JD is quite a detailed writer. I had to smile and laugh and smile more as I could see he was very alert to my reactions (the good and not so good) of his system. Not only does he take the blue ribbon for noticing detail in his and my system far more than I do, but now I see that he deserves this award for noticing the detail of one's observations while listening.
I have yet to meet anyone remotely close as this man to deserving the title of "Tweak Geek"! And this has much to do with why his system does piano like no other digital based system I have heard.
As JD pointed out, the two Aesthetix products have great sonic similarity. Only in the context of the areas that he so well described does the Callisto pull away and significantly at that. The big difference here has to be the tube regulated power supply of the Callisto.
I have heard and owned many preamps and line stages, and I still have yet to hear any SS product in this link of the system exhibit the dimensionality and/or decay that brings on the naturalness of the human voice or piano. On some recordings there will likely be a little too much of a good thing in midrange presence. But of all such preamps I have liked that exhibit this quality, I feel the Callisto does this in a most superb manner. Perhaps this is due to its incredible bass authority (shared by the Calypso) and its highly resolving trebles (also shared by the Calypso) to still bring on an incredible coherency. But as JD writes, "I'll take it". And that's a comment from a perfectionist audiophile. Hey Albert, I think we have another convert!
There is much time and effort that we all need to take to balance out the warmth and dimensional side of the system with the highly detailed and neutral side of the system. For JD and myself, with two very different systems, the Callisto is one of those products that covers both sides of the fence so well. He and I would both agree we have heard nothing like it in our systems.
Concerning the issues of balanced and single-ended, actually, I use a mixture of both. My tonearm cable is XLR so I use this into the Io and then the Io drives the Callisto with balanced cables. I also use balanced cables from the Manley Ref DAC.
The CAT JL-3's only have SE inputs which required me to find another cable to replace my long time favorite NBS Statement XLR cable. Here I managed to find a 25' SE MIT 350 EVO cable that works very well. In my system, the Callisto has no problem at all to drive these long SE cables to the amps. I did try the NBS into the CAT using adaptors, and thus only one phase of the Callisto output was being used. Between the Callisto and CATs, I prefered the MIT just slightly here because it has a little more neutral midrange tonality vs. the NBS. Again, it's a balancing (no pun intended) act.
This coming week I have a bunch of tubes arriving from all of Albert's great recommendations. When I get these installed in the Callisto, I'll have JD come over again and perhaps he can rewrite this review all over again. And then if I splurge with a 2nd power supply, we'll have him do it again. 8-)
John
I have yet to meet anyone remotely close as this man to deserving the title of "Tweak Geek"! And this has much to do with why his system does piano like no other digital based system I have heard.
As JD pointed out, the two Aesthetix products have great sonic similarity. Only in the context of the areas that he so well described does the Callisto pull away and significantly at that. The big difference here has to be the tube regulated power supply of the Callisto.
I have heard and owned many preamps and line stages, and I still have yet to hear any SS product in this link of the system exhibit the dimensionality and/or decay that brings on the naturalness of the human voice or piano. On some recordings there will likely be a little too much of a good thing in midrange presence. But of all such preamps I have liked that exhibit this quality, I feel the Callisto does this in a most superb manner. Perhaps this is due to its incredible bass authority (shared by the Calypso) and its highly resolving trebles (also shared by the Calypso) to still bring on an incredible coherency. But as JD writes, "I'll take it". And that's a comment from a perfectionist audiophile. Hey Albert, I think we have another convert!
There is much time and effort that we all need to take to balance out the warmth and dimensional side of the system with the highly detailed and neutral side of the system. For JD and myself, with two very different systems, the Callisto is one of those products that covers both sides of the fence so well. He and I would both agree we have heard nothing like it in our systems.
Concerning the issues of balanced and single-ended, actually, I use a mixture of both. My tonearm cable is XLR so I use this into the Io and then the Io drives the Callisto with balanced cables. I also use balanced cables from the Manley Ref DAC.
The CAT JL-3's only have SE inputs which required me to find another cable to replace my long time favorite NBS Statement XLR cable. Here I managed to find a 25' SE MIT 350 EVO cable that works very well. In my system, the Callisto has no problem at all to drive these long SE cables to the amps. I did try the NBS into the CAT using adaptors, and thus only one phase of the Callisto output was being used. Between the Callisto and CATs, I prefered the MIT just slightly here because it has a little more neutral midrange tonality vs. the NBS. Again, it's a balancing (no pun intended) act.
This coming week I have a bunch of tubes arriving from all of Albert's great recommendations. When I get these installed in the Callisto, I'll have JD come over again and perhaps he can rewrite this review all over again. And then if I splurge with a 2nd power supply, we'll have him do it again. 8-)
John