My Long List of Amplifiers and My Personal Review of Each!
I’ll go on record and say it now: musical fidelity titan has the biggest, boldest soundstage I’ve ever heard. If you lack soundstage, forget Every amp I’ve listed here. Musical fidelity is #1 in terms of soundstage height, width. Enough said. this type of discovery makes me happy because I get to experience what some low key brands are capable of while the entire crowd of audiophiles are investing in the dumb brands that I won’t go into naming in order to not hurt anyone’s feelings but you all know what Amplifier brands I’m talking about. |
Glad to see the massive power of the Titan is being put to good use. The Neolith is made to take the power. Now for the 1st time you have an amp to see what the power brings. Whether a small power amp brings more to the table at lower volumes, or not. Some of us relish the ability to turn it up and hear that roar. Even if is only for a few seconds, that HOLY MOTHER OF GOD experience is an adrenaline rush, not unlike driving a supercar or supercharged muscle car with your foot to the floor. Nice job!! You deserve to unleash the Kraken with these Neoliths. Not to say that this is the end all of amplification, but anyone with a speaker like this should experience 1,000 w/ch or more coming out of it. Why? BECAUSE YOU CAN. |
Musical fidelity titan has arrived. Can’t get it out of the box by myself. Power supply chassis is 170 lbs. wireworld gold 8 and platinum 8 rca are in the house as well. This weekend I’m having a shoot out of the block audios vs musical fidelity titan and lampizator (with new better rcas) vs ref10. Who’s in ? |
@lemonhaze Enjoyed you post and link (written by Ethan Winer) on acoustical room treatments. I have found that by using philosophies like his in my listening room has greatly improved my listening experience. I use bass traps with reflective side facing the listener on front wall at corners, a combination of absorbers and diffusors on the back wall behind the listener and absorber panels on side walls at 1st and 2nd reflections. A few years ago I was only using absorber panels which resulted in a somewhat dead sound. Last year with the advice of an acoustical engineer I introduced bass traps and diffusor panels....Now my room sounds great, more natural and far from that dreaded over used absorber panel dead sound. Would love to see some photos of your room and the treatments you use. |
almarg, My experience is that unbalanced cables don’t sound much different from balanced cables of the same design, all other factors being equal. I would take the manual’s opinion of "best sound performance" as just another opinion. I think you are absolutely correct about the supreme importance of impedance compatibility. If balanced cables offer a better impedance compatibility, that is the main factor in getting better sound without HF rolloff. My experience with cartridge loading is relevant here. Loading a moving coil cartridge into the highest impedance, say 47 K Ohms produces the most extended HF and detail, although euphonically oriented people have said there is HF peakiness and overshoot with high loading. They like loading at low 100 ohms or so, which produces more mellow sound. Many phono stages offer lots of loading choices for flavoring the sound to one’s preferences, but I would take preamps with only 47 K ohm loading for maximum detail, preferring that the designer spend the money on better circuit design rather than loading choices. |
WC, I may have missed your mentioning it, but are the Wireworld cables you use to connect the Ref10 to the Blocks balanced or unbalanced? If they are balanced, perhaps one factor (probably among several) contributing to what the Ref10 brings to the table when inserted between the Lampi and the Blocks is simply that the Blocks may sound better when provided with balanced inputs than when provided with unbalanced inputs. I note that the manual for the Blocks specifically recommends the balanced inputs "for best sound performance." Which of course cannot be done with the Lampi connected directly to the amps. And if they are unbalanced, trying balanced cables between the Ref10 and the Blocks at some point would certainly seem to be in order. Not only because it may be more optimal for the Blocks, but also because it may be beneficial with respect to what I mentioned earlier about the marginal impedance compatibility between the Ref10 and the Blocks. Regards, -- Al |
