The Lampizator was chosen by me based on my knowledge of the synergy that tubes and panels have. I also want to try a source that is a totally different presentation than the solid state dacs I’ve owned. So yes it was picked taking into account the rest of my system. I am a sucker for that 3D effect that tubes give you and that feeling should be enhanced even more with this dac. Again, this is my preliminary feeling but I won’t know until tomorrow night.
I also feel like I’ve gotten to a good point with amplification for my Neolith. Sure there will be more amps for me to try but I’m not really rushing to try more and more. Instead, I’m looking at the rest of my set up in order to tweak the sound to my liking. The ref10/block audio se combo is brutal. It will throw a sound that you keep looking behind your head checking to see if you have surround sound speakers. Lastly, over the last 4 days, there is something that’s been happening to my system. It feels as if things are slowly starting to “click in place” better which has given me more and more enjoyment. That said, about a week ago I wasn’t getting this same effect. I felt as if things were dull or muffled. Now they don’t sound like that anymore. Maybe that’s my ref10 still going through a break in process? I have not turned off the block audios since I got them. They are left on even if no music is playing since they automatically switch to eco mode after a signal hasn’t been played for 15 minutes.
Who knows what is happening but I’ve been quite impressed over the last few days with how things are just working together. |
WC, congratulations on the Lampi! I am loving my Big 7. Boy, that Pacific sure is a beauty! I can only imagine how much better it is than mine, especially with Takatsuki 300B's, which are simply stunning! Very excited for you. |
The new APL DSD-SR is said to be a MSB killer.
The DSD-MR ( top of the line with tubes) is said to be the closest dac to analog vinyl available.
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WC,
Didn't you just change tubes, due to a tube failure? Could that be the new better sound that you have now?
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@ricred1
Wow....threatening to leave Agon because posters use the terms "better or worse". When posters on this thread use terms like that I roll my eyes and take it with a grain of salt, you should too.
I think it’s time we all adapt a "thicker skin" approach.
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Lampizator pacific has been fired up and playing for the last 30 min. Impressions to come tonight for the first product of 2019. Stay tuned ! |
Picture of the lampizator has been uploaded to my virtual system :) |
@ron17
I think it’s time we all adapt a "thicker skin" approach. I agree, after all.....its just a frickin stereo system. |
WC,The Lampizator looks quite large. So did you get the one with the remote control volume? And second, does it have XLR outputs to go to the ARC 10? If it does have remote control, that would mean that you could go directly to the Block Audios, and not use the ARC 10 for a look at a more direct connection and sound.
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WC,
I suggest doing what bigddesign3 suggests--try the direct connection, bypassing the ref 10. Hopefully you have enough gain. My guess is you will enjoy the increased detail which comes from bypassing a line stage. The reputed luxuriant smooth sound of the Lampizator should give you enough of that quality. In any case, you can report on the system with and without the ref 10.
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@mitch2
agreed on the "thicker skin". Workin' on that.
@ricred1
I think you are getting at system synergy. If so, I'd agree it is THE key, IMHO of course.
Hopefully 2019 will be less contentious here on the Gon'.
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I see that the Rectifier Tube is a 5U4G, but do you know what Tubes the other 2 are ?
Looks Great. BTW , I thought you might "Go for the Gold" :) |
Everything is stock on the dac. No tube rolling at this time.
It also has the preamp option with remote but this is a single ended only dac. I plan to use it as a preamp down the road to see how it sounds with the block audios.
as far as why I didn’t get the gold dac, well I was told it’s in a pain in the a$$ to keep it clean and it’s a fingerprint magnet.
I will give my initial thoughts later tonight for those of you who are interested in hearing my impressions. |
I already know what will be written...
Midrange is so enchanting, so meaty , so organic. So 3D. Makes me think of the Mac 2301s... music has soul, music brings emotions...
Effect of tubes coloration in the chain. Something near can be achieved with an excellent vinyl rig.
viber, if it beats the Ref10 , it will be funny. If it don’t , its just WC married to this sota preamplifier.
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WC, I have been considering Pass amps and remembered reading how much you liked the Pass Labs 250.8 and 350.5 when you wrote your OP back in 2016.
I am interested in the 260.8 monos but also maybe the larger 350.8 stereo, or 600.8 monos so
I am curious whether you still feel the Pass Labs amps are competitive
after auditioning so many other fine amplifiers? I am also curious whether you have considered moving up the Pass chain, to something like the XS300 monos? |
Okay, sorry to keep asking , but , what tube type if you know , about the other 2. I see 3 of them .One is the Rectifier Tube .It is 5U4G (in the front) what are the other 2 tubes ? Do they have a number on the ?.I think there was many different tube options when you order a Pacific. I was wanting to know which ones in this one .It just makes a difference if i know the tube model number like 300B , cause i know what a lot of them "sound like " so to speak.
