Lampizator questions

[wisnon]

It will retail at $1200.

I only know it will be using a DSD128-capable DAC chip from AKM, it could be AK4495S...

 

That's a good price, but you need to demo it to confirm the quality, if you havent done so already.

[Hiro]

That's a good price, but you need to demo it to confirm the quality, if you havent done so already.

 

I'll try to give it a listen before purchase. I hope it won't disappoint!

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f3-article-comments/article-2014-munich-high-end-show-20508/index2.html#post323233

[elcorso]

Roch, I hear you, but on my Lampi DSD dac I hear no noise already at DSD128...just music and its an outrageous SQ...ask Bruce Brown!

 

Wisnon, neither do I on dsd128. Now imagine for a moment less noise. Possible? My God, yes!...

 

I'm sorry but I only can trust my ears, then I can't ask nobody. From the other side each DAC could sound different in every system.

 

Roch

[wisnon]

You NEEEED to hear Lampi DSD.

 

Search of Subs heard it on a L7 in Newport and is having withdrawal pains. LoL

 

Read these:

SGW Blog: World First: DAC7 - Flavour Of The New Lampizator Flagship

 

Lampizator Level 7

[elcorso]

You NEEEED to hear Lampi DSD.

 

Search of Subs heard it on a L7 in Newport and is having withdrawal pains. LoL

 

Read these:

SGW Blog: World First: DAC7 - Flavour Of The New Lampizator Flagship

 

Lampizator Level 7

 

Great review Wisnon!...

 

Oil pulling for those with bass withdrawal pains? Ha, ha, ha...

 

BTW, I'm (my country) dealer for Shun Mook Mpingo disks (and all Bill Ying gear). They are great!...

 

Why they are talking about not playing DSD128? It's a Windows problem only?

 

Best,

 

Roch

[wisnon]

Not a problem really, he just had no time or experience to do it. DSD is new to many people.

 

Bill Ying has a GREAT reputation!

[wisnon]

More Lampi reviews:

LampizatOr Level 4 DAC

[wisnon]

DSD dac preview:

Mono and Stereo High-End Audio Magazine: LampizatOr DSD DAC test unit arrived

[realmassy]

I'm really getting interested in the Lampi: I will probably get a demo of the L4 in the next month, but I'm reading even better things about the L5. Is it really a league above? Rest of the system is EL34 based amp and STAX 009.

One more question, is the USB module powered by the PC or can I use a USB cable without the 5V? Thanks

[matthias]

One more question, is the USB module powered by the PC or can I use a USB cable without the 5V? Thanks

 

This is my question regarding Lampi DSD, too!

 

Matt

[seatrope]

Hi all,

 

Received my Big 7 after many months of anxious waiting, on Friday. Shipping via DHL was impeccable - the DAC arrived literally by noon the next day, with tracking every step of the way. Packing was good, slight scuffing to the volume control knob which isn't a big issue since I'll be replacing that anyway. The 45 tubes and rectifiers came in their own box. There was no manual though, and none available for download.

 

I had ordered my Big 7 with the optional volume control that would allow the DAC to be connected directly to my amps. I am of the philosophy that less is more; my prior DAC was fed through a Placette passive preamp/attenuator.

 

Initial impressions very quite favorable. I wasn't expecting a lot based on Fred's warning that quite a bit of breakin was required with the level 7, but after plugging the Big 7 directly to my Art Audio Jota monoblocks (20Wpc) driving my Avantgarde Uno hornspeakers, glorious music poured forth with no connectivity issues. Out of the box, the Big 7 sounded wonderful even without break in. The level of palpability and musicality was a level above any of my previous DACs and CD/SACD players! As I was playing a track from the 24/96 recording of Timbo Mehrstein Gipsy Jazz Ensemble's "Mare Tchavenge", the emotionality of the violins and guitar simply shone through like it never did before. My wife, who has heard the recording many times before, spontaneously shouted "Encore! Encore!" from the living room - a true testament! I'm feeling really good about it.

