Finally back on the forums after a long while. I'm very happy to see continuing activity in this thread and satisfied customers posting about their purchases. I'm still a satisfied Violectric customer myself
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After many months of investing my idle time in the (nearly) defunct winamp milkdrop visualizer, I grew bored with it and found that having visuals on the screen actually takes away from the music and makes critical listening a lot more difficult. So, I may not have grown as much as I otherwise would in being able to evaluate sonic differences between equipment. Still, it is interesting to note how the brain over time unconsciously works to improve its aptitudes in the absence of associated stimulation or practice.
Returning back to my audiophile interests, I was surprised to see after all this time how I could hear a noticable difference between my RS 05 -> V850 -> V281 and old Schiit Bifrost Uber -> Lyr 2 w/ 6H23p (sp?) tubes. I didn't do a strict comparison to determine the difference the RS 05 itself was making, but having this Violectric setup makes for some amazing "wow!" moments when critically listening. Coming from a relatively large HT-Omega sound card for around $150 to a $1k to a dedicated setup acclaimed for its price/performance by the well-reknown Schiit audio, I really get the sense of "upgrade" or "quality" with my Violectric setup at over 5x the cost of my Schiit setup (excluding headphones in the setup). Feeling it now again, now I understand why I was experiencing audio nirvana. Music was great with the Schiit setup, but it didn't take me to the next league like Violectric one did. Its hard to describe for me really. Like the Lyr 2 / Bifrost were, the Violectric setup is said to perform above its price point. After this break and being in the audiophile market for only a couple or so of years, I can still say that what the Violectric setup has done for me was completely unexpected. I wasn't expecting a significantly different experience listening to the same songs on different setups. After all, diminishing returns, right?
Yes, there is indeed diminishing return on investment with respect to functionality of the setup. The least you could pay for audio is nothing, and you will have nothing. But wait, pay just $50 and get a set of ear buds and a cheap portable audio player. The return on investment here is infinitely more than the next rung down. Now, upgrading to a 300 dollar setup from a reputable company, the sound is distinctly better but not as much as going from having no sound to entry level, and paying $1000 is yields even less distinctly better sound than from $50 to $300.
But, the overall presentation of the sound may make for a dramatically more immersive experience. What if you're playing a video game, and 5% of the geometry is missing. It could be the most graphically impressive experience ever, second only to reality, except that there is a hole in the terrain where a cave or a structure should be. That's what we call a buzz kill, and this is where being really close to perfect, natural, and complete counts even if the returns diminish. My Violectric setup is the extra 10 - 15% that my music has been missing with my still very pleasant Schiit setup. What was missing primarily from the Schiit stack was a crisp clarity and a totally-extended, extremely immersive depth of succulent naturalness.
The headphones I used were the Beyerdynamic T90's, Amiron Home, Grado SR 325e, Sennheiser HD 598SE's, HD 600. The SR 325e’s, T90’s, 598SE’s, and 600’s paired very well with the Violectric setup. The best pairings were the SR 325e’s, HD 600’s and the HD 598SE’s. The Amiron Home did not seem to pair well, blurry and smeared compared to the T90's.