It's been quite a while since i've done the comparison. I will say at the very end of my Dave ownership, I found Roon's CF to be slightly more transparent, but I was missing that bass EQ Rob did on top of the CF.Could you elaborate on the key differences between DAVE's CF (the classic Meier type), Rossini's Expanse and HM1's sound stage knob?
Although DAVE's CF is not perfect, one thing it does well is create a more solid central image more clearly placed in a deeper sound stage (at the expense of width and seemingly some transparency). And the components of an orchestra are more connected and life-like, rather than unconnected and diffuse.
I know HM1 has this ability to expand the width, but how does it fare on the above two points?
I will also add the disclaimer that I have yet to upgrade to the public release version of Expanse, but I understand that it should be identical to mine. I found dCS's Expanse implementation much better than the classic CF, as it added reverb in different quantities, greatly enhancing the depth perception...however, it worked better on live stuff where you don't have funky stuff mixed in. I also kept it at 1 or 2 out of 3. On a case by case basis..it can be sligthly unnatural, or incredibly effective. It's been almost a year since i've tried it , so I might need to revisit it. I no longer use it because, as you can imagine, Crossfeed and the soundstage expansion on the HM1 do not play well together. Also because the Rossini constructs a better center image than Dave ever did, using a specific setting (mapper).
Besides the Expanse feature, the Rossini also has the mappers which impact the perception of center stage and width. I've further described in a previous post here , but the Expanse mentioned there was the headphone, not dCS's "Crossfeed".
While most of the above have different tradeoffs, there is none that I can find with the soundstage knob, at least on. Center image is just as focused, everything just gets wider. If i was nitpicking, I would say the effect is a lot more subtle, but again..with no downsides.
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