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It has two 300b and one 5u4G towards the front.
@mitch2
i would say you should stick to a pair of 600.8s. I just can’t lie, I simply don’t like pass labs as much as I once did before. There are so many better amps out here. I’ve said to try the simaudio 860a and Luxman 900u instead.
The xs300s are probably something magical though... that is an amp I must have at some point in my journey.
Lastly, if the lampizator Pacific DAC ends up with better synergy than my ref10, I’d be sure to post it here. I still believe the ref10 is oustanding but I did hear it with Rockport speakers and I did not like it. |
Oh .Nice ..300b .. single ended ...Good |
WC, I know you said no tube rolling at this time, but I just want you to let you know that I got a huge improvement on my Big 7 after replacing the stock tubes with Takatsuki 300B's, KR 5U4G Lampizator Anniversary rectifier tube, and the stock fuse with the Synergistic Research Blue fuse. It's truly amazing how much these tubes can impact the performance of the Lampi dac in terms of refinement, details, and dynamics. |
He doesnt change fuses. He wont change tubes. I kind of agree with him about testing and comparing the gear stock without upgrades...for objective comparaison ´s sake...
What I find unfortunate is that this thread used to be about what amp betters what amp. Now it is all politics...it’s all about synergy. That ´s whats happen when you become victim of your own popularity. Relations, dealers, resalers and contacts don’t want the readers to know the raw truth about how their products compares with the rest...because many of them are just priced too high... Someone then don’t want to offend relations...which is just normal when you think of it.
So , if the Lampi gets destroyed by the Lux or Esoteric, we shall never really know. What we will know instead is that it is not synergistic with the rest of the system because of bla bla bla...
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Long time Lampizator owner here. Currently have the Golden Gate 2 with the Pacific arriving in the next two weeks. There are some good threads on the “What’s Best Audio Forum” regarding tube rolling with the Golden Gate and Pacific DACs. The consensus for best tubes for the Pacific DAC are the KR Audio 5U4G (Ricardo Kron edition) rectifier and the KR Audio PX25 output tube. KR Audio just recently released a 242 Ricardo Kron edition output tube that could dethrone the PX25 if your system can manage the high output. If you find the 300Bs are a little too much of a good thing you may want to consider the PX25s. With my Golden Gate 2 I prefer the KR Audio PX4 to the Elrog, KR Audio and Emission Lab 300Bs. I have both the PX25s and 242s on order to determine what will work best in my system with the Pacific.
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I am guessing this is a good sign as WC formulates his first impressions late night EST! |
I am guessing it takes him a little time to adjust to the new sound and compare with the Ref10.
Richer, fuller, 3d midrange, magical midrange, dense midrange, dense highs you can touch...is what we should get as impressions of the Lampi because of its tubes coloration.
maybe it just sucks and he is already planning returning the unit. Sometimes no review is what happens when someone does not want to offend the relation who sent an under performing piece of gear...
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Techno,
FYI, I just woke up and wasn’t able to do critical listening last night. I don’t like doing any sort of analysis when I’m tired because as I had previously explained on this thread, your ears don’t work the same when you are tired. The same effect that happens to your eyes when you are tired ( blurry vision and constant rubbing of your eyes) is what your brain does with your hearing (shuts it down).
I will try to do some listening at some point today if I can (family duties).
You also mentioned that this was an amp thread and that im not doing that anymore. Did you forget I have the musical fidelity titan arriving next week or do you only choose to hear/read what you want? I also stated a few weeks/months ago that the pool is getting shallower in terms of amplifiers that I want to try. Im
not sure where the disconnect is? |
Before I update on my thoughts on the dac, I wanted to say that I went to listen to some incredible equipment yesterday. I heard a full gryphon system with the $120,000 msb dac connected to it and it was just amazing. So clean, forceful and smooth with plenty of oomph. I really did not think I’d like the full gryphon set up as much as I did. However, the msb $120,000 dac was the most analog sounding dac I’ve ever heard. It was shocking to say the least. The one thing I can say is that I can’t for sure say HOW MUCH of the awesome sound was attributed to the dac or the gryphon components. Was it 60% dac and 40% gryphon? Hard to tell but it was a sublime experience.
All that said, the biggest take away for me was that I realize I don’t like rooms that are overly done. This is why I realize that each time I go to listen to a different component at a store I feel it “relaxed and less lively” sounding. I get the feeling I’m probably the type that would like a room that is treated but that STILL has a little “lively feeling” to it. I want the music to still expand and spread without it being totally absorbed by all the room treatment. I’m not sure if you all can understand what’s im trying to say but essentially what I’m saying is that too much room treatment might not be my cup of tea.
