Pilium Audio in action-

After patiently waiting for a couple of months, finally the dcs vivaldi upsampler plus has landed into my system today.

It’s great to see how this amazing unit is doing to streaming as everything is edging closer to the quality of cd playback ever.

I’m listening nonstop to Qobuz since I have had it here at midday, truly pleased to see music is so beautiful even via the internet :).

I know quite a number of members here bought their vivaldi boxes one by one to enjoy during their journey and appreciate the upgrades that come along. I’m doing exactly the same and hopefully in the next few months when the master clock arrives, my system will go up another notch.

Cables madness is about to happen with the full stack, I can’t dare to imagine that. Enjoy the weekend everyone!

IMG_9006.jpeg
 
I haven't heard the Pilium or another solid state monoblock contender. The 2023 Vitus Audio Signature Series SM-103 Mk.II Mono Amplifier at $75,000. For $33,900, a pair of Westminster Labs REI are very significantly smaller, lighter, Class A and equal power in 8 an 4 ohms. They go down to 1 ohm doubling output power. Head to head competition with Vitus. My REIs are the best solid state amps I've heard and like (a tube amp guy for 46 years). The 2020 Vitus I heard didn't have much headroom. Maybe this newer one is much better than the older Vitus but still more than twice the price, larger and hotter than a pair of REIs.

The $45,000 Pilium Leonidas has double the rated power of either but weighs 220 lbs and is an integrated! The Achilles weighs 265 lbs. and the Iasonas weighs 198 lbs with triple and 2.5X, respectively of the smaller amps at similar price to the Leonidas. That is an immense amount of quality power for the price and they weigh a (not literal) ton.
 
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I haven't heard the Pilium or another solid state monoblock contender. The 2023 Vitus Audio Signature Series SM-103 Mk.II Mono Amplifier at $75,000. For $33,900, a pair of Westminster Labs REI are very significantly smaller, lighter, Class A and equal power in 8 an 4 ohms. They go down to 1 ohm doubling output power. Head to head competition with Vitus. My REIs are the best solid state amps I've heard and like (a tube amp guy for 46 years). The 2020 Vitus I heard didn't have much headroom. Maybe this newer one is much better than the older Vitus but still more than twice the price, larger and hotter than a pair of REIs. The $45,000 Pilium Leonidas has double the rated power of either but weighs 220 lbs and is an integrated!
Hear it then.
 
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After patiently waiting for a couple of months, finally the dcs vivaldi upsampler plus has landed into my system today.

It’s great to see how this amazing unit is doing to streaming as everything is edging closer to the quality of cd playback ever.

I’m listening nonstop to Qobuz since I have had it here at midday, truly pleased to see music is so beautiful even via the internet :).

I know quite a number of members here bought their vivaldi boxes one by one to enjoy during their journey and appreciate the upgrades that come along. I’m doing exactly the same and hopefully in the next few months when the master clock arrives, my system will go up another notch.

Cables madness is about to happen with the full stack, I can’t dare to imagine that. Enjoy the weekend everyone!

View attachment 132021
They are gorgeous. Please keep us updated.
 
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After patiently waiting for a couple of months, finally the dcs vivaldi upsampler plus has landed into my system today.

It’s great to see how this amazing unit is doing to streaming as everything is edging closer to the quality of cd playback ever.

I’m listening nonstop to Qobuz since I have had it here at midday, truly pleased to see music is so beautiful even via the internet :).

I know quite a number of members here bought their vivaldi boxes one by one to enjoy during their journey and appreciate the upgrades that come along. I’m doing exactly the same and hopefully in the next few months when the master clock arrives, my system will go up another notch.

Cables madness is about to happen with the full stack, I can’t dare to imagine that. Enjoy the weekend everyone!

View attachment 132021
gorgeous!
 
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I haven't heard the Pilium or another solid state monoblock contender. The 2023 Vitus Audio Signature Series SM-103 Mk.II Mono Amplifier at $75,000. For $33,900, a pair of Westminster Labs REI are very significantly smaller, lighter, Class A and equal power in 8 an 4 ohms. They go down to 1 ohm doubling output power. Head to head competition with Vitus. My REIs are the best solid state amps I've heard and like (a tube amp guy for 46 years). The 2020 Vitus I heard didn't have much headroom. Maybe this newer one is much better than the older Vitus but still more than twice the price, larger and hotter than a pair of REIs.

The $45,000 Pilium Leonidas has double the rated power of either but weighs 220 lbs and is an integrated! The Achilles weighs 265 lbs. and the Iasonas weighs 198 lbs with triple and 2.5X, respectively of the smaller amps at similar price to the Leonidas. That is an immense amount of quality power for the price and they weigh a (not literal) ton.

