Nagra HD DAC

bmichels said:
After the DAVE, the TotalDAC & the dCS Rossini, I tried today the ARIES CERAT KASSANDRA, a 60 Kg monster, hand made by a guy in Chypre. I tried it connected to my BHSE, with the DAVE also present. I found it a little more airy (open) and enjoyable than the DAVE, only by a slight margin, but .... NAGRA HD DAC remain still my prefered choice.
My last testing is Wednesday with the VITUS SCD-025 which is a DAC + CD Player in a single box. It is Supposed to be very good sound, and I will have with me again the DAVE to compare. If I like it a lot, this will simplify my set-up by using 1 box instead if 2 ( CD + DAC), if NOT, then I will have to find the... extra budget to buy the NAGRA ;-)



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It is very strange that you dont like the Kassandra which supposed to be best analague DAC ever, supposedly much better than Lampizator which bonzo raved over the Nagra.
 
hieukm said:
It is very strange that you dont like the Kassandra which supposed to be best analague DAC ever, supposedly much better than Lampizator which bonzo raved over the Nagra.
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I never said that I did not lile Kasandra ! I even wrote "I found it a little more airy (open) and enjoyable than the DAVE,".
 
So at $20k+ for a DAC, if you have to pay more to add this or that, it really becomes unreasonable.
 
hieukm said:
It is very strange that you dont like the Kassandra which supposed to be best analague DAC ever, supposedly much better than Lampizator which bonzo raved over the Nagra.
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No one's compared the Kassandra to Lampi yet. The only comparison so far is with Dave.
 
bonzo said:
No one's compared the Kassandra to Lampi yet. The only comparison so far is with Dave.
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My upgraded GG just came back from Poland..the packakge weighs 31kg including the Flight case. Oh my back, this is amplifier territory. LoL

Will let you know what I observe over time...
 
bonzo said:
No one's compared the Kassandra to Lampi yet. The only comparison so far is with Dave.
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As i try to explain the comparison was made not directly. Bmichels prefer the nagra over the kassandra. You prefer the lampi over the nagra.

Where as people in the East said Kassandra is the best analogue DAC over the competition. It comes very close to top TT even.
 
hieukm said:
As i try to explain the comparison was made not directly. Bmichels prefer the nagra over the kassandra. You prefer the lampi over the nagra.

Where as people in the East said Kassandra is the best analogue DAC over the competition. It comes very close to top TT even.
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The Lampi Nagra was a direct comparison. There is nothing to say a Kassandra is better than Lampi except hypotheses. The only data we have now is that bMichels prefers Nagra to kassandra - was that a comparison in the same system?

When a comparison is made, we shall see. regarding comparison to TT, even Lampi can be preferred to a TT which is not optimized. When a TT does get optimized, things change. Sometimes, analog doesn't sound good enough, but by changing the phono or some other component or set up element, we can get it sounding good. The variations in analog are just too high to make a generalization.

There are a lot of people who prefer Lampi to their own analog set up. For example, this thread about being satisfied with digital as compared to vinyl was started by a guy who bought the Lampi. http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?22227-Attitude-towards-and-costs-of-the-hobby He has a very high end analog set up - kuzma xl4, kuzma 4p . Ypsilon phono and SUT, Lyra atlas, VDH colibri and shelter harmony carts. Today he prefers to listen via his Lampi (older generation, not with new spec). Does this mean analog cannot be set up to outperform much more? No. It can, and some vinyl quality is just too real for digital to come close to. But yes, it does come close, the Lampi Nagra system had an SME 30/12 for compare too.

If someone does say their dac is better than analog outright, I would rather ignore his comments, and suggest he finds a new analog rig. But does it come close, sure. You can be satisfied in Mike Lavigne's system with the Lampi. While listening to it it is close, especially to Ortofon Anna.Yet when the vinyl stats playing, it is different, and the distance increases with the Goldfinger statement or with a 45 rpm vinyl
 
bonzo said:
The Lampi Nagra was a direct comparison. There is nothing to say a Kassandra is better than Lampi except hypotheses. The only data we have now is that bMichels prefers Nagra to kassandra - was that a comparison in the same system?

When a comparison is made, we shall see. regarding comparison to TT, even Lampi can be preferred to a TT which is not optimized. When a TT does get optimized, things change. Sometimes, analog doesn't sound good enough, but by changing the phono or some other component or set up element, we can get it sounding good. The variations in analog are just too high to make a generalization.

There are a lot of people who prefer Lampi to their own analog set up. For example, this thread about being satisfied with digital as compared to vinyl was started by a guy who bought the Lampi. http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?22227-Attitude-towards-and-costs-of-the-hobby He has a very high end analog set up - kuzma xl4, kuzma 4p . Ypsilon phono and SUT, Lyra atlas, VDH colibri and shelter harmony carts. Today he prefers to listen via his Lampi (older generation, not with new spec). Does this mean analog cannot be set up to outperform much more? No. It can, and some vinyl quality is just too real for digital to come close to. But yes, it does come close, the Lampi Nagra system had an SME 30/12 for compare too.

If someone does say their dac is better than analog outright, I would rather ignore his comments, and suggest he finds a new analog rig. But does it come close, sure. You can be satisfied in Mike Lavigne's system with the Lampi. While listening to it it is close, especially to Ortofon Anna.Yet when the vinyl stats playing, it is different, and the distance increases with the Goldfinger statement or with a 45 rpm vinyl
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Understand that Bmichels made his comparision directly. Thats why i was a bit supprised to see his preference of the Nagra. Although the Kassandra version did not have its PSU but neither does the Nagra. Also Bmichels's dealer made the switch from top of the line TotalDAC to Aries Cerat as well, if i can recall correctly.

