know what the cause of the apparent problem is with Zilch's audio chain, be it his cans, dac, cables etc but I will be expecting Jason to test the subject Lyr and confirm that is up to specification and performance.  It will be interesting to see this one play out.
 
I have a pair of HE6 and they can resolve all that the Lyr throws at them.  When hooked up to a fully competent source like the Bryston media server and dac and playing lossless high res files the Lys is able to recreate music that would make you think that you were only metres from a live performance.  
 
The Lyr lacks very little in ultimate capability.  It may certainly be a few percent short compared to high end Woos (there have been several reports of the Lyr being a preferred amp to W006SE), RSA, Peak Volcano etc but I would be very surprised that the Lyr could not better a portable source such as the Meier.  If the stepdance is so great...why does the Concerto get blown into the weeds by the Lyr from my personal listening comparisons with my HE6?
 
I can only guess that a tube was loose or faulty.  Given the amps owner never raised this issue of sound quality it tends to point towards damage in transit or to Zilch's components.
 
Jason has been amazing in the way that he is picking up the cost for something that I personally feel will not be his cause.  That has to be applauded.  
 
If I was experiencing these problems with my Lyr (or any audio component for that matter) I would roll in some different tubes at least before making a public statement declaring the lack of capability of the subject product, especially when there are so many that are admirers.  

 

[ianmedium]

Very interesting. Odd, I have compared the Lyr to a number of good portables, and my fi.Q, and I don't hear a loss of detail of highs or smearing of frequencies or problems with complex passages. 

I agree completely. I'm sorry, but a portable amp will not power an ortho properly....even though it (LCD-2) can sound quite "nice" from portable amps....they need at least 1W to really get their legs under them so to speak....with the Lyr and it's 4 W they are definitely off to the races IMO.

Then you have obviously not heard what a Stepdance fed with a clean 15v of power can do! To say no portable amp can power them to levels that give the LCD's ability to shine is to not have heard the Stepdance/Energizer combination, if you are ever in this neck of the woods I would be more than happy to let you listen to mine.

This is not just my feeling but the feelings of several folks I know with extremely good home HiFi set up's and also the opinions of a high end HiFi store here who heard my set up.

With the extra power feeding the Stepdance please do not think of it as "just" a portable as it simply is not!

 

[Kremer930]

Is it better than the concerto then?

 

[ianmedium]

Is it better than the concerto then?

I can't comment on that as I have not heard the Concerto. I have compared the Stepdance with a Nagra PL-P and whilst I admit the Nagra is better neither myself or the owner of the Nagra felt the Stepdance was the poor relation. In fact my friend with the Nagra went out and purchased a Stepdance before they stopped this present version along with the external battery for when he is away on business.

 

[jamato8]

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:

Very interesting. Odd, I have compared the Lyr to a number of good portables, and my fi.Q, and I don't hear a loss of detail of highs or smearing of frequencies or problems with complex passages. 

I agree completely. I'm sorry, but a portable amp will not power an ortho properly....even though it (LCD-2) can sound quite "nice" from portable amps....they need at least 1W to really get their legs under them so to speak....with the Lyr and it's 4 W they are definitely off to the races IMO.

Then you have obviously not heard what a Stepdance fed with a clean 15v of power can do! To say no portable amp can power them to levels that give the LCD's ability to shine is to not have heard the Stepdance/Energizer combination, if you are ever in this neck of the woods I would be more than happy to let you listen to mine.

This is not just my feeling but the feelings of several folks I know with extremely good home HiFi set up's and also the opinions of a high end HiFi store here who heard my set up.

With the extra power feeding the Stepdance please do not think of it as "just" a portable as it simply is not!

And the fi.Q can be fed by 24 volts of external power and the PB-2 can be fed by external power and the 71B has been talked about quite a bit with regards to powering hard to drive phones and doing an exceptional job. So there are portables that can do a very fine job of it. 
 
On the resolving power of the Lyr, well for me it does an excellent job and after years of high end audio and having built my own high end equipment, I know what I hear in music, the good and bad. 

 

[Kremer930]

I also want to add that I really do hope that Zilch is able to find the problem and is able to hear what the Lyr can do when some Slam and Impact is added to an already great sound.

