I like it big . Probably 1 of the biggest if not heaviest Dac in town. Having seen what is inside the main unit & psu , its definitely a very well built DAC with the king size capacitors & transformers
Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Co-Owner, Administrator
Well Steve that is the elephant in the room. Of all the challenges in the sales cycle for this gear that is the most common and difficult to solve for.
I have had a blast putting the DAC up against other DAC's and analog, but in the end it won't fit on 80% of the racks and in most cases it necessitates a new custom version of whatever rack is in use.
But never say never! I would like to do a demo or two at the LA Audio Society in the future. But given you are an analog guy anyway I should be getting a Talos phonostage soon to try out and that fits on the standard rack ( in two chassis). Maybe we can plug that into your system for shits and giggles
14k euro for single ended. 18k for Bal and i think VAT is jn that...but not sure. I am in CH...so outside the EU and we use CHF here.
From memory Stavros uses some big iron in his output section...so it in the vien of the Lampi design...overspecced power section too. See earlier posts in this thread.
Digital section differ and he uses small signal tubes not DHTs.
Euro prices are on the website lampizator.eu
I think you need to use the configurator to specc out a test order to get the exact euro price. I guess dealer prices may vary a bit.
Pricing in Euro is as follows (give or take 1k) not including VAT
7500 for the Prestige Series
18k for Reference Series
55K for the Siganture Series
81k for the Limited Edition Series
US Direct Pricing is as follows
12k for the Prestige
35K for the Reference Series
82k for the Signature Series
120k for the Limited Edition Series
12k for the Prestige
35K for the Reference Series
82k for the Signature Series
120k for the Limited Edition Series
Steve the in between Kassandra Sig , two box is standard size not as big as the Ref or Sig LE . May be your ticket
Which one? LoL
Careful what you wish for. Those DHT Dacs are some bad mommas.
http://av2day.com/2016/06/digital-music-that-sounds-very-much-like-analogue/
I absolutely agreed . More so when it's paired with Audio note M10 signature .
I absolutely agreed . More so when it's paired with Audio note M10 signature .
Just read the av2day link you povided amd particularly noted the below two statement by Stavros.
"He says there is nothing wrong with the ADC part of digital music. “It’s there, you can hear it. The ADC captured all the music, but the DAC part had the issues,”...
I agree with this first statement. My own custom DAC experiments indicate the same.
"What was the main thing wrong about the DAC part?” “It was the delta-sigma chips,” he said. The industry switched to delta-sigma chips because they were cheaper to make, but it created problems and they then tried to solve those problems."
Disagree with the second statement. The earliest CD audio DAC chips were multibit resistor types, not sigma delta. Yet, the subjective problems of digital playback were obvious from the very start even with multibit resistor type D/A chips. Sigma delta didn't take over the industry until years later.
"He says there is nothing wrong with the ADC part of digital music. “It’s there, you can hear it. The ADC captured all the music, but the DAC part had the issues,”...
I agree with this first statement. My own custom DAC experiments indicate the same.
"What was the main thing wrong about the DAC part?” “It was the delta-sigma chips,” he said. The industry switched to delta-sigma chips because they were cheaper to make, but it created problems and they then tried to solve those problems."
Disagree with the second statement. The earliest CD audio DAC chips were multibit resistor types, not sigma delta. Yet, the subjective problems of digital playback were obvious from the very start even with multibit resistor type D/A chips. Sigma delta didn't take over the industry until years later.
Interesting that this all-out-assault on digital is from a designer who uses AN1865 chips (which Audio Note's DAC 5th Element also uses), and who also according to the article "opines that there is nothing wrong with the Red Book specs and 16-bit 44.1kHz can capture everything in music even though the Kassandra 2 DAC can handle PCM files up to 384kHz."
i also enjoyed reading that "The AD1865 is a Non-Oversampling chip which many have compared favourably with the legendary Philips TDA 1541 chip."...seeing as how i am listening to a TDA1541 double crown right now!
i also enjoyed reading that "The AD1865 is a Non-Oversampling chip which many have compared favourably with the legendary Philips TDA 1541 chip."...seeing as how i am listening to a TDA1541 double crown right now!
Interesting that this all-out-assault on digital is from a designer who uses AN1865 chips (which Audio Note's DAC 5th Element also uses), and who also according to the article "opines that there is nothing wrong with the Red Book specs and 16-bit 44.1kHz can capture everything in music even though the Kassandra 2 DAC can handle PCM files up to 384kHz."
i also enjoyed reading that "The AD1865 is a Non-Oversampling chip which many have compared favourably with the legendary Philips TDA 1541 chip."...seeing as how i am listening to a TDA1541 double crown right now!
I had a tube Dac with the AD1865 in the past. It was very good, but of course could not hold a candle to my R2R Golden Gate I presently own. Implementation does matter, but I find the over-focus on the digital part strange when its clear the Kassandra and Lampi have HUGELY overspecced analog output stages (and power supplies), in short - BIG IRON. That is where most of the magic may indeed resides...
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Good to know, and i could believe it and would love to hear this particular DAC. With my own experiences, i feel that, for its time, Zanden digital showed great attention to many details which people still focus on today in digital (shielding everywhere), focus on power supplies, separate power supply boxes (2), and actually internally 6 different power supplies for different functions (6 in the case of the Zanden between its DAC and Transport), good (constrained layer?) acrylic isolation for the transport, etc.
I have found through experimenting that continuing to focus on isolation (HRS/Stillpoints on top and bottom), plus shielding all the umbilical cables (Entreq wraps) has continued to show improvements. And changing out all the power tubes to Mullards from Brent Jessee and the signal to an Amperex 7308...the change in the power tubes was frankly one of the biggest and best surprises in the improvement. So coming back to your point...i could easily see something of such seemingly small draw benefiting from a great power supply.
Yes Lloyd, A pal with Gen 3 L4 in Boson also has a Zanden and described many of the features you set out for it. I think AudioCrack also had Zanden Transport and Dac too.
As good as the small signal tubes were, I find the DHTs shine at a significantly higher level.
Yes, Audiocrack also has a Zanden 4-box. I know time has moved on, but i have not found anything yet to tempt me away from it. I have auditioned a reasonable amount of the 'prior generation' of digital (up to Scarlatti). More recently, i have spent time with the 4-stack Vivaldi which impressed me a lot, and i still remember considering the Metronome Calista Ref. Would like to hear the Aries Kassandra Ref DACs at some point.
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