Call me Julot, the ICOS guy
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Julot
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- #28
I didn't find said Ayon board, so I suppose I might as well write up here.
The room was underground, 40ish sqm, "regular" furniture, a big metal shelf with tons of heavy electronics and many loudspeakers.
The amplifier was an Airtight ATM-4 and the speakers were Tannoy Kensington GR.
The guy wanted me to listen to the combination of the NW-T streamer and Stealth DAC before (A 10+k€ source, seen from here). After many difficulties actually getting the NT-W to read whatever we were sending its way (we tried back and front USB and ethernet NAS, to apparently random results), we listened to that combination a little with some music I brought:
Dianne Reeves' New Morning live (CD format, Blue Note)
Schubert's Winterreise by S. Richter and P. Schreier (Philips, CD format)
Mozart's Mass in C by Louis Langrée (Erato, CD Format)
Jonas Kaufman's Wagner Recital (24/96 format, Decca)
The whole setup (A 30k system) did not quite convince me. The whole thing was impressive for sure, and not too tiring, but it was weird and boring. Weird because of a strange emphasis on vocal frequencies that made you feel like you were inside Diana Krall's mouth or pressed against Dianne Reeves bosom -- limited high harmonics, no feeling of the whole column of air the singer moves. Boring because the rhythm wasn't there.
On the plus side, there was almost no "sound" box, the scene was definitely larger than the speakers (you could still distinctly hear two sources, but few systems escape that problem, and it depends a lot on the room and on the placement of the speakers...). And the whole thing was very fast.
By comparison, I found the S3 to be more musical and natural. The price is the same as the Lumin (6,000€ here). The better spectral balance let every instrument play its part and let the structure of the music shine. The rhytm was still off, and there was a much smaller scene and some box sound. Using the outer DAC with the S3 brought back the issues from the NW-T, though to a lesser extent and with clearer sound. Still, if I had to chose between the two, I would take the S3 and maybe buy a few good meals with the differece.
The 24/96 file sounded much better, of course, but did not fix the spectral and rhythm issues.
Out of curiosity, I also connected my MacBook Pro (using Audirvana Plus as a player) to the Ayon Stealth DAC with a decent USB cable, and the results don't compare. It's comparatively poor sound, poor spatial representation.
To my ears, this system was no match in terms of musicality for the combination of Akurate DS (connected to a SSD NAS) + Euphya Alliance 280 and Power Supply + Fostex GX 103.
The room was underground, 40ish sqm, "regular" furniture, a big metal shelf with tons of heavy electronics and many loudspeakers.
The amplifier was an Airtight ATM-4 and the speakers were Tannoy Kensington GR.
The guy wanted me to listen to the combination of the NW-T streamer and Stealth DAC before (A 10+k€ source, seen from here). After many difficulties actually getting the NT-W to read whatever we were sending its way (we tried back and front USB and ethernet NAS, to apparently random results), we listened to that combination a little with some music I brought:
Dianne Reeves' New Morning live (CD format, Blue Note)
Schubert's Winterreise by S. Richter and P. Schreier (Philips, CD format)
Mozart's Mass in C by Louis Langrée (Erato, CD Format)
Jonas Kaufman's Wagner Recital (24/96 format, Decca)
The whole setup (A 30k system) did not quite convince me. The whole thing was impressive for sure, and not too tiring, but it was weird and boring. Weird because of a strange emphasis on vocal frequencies that made you feel like you were inside Diana Krall's mouth or pressed against Dianne Reeves bosom -- limited high harmonics, no feeling of the whole column of air the singer moves. Boring because the rhythm wasn't there.
On the plus side, there was almost no "sound" box, the scene was definitely larger than the speakers (you could still distinctly hear two sources, but few systems escape that problem, and it depends a lot on the room and on the placement of the speakers...). And the whole thing was very fast.
By comparison, I found the S3 to be more musical and natural. The price is the same as the Lumin (6,000€ here). The better spectral balance let every instrument play its part and let the structure of the music shine. The rhytm was still off, and there was a much smaller scene and some box sound. Using the outer DAC with the S3 brought back the issues from the NW-T, though to a lesser extent and with clearer sound. Still, if I had to chose between the two, I would take the S3 and maybe buy a few good meals with the differece.
The 24/96 file sounded much better, of course, but did not fix the spectral and rhythm issues.
Out of curiosity, I also connected my MacBook Pro (using Audirvana Plus as a player) to the Ayon Stealth DAC with a decent USB cable, and the results don't compare. It's comparatively poor sound, poor spatial representation.
To my ears, this system was no match in terms of musicality for the combination of Akurate DS (connected to a SSD NAS) + Euphya Alliance 280 and Power Supply + Fostex GX 103.