 

[Rope]

One item I do not believe has been addressed in this thread, or perhaps I missed the reference, is recording quality.  The majority of current day recordings are terribly compressed, with little or no dynamic qualities.  Crappy recording sound crappy regardless of the equipment used to reproduce the material.  I've had good results from Telarc and Chesky, although there are others such as Blue Note.
 
When I choose to do some critical listening, I either listen to the disc itself or WMA lossless.  Nothing else seems to suffice.

 

[zilch0md]

 
leesure,
 
I apologize for cherry-picking your comment.  Grokit had quoted your entire post when he responded with his negative comment regarding the Lyr's resolving power.  I should have done the same.  
 
Mike
 
Quote:

Ummm, you neglected to include the next sentence in my comment...
 
I have a Woo 6SE and heard the WA5 and WA22 under met conditions and my Lyr as 1 day old at the time, so the following comments may be unfair...Compared to the Woo's, the Lyr lacked speed and 'layering'.  It was like the sounds were more homogenized with the Lyr while everything was airier with the Woo's.  The WA22 and the RWA also had better micro-dynamics.  The Lyr had plenty of slam ad macro-dynamics, but the small subtle dynamics...plucking a violin string for example, were better and more complete from the Woo and especially from the RWA.
 
I've since heard the Lyr open up quite a bit and I've recently rolled some tubes in so some of these impressions are evolving.
 
If you're going to use my comments to futher your agenda, please include all the provisos.

 

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

In case anyone is interested, I'm selling the Lyr with bonus Valhalla tubes. Check the listing on my sig. Love the Lyr, but money's tight. Getting rid of the HE4 and D7000 as well.

 

[zilch0md]

Hi Kremer,
 
Quote:

Is it better than the concerto then?

Like ianmedium, I've never heard the Concerto, but given that both the Stepdance and the Concerto were designed by Jan Meier and that the Concerto offers a lot more power, not to mention other benefits, no doubt, it's pretty obvious that the Concerto should be able to do circles around the Stepdance in terms of overall SQ (not to mention Skylab having once recommended that I consider upgrading from the Stepdance to the Concerto - and he has heard both of them.)
 
All that said, please allow me to reiterate that what my Stepdance delivers which my borrowed Lyr does not is resolution - and with that the air, soundstage, and imaging that I believe (as does Tom Martin, per his review of the Peak A/V) is literally dependent on an amp's resolving power.
 
 
Is the Lyr more powerful than the Concerto?  Yes.  
 
Is the Concerto more powerful than the Stepdance?  Yes.
 
Thus, the Lyr is more powerful than the Stepdance - no question.
 
 
Does the Stepdance convey the dynamics and bass extension of a Concerto?  I don't know, but it's highly unlikely, given the difference in power.  
 
Does a Concerto convey the dynamics and bass extension of a Lyr? I don't know, but it's highly unlikely, given the difference in power.  
 
Thus, it's highly unlikely that the Stepdance conveys the dynamics and bass extension of a Lyr, given the difference in power.  Indeed, I have not made this claim.
 
 
Does the Stepdance convey more detail than a Concerto?  I don't know, but the fact that the Concerto has more power does not preclude the possibility that the Stepdance is the equal of the Concerto or even better than the Concerto in terms of resolution.  (Hint:  More watts does not guarantee more detail.)
 
Does the Concerto convey more detail than a Lyr?  I don't know, but the the fact that the Lyr has more power does not preclude the possibility that the Concerto is the equal of the Lyr or even better than the Lyr in terms of resolution.  (Hint:  More watts does not guarantee more detail.)
 
Thus, it's not impossible for the Stepdance to convey more detail than a Lyr.  Indeed, that's what I'm hearing when I compare my Stepdance to the Lyr I've borrowed - more detail and all that comes with it, despite the enormous power advantage of the Lyr.  (Hint:  More watts does not guarantee more detail.)
 
Mike

 

[jronan2]

Quote:

In case anyone is interested, I'm selling the Lyr with bonus Valhalla tubes. Check the listing on my sig. Love the Lyr, but money's tight. Getting rid of the HE4 and D7000 as well.

Wow. That sucks I hope you get through it. Sad for me to even see you have to let your stuff go.