Golden Gate DAC arrives.

[bonzo75]

Your talking to a man with an old, dusty, hardwired B7, who thinks the Sylvania VT-52 is the best option he's heard, and who also hasn't heard a reason yet to go GG.

I am a luddite.

More seriously, I have definitely got a much bigger gain from the recent crossover mod than I will ever get from going GG. I'm genuinely surprised by it.

DIY. Way to go. Get that soldering iron out!

Take your Lampi and go over to Bill's. Check your Lampi against his. Then let us know. I haven't heard your crossover mod, and you haven't heard the GG that way.

 

[Zero000]

Take your Lampi and go over to Bill's. Check your Lampi against his. Then let us know. I haven't your crossover mod, and you haven't heard the GG that way.

Where is he? Miles away I suspect.

 

[bonzo75]

Where is he? Miles away I suspect.

Near reading. In your Porsche should be quick

 

[wisnon]

Which just goes to show 242 was never a suitable valve for Big 7s, as I always knew. And if you have the output curtailed on your GG to take it, you compromise the output for other valve types. Not so good.

The 242 worked great on my old point to point wired B7...but distorted on my gen 1 GG. When my GG went back for a firmware refresh, the mV output was reduced and the 242 worked great. Other tubes also work well, eg the "my precious" mesh 45 globes.

GOLDIE is worth the upgrade...but wait a few months.

 

[wisnon]

bonzo75, you mean go passive or use the pot on the GG? I have found in my Audio Note DAC 5 that I can go passive and avoid the problems often going that route such as impedance miss-match and enough level to drive the power amp to spec. In my case I have short interconnects so avoid the problems that can cause with longer lengths. The line stage in my DAC is effectively an Audio Note M6 anyway, no need in my case to have another stage.

What is the output impedance on the GG?

I haven't heard the GG yet, but I do seem to prefer DACs with a tube line stage, so the dCS and Meridian comparisons you mention are not surprising to me. IMO I prefer at least on item in the chain with tubes, be it a DAC or a Pre-amp. In my journey over the last 20 years that combo seems to work best for me.

Lampi vol control is NOT a pot. It is a stepped resistor ladder. Tube output is already active. My output is circa 700mv and all the tubes work fine for me. I have a pair of VT52s but have not tried 'em yet. In any case the 242 has a new challenger for king of the hill...EML mesh 2A3. AL is loving it!

 

[Zero000]

Lampi vol control is NOT a pot. It is a stepped resistor ladder. Tube output is already active. My output is circa 700mv and all the tubes work fine for me. I have a pair of VT52s but have not tried 'em yet. In any case the 242 has a new challenger for king of the hil...EML mesh 2A3. AL is loving it!

This might sound nuts but don't expect VT-52 to sound impressive. It just doesn't do that. It is simply the most balanced and linear sounding tube in my system. Other tubes hype or lack in various areas. The Sylvania VT-52 doesn't seem to. That's why I like it so much. And it is the valve I use the most. Also it doesn't produce a very open soundstage, no where near that of the "let's blow the whole soundstage wide open" EML type sound.

Yet I still return to it the most. I just seem to like it best.

The Psvane 2A3 and KR PX-4 get used now and then. PX-4 is fun, but it does hype especially in the bass and its mid range is not the smoothest. Good valve, though, in my system.

 

[wisnon]

Interesting Justin.

 

[Alrainbow]

I don't have a pair of the ps vane 2a3. But I do have there little brother the we275. So you like the 2a3 , please dsd one it to me

 

[bonzo75]

The Psvane 2a3 was the first one that came as stock with big 7. I had that, VT52, and 6a3. The next ones up including 101d replica were far more improved. The KRs and the special 45 took things many levels up, including the recti. Will more try to listen to the EML mesh 2a3 on horns, at Bill's, and later at Al's

 

[Alrainbow]

My view on ps vane replica tubes.
I own a pair of 90 year old 101d and the new metal ones from ps vane
While the new ones have the sound type correct they are not refined like the old ones
I own many other pairs.
We300b
We 274b
I don't own a real
Pair of we 300b but I do own a replica pair of taks
I do own several real we274b
The real are way above in here versions no one that sells a new product will make you choose old now
Undortuanly in many ways the old are what is best.
I don't own a pair of psvane 2A3 it I do own all other tubes you commented on

The tube mesh 2A3 is a tube we all need to hear in there setup
The tube in mine is a new level of definition of how clean the lampi sounds.
The eml mesh need at least 15 hours to become what they are
Min 5 hours for the hardness to start to lower as this happens horns and piano become real
As with any output tubes the recti matters plenty. The first tube I used was the kr5u4g
It showed promise of the tube as the tubes got beyond 10 hours I put in the tak 274b this gave the 2A3 another level in all
Sounds except clarity this remained stable from the first install of them
It's clarity is why I kept going with these tubes . They just have such clarity that really shows up overall but on brass it's shimmer I never heard before. And I know more shimmer may mean glare on some sounds. The tubes do not have glare period they do seem to be even accross the board.

 

[Legolas]

Hi Alrainbow, when you say after 15 hours, do mean 15 hours left on? Or 15 hours on and off use? I tend to leave my tubed DAC on 24.7 but that runs small pre-amp tubes.