 

I then decided to try the DSD playback. There are two options, which no one had ever mentioned before, as inputs: "DSD CAP" and "DSD DIRE", which I assumed meant DSD capacitor coupled and DSD direct. Later on Fred informed me that the capacitor coupled went through the Duelands, but the Direct version is supposed to sound better 60% of the time.

Here I ran into my first problem. DSD CAP sounded great - organic, smooth, lovely DSD. The "DSD DIRE" input, however, gave this weird, diffused, unfocused sound that stumped me for a moment until I realized that I'd heard it before when I wired one side of my speakers out of phase! I confirmed it by swapping the phase on one speaker channel - everything snapped into focus, but then of course the PCM playback and DSD CAP were out of phase now. So it appeared that the DSD DIRE input was wired out of phase despite my request for a double check of the DSD and USB modules.

 

Later on in the day, a second more serious issue cropped up. I decided to pull the 45 tubes and clean the terminals with Caig Pro Gold, and in the process swapped the tube socket position. When I fired up the Big 7 again, within about 10-20 seconds a teakettle squeal started building up to a reasonably loud level - this was with the Big 7 on mute. Turned off the amps, turned them on again - same squeal started happening. I had noticed that the Big 7 is remarkably microphonic when connected directly, so I thought it might be a feedback issue, but damping the tubes with a napkin did not effect the loud squeal at all.

 

(continued below)

[seatrope]

Part 2:

 

This loud squealing started within 10-20 seconds of my turning on the amps each time, and appeared to come from the right channel only. Initially I could make it go away by swapping the position of the 45 tubes, but later the squeal started happening regardless of tube position. I'm not sure why it didn't happen initially when I first started playing music.

 

I contacted Fred my dealer and Lukasz. To their credit, both of them got back to me within hours on a weekend - that's responsiveness. Lukasz was of the opinion that his circuit design is intended to be used at maximal volume (0 dB attenuation) and have a preamp next in line; I was under the impression that the volume control would allow my DAC to run direct to my amplifiers and eliminate another component for more clarity.

 

Doing more reading online (caveat, I have no background in electrical engineering), it seemed that one of the possibilities for this loud teakettle sound is a circuit oscillation which can be seen in high gain preamps. The other possibility which I think more likely at the moment is some sort of feedback loop, given how microphonic the Big 7 is connected directly to the amps. I tried gently knocking each tube with a pencil eraser to see if one of the tubes was more microphonic than the others; both 45s were equally microphonic and the rectifiers were much less so. That mostly eliminated a single bad tube (unless both 45s are bad).

 

The other issue that was becoming obvious was the microphony/ringing. Gentle tapping on the chassis with the Big 7 on mute produced a ringing sound lasting 4-6 seconds; muting the music while playing produced a similar, shorter ringing tone.

 

Running with Lukasz's idea, I decided to go back to my previous configuration and add the Placette passive preamplifer back into the system. Now the configuration was Big 7 -> Placette passive pre -> Art Audio Jotas -> Avantgarde Unos.

Surprisingly, with this configuration, the squealing teakettle noise, the ringing and the relatively high level of hum disappeared! So adding a passive preamp into the mix seemed to solve the problem, although that is not what I had paid for adding the remote control module (which was more expensive for the Big 7 compared to the two box 7 due to shielding issues).

 

I decided to continue evaluating the Big 7 through the Placette passive pre. The Big 7 still sounded glorious, with a blacker background now that the hum and ringing was gone. But I couldn't help feeling that a little bit was missing compared to running the Big 7 directly into my amps - there was some diminishment of micro and macrodynamics, and some reduction in the degree of emotionality. Perhaps some of my perceived difference was due to the elimination or reduction of the microphony and ringing which may have been adding extraneous overtones to the music. Jury's still out on this I think, but my bet is that if we could solve the microphony/ringing/squealing issues, running direct has a ton of promise.