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Bass traps for the corners ,and with the rug..that should be about what you want. |
WC,
I totally agree about the negative qualities of overtreated, dead rooms. At a famous NY dealer, I heard a Wilson system in a moderate sized dead room. Trying to A/B amps in that room, one amp produced a sound like thick mud and the other amp sounded like a little less thick mud. But in his larger room with less carpet, a different Wilson system sounded respectable, enough to more easily hear the differences between the amps. This dealer had spent millions of $ on remodeling, but that carpeted dead room was a complete waste.
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Bingo... that’s my point viber |
A properly treated room will not sound dead. All room treatments don't absorb energy. Diffusion panels disperse mid range and treble energy and make for a more lively room and reduce echo. I use ASC tube traps to reduce the reverberation (decay time) of excess low bass in my room. The traps are 'tunable'. One side of the traps absorb mid and high range frequencies and the other side reflect the mid and high frequencies. I have mine rotated to reflect the mid and highs back into the room. The result is a tighter bass and a lively mid range and top end.
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My feeling is the Lampi is back in the box, ready to ship back. Your silence maybe point to that direction.
Just a feeling. This is what I do when I evaluate gear and I’m pretty sure l am not keeping it. |
To each his own with sound treatment, I guess. I'm not big myself on bass traps, unless the room loads up too much with a full range speaker. But come on, the back wall and the floor are 2 places that send the sound to all the wrong places. They should have some kind of dampening material (Ie: rug, tapestry, and whatnot).
Hey if your happy with reflections, more power to ya. I agree, that putting up some of those expensive sound soakers that are way overpriced can suck the sound out of the system. I had my Martin Logans refuse to sing properly till I got them in the right room. A little common sense goes a long way. |
I should have mentioned that it is necessary to have back wall treatment with dipole speakers. Cause they shoot sound out the back.
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We are all in agreement that the floor needs a carpet, back wall needs some and corners need bass traps. Im just not a fan of ceiling treatment, then the entire side wall is pretty much trrated etc. That’s when I feel like it just makes the presentation too laid back.
Techno- you are probably right but I’m not there. Trust me the 30 min I heard yesterday was enough for me to hold back and check again today if what I heard was in fact the right thing.
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Expensive sound soakers .....Yee-Haw! |
There is an art to deciding the ideal ratio of carpet to bare floor to have. I enjoy playing my violin in a room with no carpet but a good amount of furniture. A totally empty room with no carpet or furniture sounds too reverberant which actually darkens the sound because of the HF smearing from too many reflections. A high ceiling always helps. All size pianos sound muddy unless the ceiling is high.
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Achieving better sound in your room through proper use and placement of acoustical treatments is a personal choice....definitely not for everyone.
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WC is getting lampizoided.
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Just got done listening to the lampizator for 2 hours as a preamp and as a source. My impressions will be posted tonight.
in the meantime, I will leave you what the impressions from my wife of the lampizator:
1. More bass than the ref 10
2. More detail
my thoughts to come later.... |
Lampi wify. Lampi lampi . Seriously ? |
WC, I like that your wife contributes. Mine does as well. Every time I have my rig going she's with me for the long haul. We love all the same music as well although there's a couple of Blondie tunes that drive me nuts.
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No review yet. I know why. Because WC is hesitating between Ref10 and Lampi.
Think about it guys. Which one to keep and which one to resale. Every word written will count and affect value of the one that is being put in classified. Would you buy a Ref10 if you knew you could replace it with a Lampi one box solution... I would not, I would get the Lampi to have dac + pre ... one less powercord and interconnect pair also !...
And now think about relations and fan club that swear by ARC preamplifiers... They are a pretty heavy beast to kick on the foot...
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As an infrequent poster I know I shouldn’t chime in but regardless I find most of this thread to be utterly pointless. With over 40 years of buying and selling high end gear, much too frequently, I can say with certainty that switching gear at the rate of the OP results in zero true conclusions about anything. Simply audiophile delusion by no means limited to OP who is obviously a thoughtful and nice person.
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If connecting the Lampi directly into the Block Audio amps proves to be superior to having the Ref10 in the path, as the comments by WC’s wife would seem to suggest, it wouldn’t surprise me if a major contributor to that is the fact that the Block’s input impedance (10K unbalanced/20K balanced) is exactly at ARC’s 20K **minimum** load recommendation for the Ref10 (which btw is also their recommendation for most of their other preamps and line stages). And that assumes WC was using balanced connections between the Ref10 and the Blocks; the Block’s 10K unbalanced input impedance would be even worse.
