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Lampizator questions


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Yes the Transport does NOT do DSD. DSD is chipless and only by USB.

 

 

Kdavis only does DSD, even with PCM material, as he up samples all via JRiver and so uses only the Lampi DSD-Only Dac.

 

I PM'd Kdavis about this subject and never got a response. Kdavis, where art thou?

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PhillipAC also tested this with his L5 with DSD on a Mac.

 

I havent done yet, since I have been packed up for a while.

 

Reports are that it works great. KDavis reported on this here or at Audiogon...look it up.

 

I have been waiting for you to try it Norman. Kdavis mentioned it here

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That is exactly what I have. You will love it!

 

Of that I have no doubt! As I was searching for a new DAC, and came across the Lampizator, it seemed extraordinary that there could be a piece of audio equipment that garnered near-universal praise . . . not just praise, but almost a sense of reverence. Then, in talking on the phone with an A'gon member (who sold me my in-bound Blue Hawaii electrostatic HP amp), he told me he had spent a fortune on various high-end DACs, but who finally found a Lev 4 Lampi. His advice? Stop researching, buy Lampizator, stop upgrading, and start listening to music as it should be experienced. Then, I discovered the Stereo Mojo review, and that was all the evidence I needed.

 

Thanks also to wisnon, for his wisdom and encouragement.

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Hornedfrogguy

Let use know what ya think once you get it burned in

 

I will do. The Lamp will arrive next week, but I'll need to be patient because I have yet to find the final piece of the puzzle. As suggested earlier, the Lamp is going into a HP rig. Transport? Check (iMac). DAC? Check (lamp). Electrostatic HP amp? Arrives this Friday. Stax SR-009? No check. Very hard to find, and haven't yet been successful.

 

Hence the need for patience.

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Actually, I will put you onto ALRainbow. He is a HP guy and I think he has several, including the Stax. He has PS Audio Dac (to be upgraded to Direct Stream), MSB Platinum+ Dac and has a Lampi Level 7 on order after hearing a 4 and a 5. I had nothing to do with him discovering Lampi...honest. LoL

 

I will ask Al to comment on the Stax here.

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Good morning.

 

Congates on the BHSE , great headphone amp top tier .

Regarding stax the 009 is the most revealing headphone and I have them. The 007 is not the same level of clarity . It has less resolution when compared to the 009.

 

Now I also have the sennheiser HE60 it too is really good , but not as neutral as the

the stax . And the HE60 are not new to buy and need to be recabled . So stick with the stax . Pm me and I can reccomend a distributer to buy them.

 

Al

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I saw this on Audiogon:

04-01-14: Gopher

To any New Yorkers curious about our Level 7 Statement DAC, we will have one on display this Saturday at the official New York Head-fi meet in Babylon, New York.

 

The unit is burning in now and should have over a hundred hours on it by show time and should be ready to impress!

 

I would love to hear some feedback from people who attend this event. I am curious to hear what people think of the L7 until I can hear one for myself.

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Good morning.

 

And you will I will be there to listen.

 

But it that unit is not mine , it's someone else's . I do not know what amp and headphone it will be played with.

but I am going and bringing to top tier amps and headphones . Also my own ref music to compare it with. The Amps I have going there are the HDVD800 sennheiser with the HD800. And the audio GD M7 DAC . Also a KRELL KAV400xi. Amp with the HE6 . Two different but very revealing headphones. And I have a few lampi , s now .

 

Al

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As of tonight, I've become a proud member of team Lampi, having just agreed to purchase a Gen 4/Lev 5 w/ DSD module, fully balanced, Duelund Caps, volume control. I'm so excited!

 

Of that I have no doubt! As I was searching for a new DAC, and came across the Lampizator, it seemed extraordinary that there could be a piece of audio equipment that garnered near-universal praise . . . not just praise, but almost a sense of reverence. Then, in talking on the phone with an A'gon member (who sold me my in-bound Blue Hawaii electrostatic HP amp), he told me he had spent a fortune on various high-end DACs, but who finally found a Lev 4 Lampi. His advice? Stop researching, buy Lampizator, stop upgrading, and start listening to music as it should be experienced. Then, I discovered the Stereo Mojo review, and that was all the evidence I needed.

 

Thanks also to wisnon, for his wisdom and encouragement.

 

HornedFrogGuy, many congrats on your new DAC! Welcome to the club. I have the same unit that you ordered, except that I went DSD only. I upsample all of my content to DSD128 with JRiver and the results are amazing. You have cause to be excited!

 

I've found it to be in a league beyond than anything else I've heard. It uses completely different tech than anything else I know of (No DAC chip, tube power supply, tube analog stages, Duelund Caps, etc). The resultant sound is not just great, but also very clearly different. It doesn't sound like a variation on what everyone else is doing. I think you'll be more than happy.

 

I will add this though, I'm also a big fan of AudioPhil's Audiophile Optimizer software, which runs on Windows Server 2012. It's made a huge difference with every DAC I've tried it with - even one as sophisticated as the Lampi. I strongly recommend it. You can read more about it in the "Music Servers" forum here: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f10-music-servers/whos-used-audiophile-optimizer-windows-2012-server-or-windows-8-a-17897/

 

The combination of the two is unbelievably great.