 

I proceeded to test the Big 7 with a couple of other setups to make sure it wasn't an issue specific to my current downstream setup. I swapped out my Art Audio Jota amps for a solid state Bel Canto integrated S300iu amp (Big 7 -> Bel Canto S300iu -> Avantgarde Unos). Same issue - the feedback squeal or whatever you want to call it started at a amp volume of ~83, reproducible each time, with the Big 7 on mute. Remember, I'm trying to replicate the scenario where the Big 7 runs directly into power amps with a fixed volume, so the Bel Canto should be at 100% volume, with volume controlled from the Big 7 VC.

Ok, perhaps the Avantgarde horns are just too sensitive. So I swapped in a pair of Audioengine A5 powered speakers. Now the setup is (Big 7 -> Audioengine A5 speakers) with nothing else in between. The A5's are not particularly sensitive speakers by any stretch. Disappointingly, the loud squeal recurred with this setup as I turned the A5's volume control up with the Big 7 on mute.

 

So to summarize, I am not sure if there is an issue with the volume control module - unsure if there is some defect in my unit as others with the VC module have been happy with their setups. All of the problems (squealing, ringing, hum) are gone if I run the Big 7 through my Placette passive preamp first, at the (possible) cost of some dynamics and emotionality of the music; obviously this defeats the purpose of the Big 7's built in volume control.

 

I'd like to reiterate though despite these issues, I am simply blown away by what Lukasz has designed and executed. I have been listening to DSD since the first SACD player was released by Sony; I bought one of the first Sony SCD-777ES players and had it modded with Modwright's Ultimate Truth mod (which incidentally also ran direct into my current system without a preamp), and have had many other DSD DACs since then, including the Meitner and Mytek units. This blows them all away by a very significant margin. My system has always had a slightly hard edge to it, slightly fatiguing on some recordings where you had to quit listening after a while. All that is a thing of the past; what's left with the Big 7 is natural, organic, palpable musicality with no apparent HF compromise or tube colorations at all. Classical, opera, jazz, blues, folk, house, drum and bass - all get your feet tapping and heart racing, with the Big 7.

 

Now to see what can be done with the direct to amp issues!

 

Sorry for the long post - hope this is useful!

[fridays]

Keep us updated on the issue, Fred and Lukaz will make it right I'm sure

[jtwrace]

Hi all,

 

Received my Big 7 after many months of anxious waiting, on Friday. Shipping via DHL was impeccable - the DAC arrived literally by noon the next day, with tracking every step of the way. Packing was good, slight scuffing to the volume control knob which isn't a big issue since I'll be replacing that anyway. The 45 tubes and rectifiers came in their own box. There was no manual though, and none available for download.

 

I had ordered my Big 7 with the optional volume control that would allow the DAC to be connected directly to my amps. I am of the philosophy that less is more; my prior DAC was fed through a Placette passive preamp/attenuator.

 

Initial impressions very quite favorable. I wasn't expecting a lot based on Fred's warning that quite a bit of breakin was required with the level 7, but after plugging the Big 7 directly to my Art Audio Jota monoblocks (20Wpc) driving my Avantgarde Uno hornspeakers, glorious music poured forth with no connectivity issues. Out of the box, the Big 7 sounded wonderful even without break in. The level of palpability and musicality was a level above any of my previous DACs and CD/SACD players! As I was playing a track from the 24/96 recording of Timbo Mehrstein Gipsy Jazz Ensemble's "Mare Tchavenge", the emotionality of the violins and guitar simply shone through like it never did before. My wife, who has heard the recording many times before, spontaneously shouted "Encore! Encore!" from the living room - a true testament! I'm feeling really good about it.

 

I then decided to try the DSD playback. There are two options, which no one had ever mentioned before, as inputs: "DSD CAP" and "DSD DIRE", which I assumed meant DSD capacitor coupled and DSD direct. Later on Fred informed me that the capacitor coupled went through the Duelands, but the Direct version is supposed to sound better 60% of the time.