An output impedance spec or measurement, or alternatively a minimum load recommendation, doesn’t seem to be available for the Lampi Pacific, but given that it uses a power tube in its output stage, as well as a high quality coupling capacitor, I would think it likely that it could handle the 10K load it would see with its unbalanced-only outputs without difficulty.
Regards,
-- Al
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Alright guys,
So today I’ve listened to my Lampizator pacific more and managed to get a few thoughts down when using it as a source:
1. Incredible musicality
2. Longer music sessions than expected (which Luxman components did a great job at)
3. The darkest backgrounds with crazy “pop”
4. Huge soundstage
5. The most engaging presentation I’ve known which All Luxman components have in spades but this is a much higher level than Luxman.
6. Far more mid bass than ever before
7. Midrange is more focused dead center than before. It feels as if words are articulated better. You ever heard a song where you can’t make out the words? Nope not here, not with this dac. It will spell out the words for you.
8. Strings sound so real. As a matter of fact, just about everything sounds more real and less “digital”.
9. Smooth but with a great level of detail
10. Music unfolds more “emotion” that my previous solid state dacs could barely pull off.
Overall, this dac gets a 10/10 from me. It has more of what I always wanted to hear through my Neoliths (holographic sound and soul) and has really turned my music upside down (in a good way). In the past I praised Luxman for keeping me on the couch for hours and hours due to its musicality and engaging sound, but this dac is Luxman’s father.
I’d buy this dac 10 times again after hearing it in my system. It’s a keeper just like my ref10. There have been 2 components that I’ve always loved throughout my journey: Luxman components and the audio research preamplfiers. Well, now make it 3 with this dac.
I also give a ton of credit to my neoltihs for making it so much easier for me to detect the changes in sound. The massive wall of sound makes a deaf person hear changes in sound as components are swapped out. I don’t think I’ve had a speaker that’s made things this easy.
***************EXTREMELY IMPRESSED WITH THIS DAC *******************
Tomorrow I will give my initial impressions of this Dac as a preamp using my wireworld silver 7 single ended cables (will buy platinum 8 single ended cables next week)
Stay tuned |
Ref10 is toast. You just don’t need it anymore. Redondant tube stages. Less is more... less loss as you save 2 interconnect contacts.
I always knew that preamps were not needed anymore. Viber is of the same opinion. Preamps are old story. These are the times of dacs with output tube stage, and dacs with quality high gain ss class A variable output.
Sure, brands like ARC and cable retailers dont like this, but this is where the market is now going.
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WC, thanks for the awesome review of the Pacific. I am not surprised at all on everything you've said because I am also getting excellent sound from my Big 7 and Luxman 590AXII combo. |
NIce writeup. Glad you like the Lamizator as much as you do. I think statements of the preamp going the way of the dodo is not always true. A preamp is a gain device and many times make the DAC sound better. The Lampizator being used as a preamp as well will be exposed tomorrow. There will be less gain coming from it. Will it be enough, and will it fill out the sound as good as the ARC 10? We will know soon enough. But it is not always better going directly from the DAC. My system has it both ways, and sometimes I like to have it go thru tubes instead of passive. And the sound is not wrong either way. It's just different.
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Hi WC,
I have noted the response to your asking for acoustic advice. I am afraid that most of it so far is not only useless but will make things worse.
To treat a room, and all rooms need treatment, the three axes need absorption to reduce reverb/echo. So there needs to be absorption between the front and back walls, between the two side walls and between the ceiling and the floor to avoid standing waves and modal ringing.
Regarding the floor treatment, a carpet is not very effective because it is thin relative to the wavelengths of sound and it lies on the floor with no important airgap. It is a mistake to think that it will reduce floor bounce. It has a narrow range of absorption so wall to wall carpeting will leave you with a suck out at a certain narrow range of frequencies. Yes you have a hole in the music because that narrow freq. range is absorbed and gone from the music.
The same will happen with drapes if too many are indiscriminately used and will be in a freq. range close to that of a carpet. BAD Where drapes are used not for decoration but acoustically then I suggest using a 3-rail curtain rail with 3 curtains, one per rail. The curtains will then be spaced at different distances from the wall and absorb over a wider range of freq.
I read your post saying that you do not like ceiling treatment but it is the only effective way to sort out the wall/floor problem. An open box frame about 4" high by 8ft by 12ft suspended a few inches below the ceiling and filled with Owens Corning 703 will produce a broadband absorber and will fully sort out that axis.
If this is covered in an attractive fabric it will look smart and purposeful. Looks even nicer if some LED strip lighting is arrayed around the top of the frame.
Floor bounce is not really that much of a problem when you consider that your ears are always the same distance from the floor, unless drunk and can't stand up, and your ear brain relationship has the ability to deal with this issue!
Stopping for some good Colombian coffee now, will be back with more.
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