So, when Xymox told me there was going to be another upgrade, that might even be bigger than the first iteration , in terms of PQ and SQ, I didn't call him a bald-faced liar to his face, but the thought crossed my mind. Indeed, the original appletvx had so far surpassed my expectations, that I thought it possible he had a little credence, and I owed him the chance to put the proof to the pudding. My thinking was that other pieces in the audio puzzle that made up my audio amalgamation were probably getting maxed out, and there had to be an acme that I was probably closing in on. I have what I consider to be a pretty high-end system, but have already gone into that, suffice it to say that I was extremely happy with the initial upgrade and how it had transformed my system. It was stunning. With the 2nd iteration, the first thing noticeable was the SQ, indeed, bass was much tighter, and more detail immediately apparent. there is a break-in period, about two hours for me, where the SQ got significantly smoother, and yet oddly, PQ out of the box made me think something was wrong, a lot of pixelation and grain the most obvious. So much so that I started tinkering with parameters on my Sony 77" master TV. 2h later I returned all parameters back to where they had been and it was sublime, literally blowing away my conceptions of what was possible. I had upgraded my PC from Shunyata ZtronAnaconda to shunyata Sigma Digital prior to 2nd iteration so know it did not have anything to do with the enhanced PQ or SQ I was witnessing, but its presence was very noticeable on the first appletvx. To say this 2nd iteration equals the upgrade of the first. -Maybe. To say it is another enormous, and unbelievable upgrade, is without doubt. Old movies, I just rewatched "the quick and the dead" looked as if it had a 4k transfer. Stunning. 4k content is better than I've ever seen -anywhere. The description I have given Xymox is that, in my view, the SQ is more analogy sounding when compared to the cd portion of my Esoteric cd/dac which is fed via glass toslink from tv, and HDMI(nothing special) from the appletvx. the CD portion is more pristine, precise; with the appletvx excelling in smoothness, bass power, depth. they both have commanding presences, but having struggled for a long time to get the Bass right, -powerful and still tight, this has been transcendental. "Precise" and "pristine" sound like great adjectives to use when describing SQ, but the smooth analogy sound coming from the Appletvx is, in other ways equally impressive, and depending on the music being played , preferred. Kudos, Xymox, Incredible!!