Here I ran into my first problem. DSD CAP sounded great - organic, smooth, lovely DSD. The "DSD DIRE" input, however, gave this weird, diffused, unfocused sound that stumped me for a moment until I realized that I'd heard it before when I wired one side of my speakers out of phase! I confirmed it by swapping the phase on one speaker channel - everything snapped into focus, but then of course the PCM playback and DSD CAP were out of phase now. So it appeared that the DSD DIRE input was wired out of phase despite my request for a double check of the DSD and USB modules.

 

Later on in the day, a second more serious issue cropped up. I decided to pull the 45 tubes and clean the terminals with Caig Pro Gold, and in the process swapped the tube socket position. When I fired up the Big 7 again, within about 10-20 seconds a teakettle squeal started building up to a reasonably loud level - this was with the Big 7 on mute. Turned off the amps, turned them on again - same squeal started happening. I had noticed that the Big 7 is remarkably microphonic when connected directly, so I thought it might be a feedback issue, but damping the tubes with a napkin did not effect the loud squeal at all.

 

(continued below)

 

Part 2:

 

This loud squealing started within 10-20 seconds of my turning on the amps each time, and appeared to come from the right channel only. Initially I could make it go away by swapping the position of the 45 tubes, but later the squeal started happening regardless of tube position. I'm not sure why it didn't happen initially when I first started playing music.

 

I contacted Fred my dealer and Lukasz. To their credit, both of them got back to me within hours on a weekend - that's responsiveness. Lukasz was of the opinion that his circuit design is intended to be used at maximal volume (0 dB attenuation) and have a preamp next in line; I was under the impression that the volume control would allow my DAC to run direct to my amplifiers and eliminate another component for more clarity.

 

Doing more reading online (caveat, I have no background in electrical engineering), it seemed that one of the possibilities for this loud teakettle sound is a circuit oscillation which can be seen in high gain preamps. The other possibility which I think more likely at the moment is some sort of feedback loop, given how microphonic the Big 7 is connected directly to the amps. I tried gently knocking each tube with a pencil eraser to see if one of the tubes was more microphonic than the others; both 45s were equally microphonic and the rectifiers were much less so. That mostly eliminated a single bad tube (unless both 45s are bad).

 

The other issue that was becoming obvious was the microphony/ringing. Gentle tapping on the chassis with the Big 7 on mute produced a ringing sound lasting 4-6 seconds; muting the music while playing produced a similar, shorter ringing tone.

 

Running with Lukasz's idea, I decided to go back to my previous configuration and add the Placette passive preamplifer back into the system. Now the configuration was Big 7 -> Placette passive pre -> Art Audio Jotas -> Avantgarde Unos.

Surprisingly, with this configuration, the squealing teakettle noise, the ringing and the relatively high level of hum disappeared! So adding a passive preamp into the mix seemed to solve the problem, although that is not what I had paid for adding the remote control module (which was more expensive for the Big 7 compared to the two box 7 due to shielding issues).

 

I decided to continue evaluating the Big 7 through the Placette passive pre. The Big 7 still sounded glorious, with a blacker background now that the hum and ringing was gone. But I couldn't help feeling that a little bit was missing compared to running the Big 7 directly into my amps - there was some diminishment of micro and macrodynamics, and some reduction in the degree of emotionality. Perhaps some of my perceived difference was due to the elimination or reduction of the microphony and ringing which may have been adding extraneous overtones to the music. Jury's still out on this I think, but my bet is that if we could solve the microphony/ringing/squealing issues, running direct has a ton of promise.

 

I proceeded to test the Big 7 with a couple of other setups to make sure it wasn't an issue specific to my current downstream setup. I swapped out my Art Audio Jota amps for a solid state Bel Canto integrated S300iu amp (Big 7 -> Bel Canto S300iu -> Avantgarde Unos). Same issue - the feedback squeal or whatever you want to call it started at a amp volume of ~83, reproducible each time, with the Big 7 on mute. Remember, I'm trying to replicate the scenario where the Big 7 runs directly into power amps with a fixed volume, so the Bel Canto should be at 100% volume, with volume controlled from the Big 7 VC.

