sharkmouth
Active member
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2013
- Messages
- 1,616
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- #1
Had a fun day today, as the title says, I had the chance to play in my system the Aurender S10, the Lumin A-1, the Manley 300b pre-amp & finally get some of my Stillpoints back under my gear.
Well the day started well & ended on a higher plane, it was stellar to be me today. The events.....
A friend of mine shows up with all the gear, we unload the car in the foyer & the music room & then move to the kitchen to feel out the plan of attack. As in usual style from down under we just attack it with gusto & see what happens. First off was to listen to the system as is for a reference point & something to base our findings on.
Point one straight away is friend telling me he just can't understand why more people haven't got panels/planar speakers & where did that bass come from. Mojo Juju for the swing of things, was well received, Sade: Slave Song left him in awe of the amount of bass coming from the 20.7's let alone a panel, we had some great energy flowing in that room. It's nice to have someone really appreciate your system that you know, in your own space that absolutely knows what very good systems sound like & they too have owned some of the top tier gear as well.
The first move was from there to pull the Soulution 520 pre-amp & put in the Manley 300b in it's place. Absolutely lovely pre-amp, timing, attack, realistic tones & timbral attributes to the fore but, one thing was evident from the first few seconds, the bass suffered heavily in my set-up. It was really disappointing for me as I romanced the idea of tubes in my system but today it didn't work, may be i need to try the amps instead. So that was quick & time to move on to the next comparison, with the Soulution back in the tour of duty...
The next point of attack is change as little as possible & step 1 is put the Aurender into the fray through the dac. To be totally honest it was very close to what I had & the difference is so slight from my macbook pro, internal ssd, into my Meitner, & the same for the Aurender, internal ssd but with internal storage as well. I was actually quite surprised that the Aurender presented the sound so well compared to my system & once it hit it's straps after warming up & settling, that it would be a very uncommon call to emphasise a difference in sound quality for better or worse, between the two. It was in fact coming to the conclusion of both of us that it was more in common to a one horse race.........
Now the Lumin comes into the fray, & first & foremost i have to say if someone is just entering the digital playback arena, the Lumin is a no brainer for it's price point you get the player & the dac to do it with so step right up folks, it is a home run, or is it? Sure, it is a simple solution & a sound that is very good, but it is not as good as what Lumin has coming, that is very evident in the fact that they are putting more chips per channel & that is always a good thing, but don't get me wrong here, I liked it a lot. The Lumin itself I thought was a bit wooly around the bass with a slight delineation of the detail, the soundstage that although 3D was height challenged compared to my current set-up & the Aurender too for that matter. For a product that is in it's first foray into the market & it's capabilities, I rate it worthy of owning & a capable component. I also can relate to an upgraded power supply , more chips etc, this component does have promise but in my as is today, no, it doesn't do it for me, came close but there is something to be said of onboard ssd! From here to the now as I write this...
After all of this we had some lunch, updated the Lumin, played a few & then restored the system to where it was the same as it ever was.
, except for a few isolation devices that have come home to roost, namely some Stillpoints Ultra 5's under the speakers & some Stillpoints Ultra SS's under the dac, see signature for full disclosure .To say the transformation was staggering would be quite accurate, as found before, but this time was shocking for the fact that although we were both seasoned Stillpoints users/listeners the room just was. Hell the bass was ripping into our seating, the energy in the room was so palpable, the soundstage was just big!!! prat, cohesion, just right, energy, attack, realism, who cares, my system had been transformed to something that made me say out loud, "holy shit".... "do you feel that energy" to the bloke sitting next to me. All of this took a couple of hours after lunch & then it was time to end something that could have quite easily ventured into red wine & a hazy night of music & heightened musical delights. To say the system is now so much more, musical, fatigue free, etc. etc. is a given. One more step to go & I think I have it covered?
Well the day started well & ended on a higher plane, it was stellar to be me today. The events.....
A friend of mine shows up with all the gear, we unload the car in the foyer & the music room & then move to the kitchen to feel out the plan of attack. As in usual style from down under we just attack it with gusto & see what happens. First off was to listen to the system as is for a reference point & something to base our findings on.
Point one straight away is friend telling me he just can't understand why more people haven't got panels/planar speakers & where did that bass come from. Mojo Juju for the swing of things, was well received, Sade: Slave Song left him in awe of the amount of bass coming from the 20.7's let alone a panel, we had some great energy flowing in that room. It's nice to have someone really appreciate your system that you know, in your own space that absolutely knows what very good systems sound like & they too have owned some of the top tier gear as well.
The first move was from there to pull the Soulution 520 pre-amp & put in the Manley 300b in it's place. Absolutely lovely pre-amp, timing, attack, realistic tones & timbral attributes to the fore but, one thing was evident from the first few seconds, the bass suffered heavily in my set-up. It was really disappointing for me as I romanced the idea of tubes in my system but today it didn't work, may be i need to try the amps instead. So that was quick & time to move on to the next comparison, with the Soulution back in the tour of duty...
The next point of attack is change as little as possible & step 1 is put the Aurender into the fray through the dac. To be totally honest it was very close to what I had & the difference is so slight from my macbook pro, internal ssd, into my Meitner, & the same for the Aurender, internal ssd but with internal storage as well. I was actually quite surprised that the Aurender presented the sound so well compared to my system & once it hit it's straps after warming up & settling, that it would be a very uncommon call to emphasise a difference in sound quality for better or worse, between the two. It was in fact coming to the conclusion of both of us that it was more in common to a one horse race.........
Now the Lumin comes into the fray, & first & foremost i have to say if someone is just entering the digital playback arena, the Lumin is a no brainer for it's price point you get the player & the dac to do it with so step right up folks, it is a home run, or is it? Sure, it is a simple solution & a sound that is very good, but it is not as good as what Lumin has coming, that is very evident in the fact that they are putting more chips per channel & that is always a good thing, but don't get me wrong here, I liked it a lot. The Lumin itself I thought was a bit wooly around the bass with a slight delineation of the detail, the soundstage that although 3D was height challenged compared to my current set-up & the Aurender too for that matter. For a product that is in it's first foray into the market & it's capabilities, I rate it worthy of owning & a capable component. I also can relate to an upgraded power supply , more chips etc, this component does have promise but in my as is today, no, it doesn't do it for me, came close but there is something to be said of onboard ssd! From here to the now as I write this...
After all of this we had some lunch, updated the Lumin, played a few & then restored the system to where it was the same as it ever was.
, except for a few isolation devices that have come home to roost, namely some Stillpoints Ultra 5's under the speakers & some Stillpoints Ultra SS's under the dac, see signature for full disclosure .To say the transformation was staggering would be quite accurate, as found before, but this time was shocking for the fact that although we were both seasoned Stillpoints users/listeners the room just was. Hell the bass was ripping into our seating, the energy in the room was so palpable, the soundstage was just big!!! prat, cohesion, just right, energy, attack, realism, who cares, my system had been transformed to something that made me say out loud, "holy shit".... "do you feel that energy" to the bloke sitting next to me. All of this took a couple of hours after lunch & then it was time to end something that could have quite easily ventured into red wine & a hazy night of music & heightened musical delights. To say the system is now so much more, musical, fatigue free, etc. etc. is a given. One more step to go & I think I have it covered?