Hi
did not hear the Westminster Labs REI mentioned (I did hear the VITUS you mentioned)

However, in Regarding the Leonidas,
Did had the Leonidas for a DEMO about 3 years ago,
I Demo it next to KARAN Acoustics reference (kas600+kal3mk2) set which I owned, It was also loaned to me for testing an Absolar Reference integrated and a pre-power set from Accuphase which I also owned,

The Leonidas was paired, in my Listening space to the speakers I had at the time (Wilson Audio MAXX 2s)
The DAC was a PILIUM that was loaned to me for testing (which was Extremely great),

The MUSIC through the Leonidas presented and managed to reveal the instruments more clearly, I felt more overall weight, a more pointed atmosphere, cleanliness and Quiet that was more distinct,
After 4 hours of DEMOs, I asked the distributor who was with me during the demos, to leave the Leonidas with me and we'll "work it out" on what's next!
Since the Leonidas had to go to an external review done by an acquaintance of mine for a local magazine, The Leonidas could not stay,
In any case, it was decided that I would order NEW, I changed my order to the ARES+ISONAS pre-power set,
two weeks later, I was asked to try the Achilles Power at my place and then I realized, Well I changed my order again and went for a set that also included the Alexander pre-amp :).

Hope I was able to help in some way.
 
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Since I received my upsampler and have been overwhelmed with streaming, I came back to my CD collection yesterday as new ones are still coming in frequently.

As I have not sorted the cables out just yet so I have to use a stock digital cable coming with the dcs boxes, but the results are just incredible with clarity and transparency. I’m not sure with the right one, how much things can be better.

Last night I had to force myself to turn the system off at 11.30pm as I have to get up early every morning. Sitting in the dark and listening to some beautiful tunes from Nils Landgren is fantastic.

The Pilium Olympus pre has some tiny red light bulbs in the main control unit. So they’re projecting to the ceiling and it looks great. I tried to capture them but somehow my iPhone has overdone it haha.

Clearly the red lights are not that strong and powerful, they’re very nice to look at and doing their magic in the dark in contrast of all other white lights emitting from those electronics boxes.

IMG_9009.jpeg
 
Since I received my upsampler and have been overwhelmed with streaming, I came back to my CD collection yesterday as new ones are still coming in frequently.

As I have not sorted the cables out just yet so I have to use a stock digital cable coming with the dcs boxes, but the results are just incredible with clarity and transparency. I’m not sure with the right one, how much things can be better.

Last night I had to force myself to turn the system off at 11.30pm as I have to get up early every morning. Sitting in the dark and listening to some beautiful tunes from Nils Landgren is fantastic.

The Pilium Olympus pre has some tiny red light bulbs in the main control unit. So they’re projecting to the ceiling and it looks great. I tried to capture them but somehow my iPhone has overdone it haha.

Clearly the red lights are not that strong and powerful, they’re very nice to look at and doing their magic in the dark in contrast of all other white lights emitting from those electronics boxes.

View attachment 132287
That’s quite the light show!
 
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This is what I call cables madness.

IMG_9036.jpegIMG_9037.jpeg

Thanks to the kindness of my Korean audiophile friend, who sent over so many of his cables from Hermingway, today I’ve had an opportunity to try some of the best in the market.

Actually he couldn’t send the top of the line analog and speaker cables as they’re only made to order and so expensive, thus he could only send me:

- the second line analog xlr interconnect cables 2 pairs,
- 3 xlr digital cables,
- 2 pairs of third line analog interconnect cables and
- 2 pairs of third line speakers cables (including jumpers) plus
- 1 pair of entry speaker cables
- 1 ethernet cable

With that amount of cables available, you can imagine the choices for connecting my boxes are fantastic.

As far as I understand, the second top analog interconnect cables are brand new, so it’ll take sometime for them to settle in unlike the others which are already used before reaching my room.

I’m not sure how things change in the next few weeks but my initial impression, same to my audiophile friend who came over today for the cables shootout, that the Hemingway cables sound quite different to the combo of Crystal Cables and White Gold xlr analog and digital cables that I have here.

We didn’t change 1 cable then compare to another but we changed all the interconnect cables at once in the first place.

Unlike my crystal/white gold combo, the hemingway interconnect cables sound darker and slower in bass. My friend was in shock himself when hearing the bass just kept lingering after the drum hits. It gives you a sense of somehow the bottom ends have been loosened up a bit. In addition, the highs are also rounder while the soundstage becomes more focused, condensed and moved a bit further away.

The crystal/white gold cables just let music go without any limits while extremely punchy and fast with the bass. The downside is you can have excessive dynamics with them.

Both camps sound utterly natural and beautiful so I truly expect more in the coming days with those newly made Hemingway cables.

When changing the speaker cables from the triwires White Gold Estasi to 2 pairs of third line Hemingway plus the jumpers, it’s really interesting to see how the differences are.

With the white gold, we can only use single amp mode as they have only 2 spades go to amp and 6 spades to the speakers.

With the hemingway, the first time ever I’ve had a chance to try bi-amps with my mighty Pilium atlas monoblocks, and the results are simply amazing. Even with the third line and the jumpers, the sound is even more organic and controlled at any volume level.

As I reported before, my maat speakers don’t like jumpers. Even only with a pair between mid-high, the sound becomes more condensed and soundstage has been narrowed.