Roon Server: Core i7-3770S, WS2012 + AO => HQP Server: Core, i7-9700K, HQPlayer OS => NAA: Celeron NUC, HQP NAA => ISO Regen with UltraCap LPS 1.2 => Mapleshade USB Cable => Lampizator L4 DSD-Only Balanced DAC Preamp => Blue Jeans Belden Balanced Cables => Mivera PurePower SE Amp => Magnepan 3.7i

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Kdavis only does DSD, even with PCM material, as he up samples all via JRiver and so uses only the Lampi DSD-Only Dac.

 

I PM'd Kdavis about this subject and never got a response. Kdavis, where art thou?

 

Sorry Geardaddy, I've been away for a while.

 

You asked for my impressions? I love it.

 

Its sound is beautiful, musical and fundamentally different from anything else I've heard. It was a bit of a strecth for me financially and I would have returned it if I didn't feel that it was worth every penny - and then some. I've heard some other well regarded DACs but none of them were competitive, IMO.

 

The simplest compliment I can give it is that it lives up to the bold claims the company makes for it on its website.

Roon Server: Core i7-3770S, WS2012 + AO => HQP Server: Core, i7-9700K, HQPlayer OS => NAA: Celeron NUC, HQP NAA => ISO Regen with UltraCap LPS 1.2 => Mapleshade USB Cable => Lampizator L4 DSD-Only Balanced DAC Preamp => Blue Jeans Belden Balanced Cables => Mivera PurePower SE Amp => Magnepan 3.7i

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AURALiC Vega and be done. It works with any platform and easily switches between formats without clicking or pops. Great product with great service and with the new Aries coming it should be even mo better.

 

Subjectively it might sound better to YOU. To me, it doesn't. I've yet to see proper AP or dScope measurements and obviously never will. But continue along...

 

I'd had the Lampi for a little while and was already highly impressed with it when I had the opportunity to borrow a Vega for several days and compare the two directly. I was surprised, but the Vega did not impress me.

 

Based on the many enthusiastic professional and owner reviews of the Vega I'd read, I was expecting more from it. Not only did it not compare well to the Lampi, but I didn't find its sound to be engaging even on its own merits. I realize I'm very much an outlier in that regard, but that was my experience. The friend I borrowed it from didn't care for it either. He's returning it.

 

Jtwrace, we are also in different camps when it comes to the idea of measurements. In short, I just don't care about them, especially in the digital arena. Aren't there several modern DACs that offer stellar measurements? They don't all sound the same. There's nothing I could read that could override my ears.

Roon Server: Core i7-3770S, WS2012 + AO => HQP Server: Core, i7-9700K, HQPlayer OS => NAA: Celeron NUC, HQP NAA => ISO Regen with UltraCap LPS 1.2 => Mapleshade USB Cable => Lampizator L4 DSD-Only Balanced DAC Preamp => Blue Jeans Belden Balanced Cables => Mivera PurePower SE Amp => Magnepan 3.7i

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K6davis - I had read on CA that you had gone DSD only, and I certainly considered going in that same direction. I would have, until they told me of a very gently used, maxed out L5 (big box) for well under retail. It seemed prudent to go in that direction, since it wasn't that much more than a new DSD-only and any initial depreciation would be taken by someone other than me!

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Jtwrace, we are also in different camps when it comes to the idea of measurements. In short, I just don't care about them, especially in the digital arena. Aren't there several modern DACs that offer stellar measurements? They don't all sound the same. There's nothing I could read that could override my ears.

 

This is off topic for the thread, but just for 1 min, I really do think this issue can be explained in a way where both sides have quite some truth to them. Assuming we are doing blind or double blind comparisons, to me, 'hearing' is the net sum of what is, let's say in 100 years, all measurable. Okay, but we are alive today, and so we have X tests we can run, and that conforms to full reality by some factor - maybe 10%, maybe 60%, maybe 99%.

 

The problem is at any time in history, we don't know what that percent is, and that is the limitation of that process. For cars we can have a set of metrics like 0-60, 60-0, 1/4 mile, lateral acc., slalom, mpg, etc. then there are less tangible things like NVH, interior db level at 65, reliability, holding a decent resale value, something for looks and style, etc., and all of those attributes can be weighted for personal desires leading to a grading scheme. In this case, I think the criteria is a very high percentage of the actual value/goodness of the car. Also, if you look at dpreview, I think they've got that pretty nailed down. It is rare to find someone say, oh, man, I love Camera X, but it bombed on all of the dpreview tests. (Though there are some older film cameras that produce 'artistic' and flawed prints that some people like. That goes to art, which is more subjective.). But focusing for a second on modern digital cameras I think we are pretty close to properly judging a camera across the multitude of tests done there.

 

Chemistry becomes less clear than physics and mech eng, next biology becomes very murky and if you allow them as sciences psychology and then sociology become even more complex and less well understood because of the increase in factors that lead to the outcome. In Biology personalized medicine/genetic analysis now allows us to say this drug is 90% effective in population A and 30% in population B whereas 10 yrs ago they would have said the drug is 60% effective, and we are just barely beginning to understand the effect of gut microbiome on drugs and other health recommendations.

