Hi guys,
A review of the DA2i by Jason Victor Serinus of Stereophile (March 2025) is out! He said the following:
"The theme is so beautiful. Everything sounds so beautiful. The cello's lower tones are gorgeous and ultrasmooth. Resolution is so good that you can easily tell which of the short pieces - those accompanied solely by piano - were more closely miked than those with orchestra." That's what I scribbled down as I used the DA2i to decode cellist Edgar Moreau''s new recording, Rococo, with pianist David Kadouch and the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Michael Sanderling conducting (24/96 WAV download/Erato). As I reviewed that recording for the February issue, the sound was so complete and of a piece that I felt completely confident that my evaluation of the performance and the recording's sound quality was accurate. ... My eyes opened wide when I played Christian Tetzlaff, Tanja Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt''s marvelous recording of Schubert's Piano Trios No. 2 in B-flat major, D 898, from Schubert's - Piano Trios (24/96 WAV dowload, Ondine). As the music flowed through me, everything felt right, every timbre natural. I felt I was hearing the precise tonal balance and artistic interplay that the Tetzlaff-Vogt trio's longtime recording engineer Christoph Franke, wanted me to hear. ... Because the DA2i accurately reproduced the timbres of violin, cello, and piano, I was able to sink deep into the trio's collective soul. My sincere thanks to the musicians, Franke, Ondine and everyone at EMM Labs for the experience. ... Shortly before I began to write this review, I spent an evening at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival reviewing for Classical Voice North America, violinist James Ehnes and pianist Orion Weiss's performance of Beethoven' Violin Sonatas Nos 1-5. To prepare, I streamed the same five sonatas from two recordings: Antje Weithaas and Denes Varjon's extremely transparent Beethoven Violin Sonatas Nos 1, 5, 6 & 10 (24/48 FLAC) and Lorenzo Gatto and Julien Libeer's less transparent but musically excellent Beethoven Violin Sonatas (24/96 FLAC) My concert seat was smack in the middle of the acoustic sweet spot of Seattle's 536-seat Nordstrom Recital Hall; row N center. The live presentation was of course different from what I heard on my system -Ehnes's Stradivarius sounded larger, the piano less resonant in its low range - yet timbres remained consistent between the concert and the DA2i reproduction of two different studio performances. That to me, was validation aplenty that the DA2i's sound is remarkably true to life. ... I frequently switched between the DA2i and the three-piece Vivaldi Apex system - Vivaldi APEX DAC ($46,500), Vivaldi Upsampler Plus ($30,500), and the Vivaldi Master Clock ($22, 950), pitting a $35,000 all-in-one unit against a three-box system that costs nearly $100,000 and, in my setup, requires two more reference power cables, four reference clock-cables ... Comparing the strength and clarity of pounding percussion near the start of the first movement of Mahler Symphony No. 5, performed by Orchestre Symphonique du Montreal conducted by Rafael Payare (24/96 FLAC download, Pentatone), the DA2i's bass was at least as good, if not better than, the Vivaldi's. ... There are many windows on truth. The DA2i is among the clearest and least tinted windows I've listened through in my music room."
A review of the DA2i by Jason Victor Serinus of Stereophile (March 2025) is out! He said the following:
"The theme is so beautiful. Everything sounds so beautiful. The cello's lower tones are gorgeous and ultrasmooth. Resolution is so good that you can easily tell which of the short pieces - those accompanied solely by piano - were more closely miked than those with orchestra." That's what I scribbled down as I used the DA2i to decode cellist Edgar Moreau''s new recording, Rococo, with pianist David Kadouch and the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Michael Sanderling conducting (24/96 WAV download/Erato). As I reviewed that recording for the February issue, the sound was so complete and of a piece that I felt completely confident that my evaluation of the performance and the recording's sound quality was accurate. ... My eyes opened wide when I played Christian Tetzlaff, Tanja Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt''s marvelous recording of Schubert's Piano Trios No. 2 in B-flat major, D 898, from Schubert's - Piano Trios (24/96 WAV dowload, Ondine). As the music flowed through me, everything felt right, every timbre natural. I felt I was hearing the precise tonal balance and artistic interplay that the Tetzlaff-Vogt trio's longtime recording engineer Christoph Franke, wanted me to hear. ... Because the DA2i accurately reproduced the timbres of violin, cello, and piano, I was able to sink deep into the trio's collective soul. My sincere thanks to the musicians, Franke, Ondine and everyone at EMM Labs for the experience. ... Shortly before I began to write this review, I spent an evening at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival reviewing for Classical Voice North America, violinist James Ehnes and pianist Orion Weiss's performance of Beethoven' Violin Sonatas Nos 1-5. To prepare, I streamed the same five sonatas from two recordings: Antje Weithaas and Denes Varjon's extremely transparent Beethoven Violin Sonatas Nos 1, 5, 6 & 10 (24/48 FLAC) and Lorenzo Gatto and Julien Libeer's less transparent but musically excellent Beethoven Violin Sonatas (24/96 FLAC) My concert seat was smack in the middle of the acoustic sweet spot of Seattle's 536-seat Nordstrom Recital Hall; row N center. The live presentation was of course different from what I heard on my system -Ehnes's Stradivarius sounded larger, the piano less resonant in its low range - yet timbres remained consistent between the concert and the DA2i reproduction of two different studio performances. That to me, was validation aplenty that the DA2i's sound is remarkably true to life. ... I frequently switched between the DA2i and the three-piece Vivaldi Apex system - Vivaldi APEX DAC ($46,500), Vivaldi Upsampler Plus ($30,500), and the Vivaldi Master Clock ($22, 950), pitting a $35,000 all-in-one unit against a three-box system that costs nearly $100,000 and, in my setup, requires two more reference power cables, four reference clock-cables ... Comparing the strength and clarity of pounding percussion near the start of the first movement of Mahler Symphony No. 5, performed by Orchestre Symphonique du Montreal conducted by Rafael Payare (24/96 FLAC download, Pentatone), the DA2i's bass was at least as good, if not better than, the Vivaldi's. ... There are many windows on truth. The DA2i is among the clearest and least tinted windows I've listened through in my music room."
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