Hi Astro finally arrived, congratulations.
I hope your comments and photos with much interest.
Unfortunately Stavros is not thinking of adding a DLNA Render, I would love that.
Hi Astro.
A few months ago I sent mail to Stavros, he says that at the moment the Render is not planned.
Well I'm not in a hurry, until next year I can not think about changing, so I'm going little by little.
Anyway, I recognize that even without having heard it, the philosophy of Stavros appeals to me.
Maybe later I can go to Almería, and if you are so kind, I could hear your Kassandra.
Regards
You are also welcome, Francisco, to come to Switzerland to hear the Kassandra and other AC gear.
Paired with AN M10S , I have never heard a better DAC . As close to analogue sound in my limited experience . Used to have W20& MSB Select DAC for my digital playback
Stavros please ignore Astro for the price increase.
Well maybe I did not know how to express correctly, the irony in my message.
I understand that what you wanted to say is that there are DACs in the market more expensive that do not have the quality of Kassandra.
Having said that, I reiterate: Stavros nothing to raise the price
I almost completely forgot about this and for some reason today it popped into my head and I had to share. From going as far as to calling me a schill to joining the Aries Cerat family. Love it <3
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I second that!Stavros please ignore Astro for the price increase.
You know, I have been thinking. I have for a long time in this hobby been chasing technology and the detail detail. And of course I came to experience many dead ends and disappointments in digital. Then I found NOS DACs with Audio Note. I was basically fairy poor at that time, so I bought the kit DACs instead. I had lots of fun modding them, and ended up with a fully tweaked up ANK DAC 4.1 with many parts from AN UK inc the digital board from a DAC 4/5, 496 I/Vs, Duelund Caps on the gain stage, all NOS tubes, Duelund and Audio Note Kassai caps on the power supply, various other tricked up bits. And it sounded great, in it's own 'envelope'. I then bought the AN UK DAC 5, which was also very good. Bit slower at first, so I ripped out the AN Copper caps and fitted Duelunds again, and that woke it up some, and it sounded very good. But it was still missing something, energy and dynamics mainly. it was a bit thick and slow, as though it has a brake on everything, hard to describe. During this period I tried the CH precision, Chord DAVE, a used Naim CD555, MSB Platinum and some others. They all did something well detail mainly, but fell flat in other areas.
The Kassandra was a leap of faith for me on my limited income. It seemed from a design perspective to go further than many other NOS designs, and of course, had the AD1865 chip (but 16 of them). No upsampling, no filter, a class A gain stage, 2 x super tubes, which by the way is on average 35 USD each and have a great tube life of expected 10,000 hours. It also barely gets warm to anyone worried about heat.
I can confirm this DAC does have outstanding detail and dynamics, but there is no price for it, i.e. digital has become analogue, which in itself is a ridiculous statement, like we are going backwards. But that is the best way I can describe the Kassandra. It has an uncanny ability to play micro details and subtleties, yet kicks hard when the music (recording) demands. It is I think, an open gate, not held back, as though we have a lot of pressure (power) in the Power Supply driving the music, and it if asks for it, it gives it 100%.
Stavros please ignore Astro for the price increase.
Kindly noted astro did not convince me for the price increase anyway
Best
Stavros
Ha Ha, you got me. Actually almost exactly a year ago. I was hoping you had forgot about it. I was not used to dealers input on a forum. On head-fi.org it used to be frowned upon, maybe less so recently. On head-case.org you get your head blown off. Thankfully on here we are more polite to each other..... TBH dealer input can be useful as they are at the coal face. And recently speaking to some of the AC dealers directly they seem like any audio obsessive, just do it for a living as well. Plus I am a believer now. But this all highlights how important good advice is, and the fact some of us can't get to hear stuff. That is why this forum is important IMO.
Ha Ha, you got me. Actually almost exactly a year ago. I was hoping you had forgot about it. I was not used to dealers input on a forum. On head-fi.org it used to be frowned upon, maybe less so recently. On head-case.org you get your head blown off. Thankfully on here we are more polite to each other..... TBH dealer input can be useful as they are at the coal face. And recently speaking to some of the AC dealers directly they seem like any audio obsessive, just do it for a living as well. Plus I am a believer now. But this all highlights how important good advice is, and the fact some of us can't get to hear stuff. That is why this forum is important IMO.
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