Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Agear,

As a point of clarification, Al's experience was with a very early prototype of the DSD DAC. This was not supposed to be demoed by Al for anyone and I informed him this was NOT the commercial DAC or even as recent as the revision Bruce had heard, but it was all I had available.

I loaned Al my own personal Big 5 DSD for him to evaluate and show to his friends and fellow club members, but he never even took it out of the box in the weeks he held on to it.

I am actually a bit upset to see his posts...

Al,

No hard feelings, man. Clearly a two-way misunderstanding. Yes, both the first DAC you enjoyed at Father Richard's home AND the one you borrowed were prototypes (and the one Bruce Brown evaluated for that matter).

Things have only gotten better since :) As for the caps they weren't ever stock but a failed experiment for technical rather than sonic testing.

Matt,

No problem, man. I just wanted to clear that up. Keep on rocking with your Big 6, its a fantastic DAC.

Peace to all,

Fred

Hi Al,

I’m a laid back guy and enjoyed meeting you at Deepaks. I don’t want to get into an argument and appreciate what you tried to do for us. I know you had mentioned a stomach bug at the time, but wasn’t aware it was serious... I sincerely hope you are feeling better.

I’m not upset about how the meet went down or what happened in the past... Life happens! I also do welcome feedback and discussion good and bad. It’s a subjective hobby and we cannot win them all, but I felt some critical information was omitted.

1. You heard a prototype of the DAC and you absolutely loved it:

“After several hours of listening to the system including DSD from SACD through the EMM LABS Father Richards was gracious enough in letting Lukasz put in his DSD DAC. I brought some DSD files that Lukasz could add to what he planed on playing.

But before I describe what happens next let me tell you that Lukasz gave us a brief description of his work on DSD and thoughts on Audio. He also spent time in awe while listening to music through the system before we inserted his DSD DAC.

It only took a few bars of music for EVERYONE in the room to be able to hear what Lukasz's DSD DAC could do for the playback of music. You could hear people all over the room surprised at how well both Lukasz's DSD DAC and DSD done right could sound. AWE STRUCK is not significant enough to describe it.

Even Lukasz said he did not know it could sound that great.

ALL felt it OUTCLASSED the EMM LABS.”

2. After getting a dac to you we discussed it on the telephone and you informed me something was wrong and it wasn’t as clean as what you heard previously which led me to the immediate realization you had gotten the wrong unit (an experiment with very poor sounding Chinese polyp capacitors) with from our tech.

I admittedly did not ask you to remain silent with respect to what you or others heard, but I did explain there was a mixup and that was NOT what we wanted anyone evaluating. You understood fully and wanted to schedule another time to hear the Lampi in proper form (which I did and do appreciate!).

3. My Big 5 DSD was a finished product and what I wanted to be heard at the meet. There wasn’t anything funky about the DAC’s setup, but I was going to be unavailable by phone at the time of the meet, so I wanted to make sure you had our tech’s number in case you had any issues at all. I understand with your illness you didn’t get to it. I know your intentions were good and appreciate you trying.

Having said all that, my issue is that despite the above you chose to write about the prototype we never meant to be evaluated as if it were a finished product and rank it below Meitner and Phasure on a public forum.