"To Lampi or not to Lampi?....That is the question." by William Shake-it-up

Alpinist said:
Mike,

Things are moving so damned fast right now with digital audio and DSD, it feels risky to make a new purchase right now. I may stick with my K-01 for awhile to see how it all shakes out. But the Lampi has definitely piqued my interest.

Best,
Ken
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:lurk: :lurk: :lurk: I'm going to hunker down with a truckload of popcorn for another year. Balanced DSD something I can wait for, a bit more longer.... :safe:
 
Alpinist said:
Mike,

Things are moving so damned fast right now with digital audio and DSD, it feels risky to make a new purchase right now. I may stick with my K-01 for awhile to see how it all shakes out. But the Lampi has definitely piqued my interest.

Best,
Ken
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I agree Ken, digital is always moving fast !

I'm a Turtle, so I will stick with my Lumin for the foreseeable future. Honestly, I don't think I'm missing out. There is always something newer and supposedly better. But I'm going to be patient.
 
"To Lampi or not to Lampi?....That is the question." by William Shake-it-up

:)
Lurk
 
JDLaudio said:
I have a solid two weeks of break-in / listening to my new Big 7 Lampizator dac now. It continues to improve everyday. At this point I can confidently say it's DSD playback is the best I've heard. The sound quality produced by the Lampi mimics the natural tone, sustain, timing, and flow of music I've heard in a live event. The soundstaging is excellent, displaying a wide and deep presentation. The bass is taunt and full. The midrange is a perfect blend of warmth and bite....not overblown. I have had other dacs flesh out a bit more detail and dymanics, but none were as natural sounding as the Lampi in my system. My best redbook playback is date is via my Berkeley Reference dac unit. The Lampi redbook is getting closer to the Berkeley, as it continues to break-in.
My Lumin S-1 fall a bit short when compared to Lampi's DSD, or Berkeley's redbook. But as I've said before, the Lumin is a great combo dac/streamer, that has an awesome user interface. The Lumin offers streaming and superb multi-format performance at very reasonable costs.
I must qualify my impressions by stating that my newly constructed listening room is currently a bit over-damped. So I am unable to judge the 5k to 20k frequency range of these dacs as well as I would like. So please take this issue into consideration, when considering my review. I will report more, if additional changes take place.
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Would you mind expanding on this? I have a Reference on order.
 
majnun70 said:
Would you mind expanding on this? I have a Reference on order.
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Redbook is very good with Lampi so far, but not at the level of the Reference. It has improved quite a bit since the break-in began, but has a ways to go before it reaches the quality of the Berkeley. The Berkeley is fleshing out more detail, more hall reverb fall-off, more leading edge on vocals, and better defined sibilance on cymbals and such on the high frequencies. Depth of soundstage is pretty equal, but width is better on the Berkeley. Of course this could be a synergy that is system dependent ?? I have not had enough time to compare these units in a second or third system, to see if their qualities hold up ?? Hope this helps.
 
JDLaudio said:
Redbook is very good with Lampi so far, but not at the level of the Reference. It has improved quite a bit since the break-in began, but has a ways to go before it reaches the quality of the Berkeley. The Berkeley is fleshing out more detail, more hall reverb fall-off, more leading edge on vocals, and better defined sibilance on cymbals and such on the high frequencies. Depth of soundstage is pretty equal, but width is better on the Berkeley. Of course this could be a synergy that is system dependent ?? I have not had enough time to compare these units in a second or third system, to see if their qualities hold up ?? Hope this helps.
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Thank you, that's very helpful. I hope to get mine (Reference) in the next month or two.
 
I have been following the which is better, DSD or PCM discussion, for quite some time now. After reading a lot of feedback, it's apparent to me that some DACs do DSD better than PCM and some DACs do PCM better than DSD. So basically, it's not a valid argument that PCM is better or DSD is better from just listening to one DAC. A more valid comparison would be a top DSD DAC to a top PCM DAC.

