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Or should I say Pacific washes up onto the darTZeel harbour?
It was a great Saturday some 3 weeks or so ago when Golum set up a day to hear what Herve has to offer in his basement demo room in a lovely residential area on the outskirts of Geneva (not too far from the French border).
Last time I was at Herve with Thomas (2 years ago?), I didn't take my Lampi tube Dac and Herve was very curious to hear it, as he is totally a SS designer, but has an inquisitive and open mind. This time he expected to hear the GG, but I had a surprise in store for him and Golum. Herve's buddy Stephan also was invited. He was the fellow that redesigned the demo room for Herve and is also an enthusiastic audiophile.
Golum somehow already figured it out and when he saw the larger flight case he shook his head! LoL. The Swiss Demo Pacific was here and they were the first to hear it. It will be moving on soon enough and I can ciut to the chase and tell you all trhat it will be missed. I will cry a tear, who will wipe it dry? LoL
No tubes came with it, but I already had a pair of RK 300bs, Lampi EML anniversary mesh Globe 45 (AMG for short) and (I thought) a pair of KR242. All to be washed down with a few rectis, Golum's EML mesh 274b, my NOS Mazda double mica 5r4gy and the Chinese Shuguang 274b. I still don't have the KR or RK rectis in my stash, nor do I have the "holy trinity" of Takatsuki 300b and 274b that I heard at AL's place in NY...but then again, that is $3,500 retail, as much as a decent SS Dac!
So, what started as a demo of Dart ended up being a preliminary check out of the Pac (with maybe 30 hrs on it in total) vs Herve's Danalog (LHC-208 integrated amp/Ethernet Dac) and his new prototype dual mono poweramp NHB-108 model 2 and the latest preamp (that too will be refreshed in due course). No NHB-268 around (pity) as he struggles to satisfy WW demand and cant even keep one for himself.
After Herve regaled us with the overview of what changed from 458 to 468 and 108 model 1 to model 2, we set to getting stuff ready to play. To keep stuff simple and not waste precious time on ideal setup, we use simple Supra USB cable for the Pacific and fed both Dacs with JRiver 24 from a bog standard windows laptop. With the Pac, I was able to demonstrate the major differences between DHT tubes with the EML recti and the fun started when we changed changed rectis. The presentation fundamentally changed and we all preferred the cheap Chinese to the drop dead gorgeous EML mesh one. Indeed, Herve clearly preferred AMG 45 to the RK 300b at first (the former had better bass), with the Chinese they got closer and he only very slightly preferred the AMG. With the Mazda, again AMG improved and when I pout in the RK 300b, he loved it and then asked me to put back in the 1st set of tubes he didn't like so much. I had to then explain to him that they were in...the RK 300b totally changed for him! It could also be that by then all were warmer, but unlikely as we swapped every 10 minutes or so. Its note worthy that we spent approx. 2 hours listening to HALF a song. as Herve said, we audiophiles are good crazy! LoL
We also swapped back and forth to his SS ac to note the differences and his conclusion (not a shootout as we were not setup for that and too many unfamiliarities) was that the PAC is a world class Dac with a different presentation and he was pleased with what he heard. He said that its a matter of taste at this level (of course), but what blew Stephan away was how the user can significantly tailor the sound on the fly by rolling tube combinations! He said "I totally get why there is a Lampi fan club, the Lampi Dac is an audiophile party in itself". SS Dac really only can change cables and FW (for the FPGA Dacs) and even then these are predetermined set configurations. Lampi owners can roll so many tube configurations that one can find a favourite for every genre and a Lampi rave can be about music, cables or tube rolling! A real party that can suck time like nothing else! From first hand experience, I can tell you that there is never enough time if even a few tubes are available. LoL
The LHC-208 is also a very fine Dac and the unit is great value for money, as its an integrated amp and Ethernet streaming Dac all in one for $14K. However, its more a SS sound and I am biased. I could very very easily live with it as a desert island solution though. Herve did play around with is 50ohm interconnect (cant recall if he went to 75ohm or went from shielded to unshielded) but the resulting change had more mid bass and was more euphonic. He said it was false emphasis, but some may like it better.
The new model 2 dual mono power amp drove the massive EA speakers with no problems at all. We didn't play that loud, but there was no sign of clipping, even with bass heavy material and the sound was heavenly....but that I love DarTZeel electronics anyway. I quite like EA speakers too.
All in all it was a fun GTG (way too short) and we have to do it again in the future with a more refined Server/source and better interconnects. Picture to follow.....