WC, Sorry, I may have misinterpreted your evaluations. OK, the Lampi as a preamp doesn't kill the ref 10, but the Lampi is just a little better in the detail department. Since the ref 6 is more accurate and detailed than the ref 10, despite what techno_dude mentioned about the crummy volume control pot of the ref 6, I am guessing that the ref 6 + Lux DAC or ref 6 + Lampi would be real competition for the Lampi preamp + DAC. There are very accurate tube stages and there are euphonic tube stages. The Lampi and ref 6 are in the accurate camp, the ref 10 is in the euphonic camp. These are relatively small differences compared to a Boulder SS vs a syrupy old school Conrad Johnson tube amp. See if you can get the ref 6 again to do these trials. At that point, you might be ready to let go of the ref 10 and keep the ref 6 for your preamp needs for multiple source inputs such as radio, turntable (gasp!). I know you are not interested in turntables at this time, but my experience has shown MUCH MORE variety/variability in sound character among cartridges, tables, tonearms than with several DAC's I have tried, although I don't have any experience with any expensive DAC's. Koetsu cartridges are lush, Lyra are fast/detailed, etc. |
techno_dude may have an ulterior motive and actually wants to buy the Ref10 from WC, that's why he's so strongly encouraging its sale. ;~) I similarly believed that simplifying things by eliminating an active line stage in a digital system would be clearly superior, but my experience over the years has proven otherwise. An average line stage may add distortion and some dynamic restriction, but a suitable quality line stage can provide a level of musical realism that is lacking without it. Of course it all depends on system matching with the specific source and amp combination. |
Jonaiken, this is exactly how I feel about my ref10 right now and you have one hell of a dac too. I’m not going to lie, I would not mind if my Lampizator bested my ref10 so I can sell my ref10 but that’s not the case.... there’s a reason why I can’t get to sell my ref10 and I’ve parted ways with other incredible equipment such as the Rowland 925s, Luxman components, etc etc. |
The offended lost no time to defend the overpriced ARC. Sure, most dacs and even costly prestigious ones have poor variable output stage. DcS and Ps Audio have both pretty basic digital atténuation. But the best dacs have everything to omit the need for an additional preamp. APL DSD MR is one of them. |
Jafox, I concur with you and agree with WC going through the Ref 10. As an owner of the ARC Ref 10 and a dCS Vivaldi 2.0 DAC, going through the Ref. 10 is magical, and improves what comes out of the DAC taking me into the recording studio or live performance. The Ref 10’s ability to through a wide and deep soundstage draws you into the music and why Ref. 10 owners maintain them in our systems. |
I must support WC's experience with preferring the DAC into the Line Stage vs. the DAC straight into the amp(s). Ten or so years ago I bought an APL Denon CD player with tube output. Contrary to what the designer told me more than once, I much preferred the DAC output into the Line Stage (I don't remember if this was the Aesthetix Callisto Sig or Aria WV5 at the time). The degree of spatial cues and decays alone were significantly greater with the Line Stage in the loop and with the player's volume control bypassed. I could sense a little more detail on the top without the Line Stage but this was easy to give up vs. the rest of what was lost with the DAC only. I tried this again over the course of a few weeks and never went back to using it straight into the amp. Do our Line Stages have a better capability to drive the amp, or is the volume control of greater precision than in the DAC, or, or, or .... ? Most of us cannot likely answer this question, but what I heard was not subtle. And so the "purists" can rant all they want, but I know what I heard. And WC knows what he hears and so preaching to him to remove his Line Stage from the system indeed shows that the one saying this has no experience with such an experiment. |
Sooner or later, it will be time to let go of the Ref10 and all extra cables attached to it ( which are just messing with signal integrity after all) . You might as well divorce from it now while it still has a very good resale value. Think future...you’ve just heard what the Lampi Pacific can do...and it’s still not broken in...and your still not using sota xlr cables...and you still haven’t upgraded tubes... Ref 10 is toasted already. It should go where it had always belonged, in it’s double box ready to ship to a new owner. |
techno, Once again, you are going off of the "he said/she said" mentality. what experience DO YOU HAVE with dacs driving amps directly? Reading a book doesn’t make you brighter than the person who knows how to do job because they have hands on experience. In fact, experience is preferred over someone who does not have any, but has a degree. It is the same here.... no different.. This is not my first rodeo trying to get a dac to sound better than my preamp. i tried doing this with the ps audio directstream back when i owned it. It never sounded better than my preamps at that point in time. I wish this dac killed my ref10 so i can do exactly what you said i should do: sell the ref10. Why would i want to have that money strapped in my system if the dac was murdering my ref10?? Believe me, i would love for this dac to do just that (beat my ref 10), but right now it is not doing that. |