Well if you put in into same perspective, the tube DAC like Lampizator/Aries Cerat can come close or be preferred over analog setup. But i never heard any impression that top SS DAC can perform the same, even with Trinity/DCS/MSB.
 
hieukm said:
Understand that Bmichels made his comparision directly. Thats why i was a bit supprised to see his preference of the Nagra. Although the Kassandra version did not have its PSU but neither does the Nagra. Also Bmichels's dealer made the switch from top of the line TotalDAC to Aries Cerat as well, if i can recall correctly.

Well if you put in into same perspective, the tube DAC like Lampizator/Aries Cerat can come close or be preferred over analog setup. But i never heard any impression that top SS DAC can perform the same, even with Trinity/DCS/MSB.
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I heard the Nagra with battery powered MPS.

Flyer on WBF too has moved from the Totaldac to the Aries Kassandra, and I respect his opinion.

AlRainbow owns the 35k+ MSB Platinum stack and prefers his Lampi to it. In fact he even preferred his older Big 7 to it. My experience with MSB has only been at Detlof's place where we compared it to the Zanden and it was much better to both Detlof and me.

You also have this comparison of MSB and Lampi

I compared the old B7 with 101D to Trinity at Elberoth's and preferred the Trinity. The Lampi continues to upgrade through the times though, as the design cycle of Lukasz is continuous improvement rather than a 2 - 3 year cycle.

The thing with SS dacs is, for all the comments that audiophiles post, they sound very similar. SS dacs never actually improved, they just did something different causing the gulf between analog and digital. Lampi just went on a technology already established in DHT power amps. I am not a techie, but from what techie fans of Lampi say, and what makes sense to me, is that the digital actually amounts to much less of the SQ, it is the power, analog output, and the DHT which does. In which case, it makes complete sense why it sounds better than another dac with bling expensive case and dac chip and higher price tag.

One of the posts on WBF (by Sujay) reports of a trade-in of the vivaldi for the GG. dCS is going to need more than a code change to overcome the new competition like Lampi, and from what I hear, the WADAX pre/ultimate and Neodine Origine.
 
hieukm said:
Understand that Bmichels made his comparision directly. Thats why i was a bit supprised to see his preference of the Nagra. Although the Kassandra version did not have its PSU but neither does the Nagra. Also Bmichels's dealer made the switch from top of the line TotalDAC to Aries Cerat as well, if i can recall correctly.

Well if you put in into same perspective, the tube DAC like Lampizator/Aries Cerat can come close or be preferred over analog setup. But i never heard any impression that top SS DAC can perform the same, even with Trinity/DCS/MSB.
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Which Kassandra? There are several versions and the prices skyrocket up the chain!
A SE Lampi GG is about €12K and US $15K full retail and €3K or $4K more for balanced. € price is before VAT

Here is the pricing given to me by the US distributor at WBF:

  1. Pricing in Euro is as follows (give or take 1k) not including VAT

    7500 for the Prestige Series

    18k for Reference Series

    55K for the Siganture Series

    81k for the Limited Edition Series



US Direct Pricing is as follows

12k for the Prestige

35K for the Reference Series

82k for the Signature Series

120k for the Limited Edition Series

So, given the wide disparity in the range, we need to say WHICH Kassandra was demoed in every case!
The reference weighs 120lbs and the 2 box Signature is 240lbs. By comparison my GG weighs about 40lbs....a lightweight compared to a mid/Heavyweight.

So, one could say that on a pound for pound basis, the Aries Dacs are cheap. LoL

I am sure they sound good, and clearly are priced accordingly, but me préférences run to DHT and discrete chipless DSD playback.

Good thread here on the Aries Cerat, with Stavros (teh designer from Cyprus) chipping in with good convo.
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...ra-from-Aries-Cerat&highlight=kassandra+price
 
Swiss made speakers (recently phased out of production):
http://precide.ch/test/Heil/e_syrinx.htm

and http://precide.ch/test/Heil/e_aulos.htm

Existing range: http://precide.ch/eng/eheil/eheil.htm
An example of how they can be run:
attachment.php
 

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hieukm said:
Understand that Bmichels made his comparision directly. Thats why i was a bit supprised to see his preference of the Nagra.....
Click to expand...

To be clear, the direct comparaison I did was between the Kasandra (the 2 pieces 45K€ version) and the DAVE, and I indeed found the Kassandra more emotional and more "there".
The NAGRA was auditioned before, but by memory it provided me more emotion than during my Kassandra/DAVE listening. But... with NAGRA it was not a direct comparaison.
 
bmichels said:
To be clear, the direct comparaison I did was between the Kasandra (the 2 pieces 45K€ version) and the DAVE, and I indeed found the Kassandra more emotional and more "there".
The NAGRA was auditioned before, but by memory it provided me more emotion than during my Kassandra/DAVE listening. But... with NAGRA it was not a direct comparaison.
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Thats very clear and convincing. Thank you.
 
bmichels said:
To be clear, the direct comparaison I did was between the Kasandra (the 2 pieces 45K€ version) and the DAVE, and I indeed found the Kassandra more emotional and more "there".
The NAGRA was auditioned before, but by memory it provided me more emotion than during my Kassandra/DAVE listening. But... with NAGRA it was not a direct comparaison.
Click to expand...

Did the price drop for the signature? The dealer quoted full retail at €55K 6 months ago. Maybe €45k is more like street price.
 
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