Ken
 
Alpinist said:
I have been following the which is better, DSD or PCM discussion, for quite some time now. After reading a lot of feedback, it's apparent to me that some DACs do DSD better than PCM and some DACs do PCM better than DSD. So basically, it's not a valid argument that PCM is better or DSD is better from just listening to one DAC. A more valid comparison would be a top DSD DAC to a top PCM DAC.

Ken
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Ken, I believe both PCM and DSD can sound fantastic. DSD, if recorded in DSD or converted from the analog tapes is really great. But DSD made from PCM files falls flat to my ears.
It's all a matter of how things are recorded, at least imho.
 
Alpinist said:
I have been following the which is better, DSD or PCM discussion, for quite some time now. After reading a lot of feedback, it's apparent to me that some DACs do DSD better than PCM and some DACs do PCM better than DSD. So basically, it's not a valid argument that PCM is better or DSD is better from just listening to one DAC. A more valid comparison would be a top DSD DAC to a top PCM DAC.

Ken
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Agreed. It would even be better to do the comparison with songs that have excellent versions in both formats available. Jerry is in a unique position to do such a format comparison having the Berkeley Ref and Lampi in his possession. Adam does as well having the Trinity and Lampi. No pressure guys.
 
FlexibleAudio said:
Agreed. It would even be better to do the comparison with songs that have excellent versions in both formats available. Jerry is in a unique position to do such a format comparison having the Berkeley Ref and Lampi in his possession. Adam does as well having the Trinity and Lampi. No pressure guys.
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I think more time is taken when a DSD is made, because it is understood that it is meant for the audiophile community. My opinion is that a DSD normally sounds a bit better. Not sure the gear has that much to do with the ultimate quality, when it comes to formats. It's been said many times, "the recording process is where the magic is created or destroyed". YMMV.
 
Hi, I am a Lampi Big 7 owner, and entered the Lampi area when I found it to be better than an ARC dac 8 that I then owned, Weiss Meitner, and some other stuff. But those who have auditioned the lower levels or the DSD dac, the Big 7 is just way out - I am not an upgrader for upgrades sake, and consider most dacs to have diminishing returns pretty quickly. But the Big 7 just blew me off.

My music is mainly opera and orchestral, and I average a live show every 1 - 2 weeks at the Barbican, Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall or St. Martin's in London. My audition tracks include Bach Chorals, Opera, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an exhibition, and Scheherazade. I also use some jazz for audition.

I have compared the Big 7 to a Trinity, and found it better on each track, especially on orchestral. The slam and speed was much better. AlRainbow prefers it to the 35k MSB stack he owns. I know two guys who thought it was a no contest with their Playback designs MPD5 and moved over. I mostly buy everything used, but the reason I bought this from a dealer is that I was confident I had no further reason to upgrade to another brand, no matter what the cost.

Using HQPlayer with DSD upsampling makes it even better, but is cumbersome. J river is easy. Upto the individual. Also the best valves I have heard so far for orchestral are the Psvane replicas for 101ds. If you audition with other valves like 6A3s, you might gain more in midrange and vocals but lose out on slam and dynamics. But there is a valve for each type of music. I dream of the day I will add the WE 101Ds to it.

I don't chat on this forum much, but am active on WBF, Martin Logan, and UK forums. Lampi aside, I am a box swapper.

It is very sensitive to power cords. The Totaldac USB works better than the AQ Diamond. I heard the Vertere is much better but costs $1k more.
 
Mike said:
I was reading tonight that you can tube roll in a SE Lampi Big 7, but the balanced Lampi Big 7, you cannot? Can someone clarify? Confusing. :panic:
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You can tube roll different 101D brands only in the balanced - which are the best anyway, so from a Psvane replica to the WE originals.
 
That's would be a no go for me. And I think se lends better sound because of less tubes.
But That's my subjective view.
 
Alrainbow said:
That's would be a no go for me. And I think se lends better sound because of less tubes.
But That's my subjective view.
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That's the way I'm leaning too. Single ended connection for single ended DAC. The balanced might be too much of a square peg in a round whole.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Hi. I have MSB Analog DAC. Should I sell my dac and buy Lampi lite 7 dac (i have no money for big 7 version)

is this an upgrade ?
 
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