Like always, viber you are right on. I would even go further. Most top end system owners I know have eliminated the preamp from the chain. The best dacs , like the Lampi Pacific, can drive sota amplifiers directly. Same think with vinyl. The best dacs, like the tube based Lampi Pacific or APL DSD MR, can sound as organic and natural as turntables. Without the cons. |
WC, The Lampi as you described presents more detail, clarity, although as I mentioned it is hard to tell whether this is due to elimination of the ref 10 in the chain or whether the Lampi dac is more detailed than the Lux dac. Put in the ref 10 with both the Lampi and Lux to draw the proper conclusions. Beyond this test, it is obvious that an accurate, detailed component will have the accurate soundstage of the recording. The inflated soundstage of the ref 10 is euphonic distortion similar to that of many tube stages. You like it, but it is not accurate. Here is a great example of what 4425 said--live with the Lampi bypassing the ref 10, to get yourself to increasingly appreciate Lampi's more accurate qualities. Don't sell the Lampi for a long time. A good test would be utilizing the more accurate ref 6 (compared to the ref 10) with the Lux, to compare with the Lampi without ref 6. This would allow you to evaluate the tube electronics of the Lampi which seems more detailed than the tube electronics of the ref 10, but might be stiff competition with the tube electronics of the ref 6. |
At it’s msrp, the Ref10 should have included a sota dac module inside it from the moment ARC put it on market... Other makers have done it...Hegel, Lyngdorf, Naim, Classe, etc. Take for example the Mac C2600. Tubes, sota ( Wadia di322 based) dac module, and phono module included for 7k. Talk about value... |
WC, I’d give the ARC 10 staying in the loop the nudge when all is said and done. I like the idea of changing SE cables and seeing where it goes with the Lampi as the preamp too. The Lampi looks like a real keeper. I’m sure the MSB is great, but the Lampizator Pacific has some of the best parts known to man inside. And it has TUBES. |
Alright boys, grab your popcorn and sit down. Here are my thoughts on the lampizator pacific using wireworld silver 7 single ended cables connected to my block audios: 1. More bottom end than using the ref10 in the middle 2. Great level of detail & clarity 3. Long decays from instruments 4. A little more (a tad more detail at times) 5. Smaller soundstage than ref10 6. Same level of musicality as if using the ref10 in the middle 7. No fatigue regardless of how hard you push the volume These are my impressions of the lampizator with my "ok" rca cables. This is why i want to try the platinum 8 or gold 8 interconnects this week to see how that enhances it. The ref10 adds a much larger presentation, it tones down the extra bottom end which helps my neoliths not get too "bottom end" happy. The ref 10 essentially adds the finishing touches to the lampizator dac. It adds a much larger presentation with deeper soundstages plus more volume of course. That said, IF I DID NOT HAVE the ref10, i would be perfectly happy using the lampizator as my preamp. It is truely amazing as a preamp and possibly beats many many preamps out there. I am not done with the lampizator as a preamp. I still need to try different cables and see how much closer i can get to the ref10 (if that is possible). |
@lemonhaze, I really enjoyed your sharing of the room treatment. Having not had a room for many years when I was raising kids for a good system, I get how important it is to have a good room size and dimension. To get the proper sound in a good room with sound treatment will send your system to the next level. I hear some say that some of the rooms that they auditioned systems with their dealers have been less than stellar. And I don't doubt it. But if you think that it's ok for all kinds of reflections coming from all kinds of places is going to give you the best of your room, I would say that you are delusional. @lemonhaze has spoken, and he is right on the money with sound treatments. I can only say that I have heard many a good system, and it was not full of bare walls or floors. And the sound out of those speakers reached my ears in a way stereo sound was intended (with no reverberation). If you are lucky enough to have a wife that let's you go to town with high end audio, it's in your best interest to start looking at getting those reflections and reverberations out of your room. @lemonhaze, thanks for you insight to others with your prose and knowledge of sound treatment. Sound treatment will change your system for the better. And isn't what this journey it about ( the absolute sound.). |