It was a great Saturday some 3 weeks or so ago when Golum set up a day to hear what Herve has to offer in his basement demo room in a lovely residential area on the outskirts of Geneva (not too far from the French border).
Last time I was at Herve with Thomas (2 years ago?), I didn't take my Lampi tube Dac and Herve was very curious to hear it, as he is totally a SS designer, but has an inquisitive and open mind. This time he expected to hear the GG, but I had a surprise in store for him and Golum. Herve's buddy Stephan also was invited. He was the fellow that redesigned the demo room for Herve and is also an enthusiastic audiophile.
Golum somehow already figured it out and when he saw the larger flight case he shook his head! LoL. The Swiss Demo Pacific was here and they were the first to hear it. It will be moving on soon enough and I can ciut to the chase and tell you all trhat it will be missed. I will cry a tear, who will wipe it dry? LoL
No tubes came with it, but I already had a pair of RK 300bs, Lampi EML anniversary mesh Globe 45 (AMG for short) and (I thought) a pair of KR242. All to be washed down with a few rectis, Golum's EML mesh 274b, my NOS Mazda double mica 5r4gy and the Chinese Shuguang 274b. I still don't have the KR or RK rectis in my stash, nor do I have the "holy trinity" of Takatsuki 300b and 274b that I heard at AL's place in NY...but then again, that is $3,500 retail, as much as a decent SS Dac!
So, what started as a demo of Dart ended up being a preliminary check out of the Pac (with maybe 30 hrs on it in total) vs Herve's Danalog (LHC-208 integrated amp/Ethernet Dac) and his new prototype dual mono poweramp NHB-108 model 2 and the latest preamp (that too will be refreshed in due course). No NHB-268 around (pity) as he struggles to satisfy WW demand and cant even keep one for himself.
After Herve regaled us with the overview of what changed from 458 to 468 and 108 model 1 to model 2, we set to getting stuff ready to play. To keep stuff simple and not waste precious time on ideal setup, we use simple Supra USB cable for the Pacific and fed both Dacs with JRiver 24 from a bog standard windows laptop. With the Pac, I was able to demonstrate the major differences between DHT tubes with the EML recti and the fun started when we changed changed rectis. The presentation fundamentally changed and we all preferred the cheap Chinese to the drop dead gorgeous EML mesh one. Indeed, Herve clearly preferred AMG 45 to the RK 300b at first (the former had better bass), with the Chinese they got closer and he only very slightly preferred the AMG. With the Mazda, again AMG improved and when I pout in the RK 300b, he loved it and then asked me to put back in the 1st set of tubes he didn't like so much. I had to then explain to him that they were in...the RK 300b totally changed for him! It could also be that by then all were warmer, but unlikely as we swapped every 10 minutes or so. Its note worthy that we spent approx. 2 hours listening to HALF a song. as Herve said, we audiophiles are good crazy! LoL
We also swapped back and forth to his SS ac to note the differences and his conclusion (not a shootout as we were not setup for that and too many unfamiliarities) was that the PAC is a world class Dac with a different presentation and he was pleased with what he heard. He said that its a matter of taste at this level (of course), but what blew Stephan away was how the user can significantly tailor the sound on the fly by rolling tube combinations! He said "I totally get why there is a Lampi fan club, the Lampi Dac is an audiophile party in itself". SS Dac really only can change cables and FW (for the FPGA Dacs) and even then these are predetermined set configurations. Lampi owners can roll so many tube configurations that one can find a favourite for every genre and a Lampi rave can be about music, cables or tube rolling! A real party that can suck time like nothing else! From first hand experience, I can tell you that there is never enough time if even a few tubes are available. LoL
The LHC-208 is also a very fine Dac and the unit is great value for money, as its an integrated amp and Ethernet streaming Dac all in one for $14K. However, its more a SS sound and I am biased. I could very very easily live with it as a desert island solution though. Herve did play around with is 50ohm interconnect (cant recall if he went to 75ohm or went from shielded to unshielded) but the resulting change had more mid bass and was more euphonic. He said it was false emphasis, but some may like it better.
The new model 2 dual mono power amp drove the massive EA speakers with no problems at all. We didn't play that loud, but there was no sign of clipping, even with bass heavy material and the sound was heavenly....but that I love DarTZeel electronics anyway. I quite like EA speakers too.
All in all it was a fun GTG (way too short) and we have to do it again in the future with a more refined Server/source and better interconnects. Picture to follow.....