Ok, perhaps the Avantgarde horns are just too sensitive. So I swapped in a pair of Audioengine A5 powered speakers. Now the setup is (Big 7 -> Audioengine A5 speakers) with nothing else in between. The A5's are not particularly sensitive speakers by any stretch. Disappointingly, the loud squeal recurred with this setup as I turned the A5's volume control up with the Big 7 on mute.

 

So to summarize, I am not sure if there is an issue with the volume control module - unsure if there is some defect in my unit as others with the VC module have been happy with their setups. All of the problems (squealing, ringing, hum) are gone if I run the Big 7 through my Placette passive preamp first, at the (possible) cost of some dynamics and emotionality of the music; obviously this defeats the purpose of the Big 7's built in volume control.

 

I'd like to reiterate though despite these issues, I am simply blown away by what Lukasz has designed and executed. I have been listening to DSD since the first SACD player was released by Sony; I bought one of the first Sony SCD-777ES players and had it modded with Modwright's Ultimate Truth mod (which incidentally also ran direct into my current system without a preamp), and have had many other DSD DACs since then, including the Meitner and Mytek units. This blows them all away by a very significant margin. My system has always had a slightly hard edge to it, slightly fatiguing on some recordings where you had to quit listening after a while. All that is a thing of the past; what's left with the Big 7 is natural, organic, palpable musicality with no apparent HF compromise or tube colorations at all. Classical, opera, jazz, blues, folk, house, drum and bass - all get your feet tapping and heart racing, with the Big 7.

 

Now to see what can be done with the direct to amp issues!

 

Sorry for the long post - hope this is useful!

 

Looks like they can run direct. Welcome to the LampizatOr Circle!

[matthias]

One more question, is the USB module powered by the PC or can I use a USB cable without the 5V? Thanks

 

Norman, I think this is a serious question and worth to be answered.

 

Matt

[shahed99]

USB is galvanically isolated with independent power supply. So, you should be able to use data only usb cable (with no power). I heard this from Lukasz last year when I had the same question about my Lamp L4G4.

[matthias]

USB is galvanically isolated with independent power supply. So, you should be able to use data only usb cable (with no power). I heard this from Lukasz last year when I had the same question about my Lamp L4G4.

 

Thanks, hopefully the same with Lampi DSD.

 

Matt

[wisnon]

Thanks, hopefully the same with Lampi DSD.

 

Matt

 

Yes, same USB Amanero....sorry busy day at work.

[wisnon]

Norman, I think this is a serious question and worth to be answered.

 

Matt

 

Did you get my PM?

[jtwrace]

Looks like they can run direct. Welcome to the LampizatOr Circle!

 

See here

 

I was also impressed with the sound in our room, bearing in mind that for me the amps and speakers were unknown before the show and the room was small and untreated. On day 1 we uses an unnecessary preamp, but rest of the show we used the DAC as a preamp and going straight to the power block. For the record - we used Jupiter Copper caps at the output and Emission labs "45" DHT tubes. Most of the time we used DSD as a source.

[matthias]

Did you get my PM?

 

Thank you.

 

KR

Matt

[Guf Gufler]

Thanks Seatrope for the update. I too have a Big 7 without volume control. Although my L4 does have it. I have been running mine for a month and have been loving it. I have not heard of the different DSD input options options? I wonder if mine has that. With my L4 with volume, I thought the same thing about the purity of removing a component and directly going to the amps. After time I decided to use a Pre and liked the results better. Yeah I spent the extra 400$ for remote volume control that is going unused. But it was worth it for me to figure that out with my own system. I liked what I read about this saying "without a pre the sound was so transparent that just magically appeared out of thin air and with a pre the sound had weight and form on stage." To me both are great options.

[wisnon]

Can you elaborate on the SQ of the Big7? Specifically the differences from the L4?

[ALRAINBOW]

My level 7 should ship today. Inrec an email from Lukas over nite. Nice good morning for me . So the waiting is almost over then the real tension begins in the listening and comparisons. Let's see what this brings.

Al

[worldcat]

Has anyone compared Totaldac with the Big 7 Lampi? Or has heard both and can give some evaluations.