But when we removed the jumpers and put the entry level cables in the chain, the sound immediately turned back to its spacious with velvet mid and high although we lack a bit of sweetness and sparkling due to the lower level of material in the entry line.

I think I now know what best to me in terms of speaker cables. I need something has 4 spades into my Pilium amps and 6 spades into my speakers to make them sound at their absolute best. So it’s like a single wire pair plus a biwires pair .

Using 3 pairs of single wire speaker cables is a no no for me due to the costs associated with them and connection wise is not ideal and annoying from the amps side.

I’m hopeful that my Korean friend will be able to loan me his top line cables full looms next time when he could get them from Hemingway. I will keep you updated of how the cables here sound when they settled down in the next few weeks.

Enjoy the football and weather everyone :)
 
After 3 weeks of having the Hemingway cables here although I can’t listen to the music everyday due to my work and family commitments, not to mention great football matches :); I have to say these cables are pretty special. It’s really hard to take them out when they’re already in the system.

Synergy and component matching are keys in building any system, so cables come in last in the chain but this doesn’t mean their role is not important as many of us here using cables to tone tweaking or control.

Having my crystal cables for more than 10 years, I keep talking about their musical and neutral characters compared to others such as nordost, nbs, mit etc. But it seems the hemingway is a tad better in those regards.

I know it’s not fair to compare the dream cables that I have with the sigma cables from hemingway, davinci or ultimate dream should be more relevant and appropriate. But my audiophile friend also sent his creation s series cables to me which are in the same league with my crystal dream, so my observation and conclusion are also based on that.

As mentioned many times before in this thread, the Pilium amps have no limits with their control and power regardless of what we throw in. While the dcs vivaldi digital stack is incredible in its own right to draw every details and nuances out of the recordings before letting the pilium amps and sigma acoustic speakers handle the rest.

Hence with the “more gentle presentation” of hemingway cables, despite bass is a bit slower and less slam compared to my crystal cables, they bring a darker and more relaxing sound to the table while the naturalness and musicality are a notch better.

The more I listen to these Hemingway cables the more I like them and have become more tolerant with the bass and hammer slam that I have with my other cables.

On another note, please can someone let me know whether you’ve experienced/heard any differences when streaming music directly from qobuz app vs streaming music from qobuz via an intermediary app like dcs mosaics or roon etc.

Have a great weekend everyone and I am sure many of us are looking forward to the final football match tomorrow. Beers and pizzas are ready ^^
 
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Some great quality in there....especially the Tingval Trio :cool:
 
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It seems dCS has just released the new flagship 6 boxes digital system and will reveal them on 9 August in HK.

Not sure what they’re called but I guess the price will be somewhere in the range of wadax and msb sentinel.

Choosing HK to debut the new products at this price point is wise as the Asian market is very active while wealthy customers there competing with each other to own then show the most expensive gears as possible.

I need to look for a new job soon if I want those boxes in the future :D
 
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Great, a break through in “smallpox”. Just what I’ve come to expect from dCS. ;-)

IMG_0228.jpeg
 
Yes...I spotted that autotranslate as well..the Google translate did not have that. In fact, Google just skipped the existence of that entire phrase ...so I cannot figure out where that came from!
 
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Hi
did not hear the Westminster Labs REI mentioned (I did hear the VITUS you mentioned)

However, in Regarding the Leonidas,
Did had the Leonidas for a DEMO about 3 years ago,
I Demo it next to KARAN Acoustics reference (kas600+kal3mk2) set which I owned, It was also loaned to me for testing an Absolar Reference integrated and a pre-power set from Accuphase which I also owned,

The Leonidas was paired, in my Listening space to the speakers I had at the time (Wilson Audio MAXX 2s)
The DAC was a PILIUM that was loaned to me for testing (which was Extremely great),

The MUSIC through the Leonidas presented and managed to reveal the instruments more clearly, I felt more overall weight, a more pointed atmosphere, cleanliness and Quiet that was more distinct,
After 4 hours of DEMOs, I asked the distributor who was with me during the demos, to leave the Leonidas with me and we'll "work it out" on what's next!
Since the Leonidas had to go to an external review done by an acquaintance of mine for a local magazine, The Leonidas could not stay,
In any case, it was decided that I would order NEW, I changed my order to the ARES+ISONAS pre-power set,
two weeks later, I was asked to try the Achilles Power at my place and then I realized, Well I changed my order again and went for a set that also included the Alexander pre-amp :).

Hope I was able to help in some way.
Not sure you've reviewed your Pilium gear here for the rest of us, but if you haven't - I'd love to hear your thoughts now that you have the Alexander/Achilles combo on deck...
 
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hi
I have been with this Combo set for almost 3 years and im very satisfied, in fact on the this Combo, I Rebuilt the entirely
current SETUP including the selection of the cables, the selection of the rack, the electricity and at the end of the day, the selection of the speakers, so I can say that this Combo serves me above what is expected of it.
 

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