 

So if someone says you should eat 40% protein, 45% carbs, 15% fat, if they don't have a 23 and Me style analysis, it's not precise enough, and if they don't know your gut microbiome it is also not precise enough. And maybe there will be other components to personalized health we haven't discovered yet. So all of science should be taken in the context of the flow of history and should be seen as a fluid construct, not a fixed hard iron object that is to be dogmatically attached to. Scientists need to have a bit of humility at any point in time in the face of the progress of science itself! That said, society at times has decisions to make, such as outlawing a carcinogenic pesticide (IARC, For example) and aligning with what science has to offer often has greater yields than intuitive, emotional or anecdotal (super small and often biased sample size vs a real study population), but why add the assumption that it will never change and/or that we have, today, identified all factors?

 

 

So, in theory, perfectly detached listening is the sum of all 'real' behavior and should represent a perfect aggregate of all relevant measurements.

 

Listening itself can be flawed (what did you just listen to, how long have you been listening, do you know what the item is and which one weighs more or costs more, or is handmade, etc.), *and* we may be missing a number of required measurements. Can we, in the future, set up stereo mics at the listening position and 'measure' soundstage width, height, and depth - something that for now is only observed via listening? Same for things like intensity of attack, decay, and space around instruments. There are other attributes. (Btw, I'll bet the right people can actually measure soundstage, but I've never heard of it actually being done in a review - perhaps by reverse engineering things like Hughes/SRS and other 3-d imaging techniques used on 2 speakers.)

 

I could hazard a guess as to what I personally think we can measure out of the full psychoacoustic and emotional response to music is, maybe 50%, but I'm basically 100% sure of being wrong. A lot can happen in 100 years. Things like quantum purifiers and the AR RR-777 give me pause - I'm not going to say they do or don't work (I'm sure lots of folks are 100% sure one way or the other), but it gives me pause and makes me think there is a lot going on.

 

 

So all of that said, I'm all for measuring things in the present, otherwise we won't make progress. So, let us measure away! But I like to keep in mind the limitations of the results while at the same time advancing the process of measurement.

 

(Some of these ideas are based on Kuhn, if anyone wants to read more about scientific revolution vs evolution, philosophy of science, etc.)

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Being more on-topic, can we say what can be absorbed for each input:

 

USB

Toslink

SPDIF/BNC

AES/EBU

 

The options being

 

DSD64

DSD128

16/44.1

24/96

24/192

24/88.1

24/176.2

32/384 DXD

 

Any others? Is Spotify ogg? Pandora MP3? Some will use this with streaming formats.

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DSD only via USB (Amanero) no other possibility.

Spdif, Aes/Ebu --everything up to 24/192 (No DXD...at least not in my version)

MP3, yes. Dont know about Spotify....

 

I tend to agree with your balanced approach to measurement...and Lukasz does measure and he also tunes by ear (with several trusted ears, including his own). In fact, when my pal upgraded his Dac in November last, he got back documents with a full set of measurements and tests.

 

HifiCritic also did standard measurements in an old edition on an older Generation 3 Lampi. JTWrace was given those values on AudioCircle and pretended to ignore them.

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HifiCritic also did standard measurements in an old edition on an older Generation 3 Lampi. JTWrace was given those values on AudioCircle and pretended to ignore them.

 

You obviously do not understand measurements. If you did, you would know the difference between the measurements that were posted vs. what I'm asking for. Once again, send me the unit and I'll take care of them since it's never going to be done on a dScope or AP.

W10 NUC i7 (Gen 10) > Roon (Audiolense FIR) > Motu UltraLite mk5 > (4) Hypex NCore NC502MP > JBL M2 Master Reference +4 subs

 

Watch my Podcast https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXMw_bZWBMtRWNJQfTJ38kA/videos

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You are the engineer, so I defer to you there. Just know I am pals with a TOP audio designer (not digital) and his experience asking questions to the Vega people elicited responses that did not make sense.

 

I know another top designer who agrees. Enuff said there.

 

It appears you dont understand good sound, or you would quit flogging a dead horse. Maybe why you dont make your own well measured products. I find it ridiculous that you think all these people who own or have demoed a Lampi are delusional!!!

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You are the engineer, so I defer to you there. Just know I am pals with a TOP audio designer (not digital) and his experience asking questions to the Vega people elicited responses that did not make sense.

 

I know another top designer who agrees. Enuff said there.

 

It appears you dont understand good sound, or you would quit flogging a dead horse. Maybe why you dont make your own well measured products. I find it ridiculous that you think all these people who own or have demoed a Lampi are delusional!!!

As I would expect from you.

W10 NUC i7 (Gen 10) > Roon (Audiolense FIR) > Motu UltraLite mk5 > (4) Hypex NCore NC502MP > JBL M2 Master Reference +4 subs

 

Watch my Podcast https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXMw_bZWBMtRWNJQfTJ38kA/videos

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