Im all ears,
I plan on doing a review of the of the TRL vs. stock Audio Mirror. I will eventually post my impressions of the Poth vs. stock Audio Mirror as well. It may be awhile, as I'm in the process of also comparing numerous phono stages, but it will eventually be done.
The Audio Mirror has been one of my best investments. I actually did not pay full price for both units, which makes it even better. I am using a TRL modified Alesis ML9600 (CD, CDR, HD) as a transort. When I first hooked up the Audio Mirror I could tell that it was a very special unit, after about 200 hours of burn in time I was floored by how good this unit sounded. Very close to analog. Before deciding which DAC to buy I had to decide which philosophy to support. I decided that the non-upsampling/filterless designs produced by Audio Note and Sakura (47 Labs) were what I was after. I did compare the AM to Audio Note (2 models), 47 Labs, Benchmark, Bel Canto, and a couple others. With the exception of the Audio Note 2.1x, the Audio Mirror prevailed.
The Audio Mirror's sound has a liquid texture to it. The highs are well detailed and the bass suprisingly strong and clean. This is very evident on some jazz CDs I have where you can actually hear the fretting from the bass player. On rock CDs the bass drum is clearly identifiable, not muffled. The soundstage is wide, but could be wider. You may not miss the difference unless you compared the unit to one costing 3 - 4 times more. Even then it may be an inconsequential difference. If I have to fault the unit I would say the mids are somewhat distorted when really hammered, and of course while seductive, the exterior is actually cheezy in my opinion.
TRL found the unit very musical and with their modifications they have been able to address the mid range distortion. They also applied some other proprietary changes to the unit which they say has improved it greatly. I am about to embark on the A/B testing to find out just how much improvement there is. RAM is doing some mods to this unit as well, but I was not too impressed with the changes they were making.
I plan on doing a review of the of the TRL vs. stock Audio Mirror. I will eventually post my impressions of the Poth vs. stock Audio Mirror as well. It may be awhile, as I'm in the process of also comparing numerous phono stages, but it will eventually be done.
The Audio Mirror has been one of my best investments. I actually did not pay full price for both units, which makes it even better. I am using a TRL modified Alesis ML9600 (CD, CDR, HD) as a transort. When I first hooked up the Audio Mirror I could tell that it was a very special unit, after about 200 hours of burn in time I was floored by how good this unit sounded. Very close to analog. Before deciding which DAC to buy I had to decide which philosophy to support. I decided that the non-upsampling/filterless designs produced by Audio Note and Sakura (47 Labs) were what I was after. I did compare the AM to Audio Note (2 models), 47 Labs, Benchmark, Bel Canto, and a couple others. With the exception of the Audio Note 2.1x, the Audio Mirror prevailed.
The Audio Mirror's sound has a liquid texture to it. The highs are well detailed and the bass suprisingly strong and clean. This is very evident on some jazz CDs I have where you can actually hear the fretting from the bass player. On rock CDs the bass drum is clearly identifiable, not muffled. The soundstage is wide, but could be wider. You may not miss the difference unless you compared the unit to one costing 3 - 4 times more. Even then it may be an inconsequential difference. If I have to fault the unit I would say the mids are somewhat distorted when really hammered, and of course while seductive, the exterior is actually cheezy in my opinion.
TRL found the unit very musical and with their modifications they have been able to address the mid range distortion. They also applied some other proprietary changes to the unit which they say has improved it greatly. I am about to embark on the A/B testing to find out just how much improvement there is. RAM is doing some mods to this unit as well, but I was not too impressed with the changes they were making.