My new DAC: Linnenberg Satie

[matthias]

8 hours ago, Kimo said:

 

Still burning in, but I am a little stunned.

 

Precise placement with instrument spacing, both front to back and side to side.  Lock solid on imaging.  Neither forward, nor recessed with excellent depth. Low noise floor is obvious.  No hardness, no hash.  No gloss. Plenty of color, yet very clean with great detail.

 

I am pretty amazed at this point.  Sounds better than I can recall, but then again I previously heard a very early unit.

 

I had the Telemann for a short time in my set-up.

Please, can you compare Satie to Telemann?

Thanks

 

Matt

[Kimo]

8 hours ago, matthias said:

 

I had the Telemann for a short time in my set-up.

Please, can you compare Satie to Telemann?

Thanks

 

Matt

 

Telemann is clean, bold, a little sweet, and very extended.  Satie is a much more precise version of Telemann.  Spacing and detail are superb.  Bass is more textured and lines are easier to follow.  Top end is cleaner and just as sweet.  

 

For example, when listening to a studio pan of Santana's guitar, with Satie you can tell the precise moment the left channel hits zero. Lennon's vocal on "Come Together" is more obvious via the studio effect than I had ever heard it before.  On the Lindsey Buckingham "Gift of Screws" CD the compressed mess of the title track is rendered as different instruments clearly defined and jammed together via compression, as opposed to a compressed wall.

 

It also works well as a balanced passive preamp.  No edge or dynamic drop with my phono rig, though it is straight up fully balance input through output.  No RCA options in sight.  I think it would be crazy not to run the Satie directly into your amp.

[Kimo]

I have more hours on the Satie, and it seems to have settled in a little bit further.  The change was not necessarily profound.  Everything seems a bit more cohesive.  

 

I also have paid a little more attention to the line input and have to say it is probably the quietest preamp that I have heard in my system.  I imagine that a fair bit of the performance can be attributed to the analog stage.