I typed a long follow-up but lost it somehow. Will try and keep this short. Next is to stop sound bouncing uncontrolled between the side walls. Absorption panels built similar to the ceiling absorber are good at the first reflection points. The OC703 is supplied in sheets of 2ft by 4ft so this is a good size to build them and cover in a pretty fabric that the wife chooses. 2 panels per side usually do it. The third axis is between front and back wall. Dispersion is good here with some smaller absorption panels used to fine tune the room. Then the bass. All rooms NEED bass traps and lots. Can't overdo bass traps so don't be shy. BUT they must be proper basstraps. Google DIY superchunk bass traps. Anything less is a waste. Somebody posted links to some silly foam things that can not possibly absorb the long wavelengths we are dealing with. Bass traps being broadband absorbers will also absorb higher freq. possibly making the room too dead so plastic sheeting or similar can be used to cover the outside of the traps which will reflect the upper freq. but still work for the bass. viber6 mentioned this being an art which it is not. Measurement is your friend and free downloads like Holm Impulse or REW will provide graphic results of treatment by way of cumulative spectral decay known as waterfall plots. It is possible to measure the room before and after treatment and overlay the plots and see the results. I use Omnimic from Parts Express. While I do not know the size of your room the aim here is to achieve aT60 across all freq. The CSD's will show which freq. require more or less absorption. This is the time it takes for sound to decay by 60dB. Just science and not black art. Bass freq. do the most damage when thundering around the room. Some reflected bass will combine constructively or destructively producing peaks and nulls, the nulls being the worst. Those are bass notes missing and can't be EQ'd back. Not even by a Rane :) The peaks and their harmonics can be tamed by EQ BUT the Rane can't control the overlong decay. Bass builds up in corners so that is where to place the traps. The front wall's 2 corners where it meets the side walls is a good place to start. Run them vertically from floor to ceiling. But any corners work. In addition to the front 2 try one running horizontally on the back wall where it meets the ceiling. Dear WC I urge you to give this careful thought. If you are pressed for time and do not wish to build or measure get advice from a pro. Maybe one in your area or contact this fella. http://ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html Please read some or all of this because no amount of cables or component change will bring more to the party. The transformation really does need to be experienced to understand the huge amount of fun, detail and decongestion.Winer also has a forum where you can read about results from people who have seen, or is it heard the light. Regards and enjoy the Lampi. I heard Fikus' Gen 4 way back and thought it was great. My friend whose ears I trust has just changed to a Denafrips Terminator from a Chord Dave. |
I've tried using my Lampi Big 7 as a preamp connecting directly to my Luxman 590AXII's amp section, but I still prefer using the Big 7 (as DAC only) with Luxman as the integrated amp. My impression of the Lampi preamp (i.e. volume control) is that it's good, detailed, and neutral, but Luxman's preamp sounds fuller, richer, and more musical to my ears. |
i agree with you viber. That said, there are components that you don't get to immediately feel/hear what they are doing until you sit down for a few hours. i have ran across components where i sat down and i did not feel like "wow" right at that moment, but rather hours later. i feel like there is a slight adjustment that your brain/ears need to go through in order to tell you the full story of what is being heard. |
4425, Since you and I have lots of experience, I agree that it is best to draw conclusions after living with a component for a sufficient period of time. However, usually my first impressions are approximately correct, which are confirmed later. If the differences are very subtle, it takes much longer to draw the right conclusions. |
WC, Your 10 favorable observations on the Lampi could still be explained by omission of the ref 10 in the chain. Many people note that all electronics impose veiling and loss of information, so there is a big advantage in eliminating any stage you can, provided you have enough gain. Also, as almarg said, the impedance mismatch between the output of the ref 10 and the input of the Block could be handicapping the overall performance. A good rule is that the input impedance of the amp should be greater than 10x the output impedance of the preamp, otherwise HF will be rolled off. I still believe that for your overall system synergy, the ARC ref 6 would give you better snap/sparkle than the ref 10, while still giving enough tube "magic." You never heard the ref 6 with the Neo, and you probably will appreciate it now. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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 |
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 |
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. |
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... |