 

[Alrainbow]

Not continues but intermittent use.
For me new tubes it's one hour on then off for one hour to get cold
Then two hours on then one off. Then finally 3 hours on and one off
After that do as you wish. And the off time is just to get them cold as such it does not matter if it's the same day
This info was given to me by tube USA dealer
It makes sense to me. I do this with any new tubes
I did this with Elrogs to and used them
In up SW setting like a 45 they still went bad very fast anyway.
Hope this helps

 

[wisnon]

Hi Alrainbow, when you say after 15 hours, do mean 15 hours left on? Or 15 hours on and off use? I tend to leave my tubed DAC on 24.7 but that runs small pre-amp tubes.

The DHTs are run at 20% of rated capacity, so just about the same as small triodes. Rectis run full blast everywhere.

 

[wisnon]

Hi Norm!

Current hqp computer is a i7-4770k not overclocked. I do have a nvidia titan black card but it seems to hurt upsampling instead despite the massive DP FP specs.

Haven't had time to sit and listen critically yet but dsd256/512 does sound amazing at first listen.

Yeang

So Yeang,

Now that you have had a few weeks with your recently upgraded GG (is it really a GG2), can you give us hungry masses some feedback on SQ improvements you have noticed?

As you see there will be a big Pacific launch event in Sarasota mid October, and until then not many people have the actual experience with the latest Lampi dac evolutionary steps. I will be there in Fla then to hear what the Pac buzz is all about, but until then perhaps you can drop some tidbits?

Finally, will you upgrade server to the SuperKomputer2? Feedback from 2 sources in the UK has been VERY compelling and price should be about $8.5K or so in the US.

 

[seatrope]

Hi Norm,

Thanks for the headsup! I have a bunch of updates but was waiting for stuff to be resolved before posting all together. But since you asked:

If you guys remember, my initial problem was that the volume level was too low, which I had posted about. That was a side effect of my having it "optimized" for 242. However, my preamp does not overload or distort with my Big 7 and 242. As it was supplied, there was a 3.3kOhm padding resistor across the WBT RCA outs. Lukasz told me to just cut them off, which was pretty easy to do.

That got the volume back up to where it was on the Big 7 with the same tube type. However, I noticed then that the load meter on my Pass XA30.8 would start moving right with moderate volumes showing load. It NEVER does or should since my Westminster GRs are 99dB sensitive. Then my preamp (the buffered Hornshoppe Truth preamp) crapped out... very odd.

I measured the DC output just to see, and found that it drifted down very slowly from a high value and didn't seem to settle down near zero. Lukasz of course tells me the solution without explaining the details, asking me to solder resistors across the output (as you surmised Mark). From what I can gather, through my conversations with the lead engineer of Pass Labs, if your downstream component has very high impedance (my preamp has a impedance too high to measure), the absence of a "load" due to the high impedance either causes D.C. drift or oscillation (I think the former).

So, soldering 270K resistors across the outputs - perfect solution - now it plays like it should, appropriate volume, no artifacts. I bought a bunch of expensive resistors to try, including $40/each nude Vishays and have the silver Tantalum ones you clued me in (Mark) on order. Right now I have cheap but relatively good Draloric resistors as a test.

This was relatively easy to do, with the tricky part being getting the RCA jacks OUT of the back of the chassis. The WBT jacks have back ends that screw off but takes quite a bit of finger strength (I used a thick rubber sheet and channel lock pliers). There is a tool you can buy from WBT but it's $60...

Then getting the jacks out from inside the chassis was tricky as I said, because it's a tight space and there are some transformers (or some piece I can't identify) right behind the jacks. The lower one is too deep to solder (at least for me). After they popped out, soldering the resistors was pretty straightforward with a set of helping hand tools.

More next post. This was all very fascinating to me and I love learning about what's under the hood. Being able to work on my GG makes me feel so much closer to it (I like to tinker).

Yeang

So Yeang,

Now that you have had a few weeks with your recently upgraded GG (is it really a GG2), can you give us hungry masses some feedback on SQ improvements you have noticed?

As you see there will be a big Pacific launch event in Sarasota mid October, and until then not many people have the actual experience with the latest Lampi dac evolutionary steps. I will be there in Fla then to hear what the Pac buzz is all about, but until then perhaps you can drop some tidbits?

Finally, will you upgrade server to the SuperKomputer2? Feedback from 2 sources in the UK has been VERY compelling and price should be about $8.5K or so in the US.

 

[seatrope]

As a quick side note, Fred and Lukasz would have been happy to have me ship my unit (at Lampi's expense) to their very capable techs to do all this. I was happy to do it myself to know what was done and learn more about the innards, as well as to minimize the risk of shipping damage.

 

[bonzo75]

Yeang, thanks. Am not much of a techie, but how did all this after the sound? And are the 242 sounding fine now, and chance to compare other tubes

 

[Sablon Audio]

Good work Yeang! Do please give us a follow up on how the different resistors work out for you. Some with thicker wiring will take quite a bit longer to burn in.

 

[seatrope]

Hi Mark,

Thanks! I have yet to experiment with resistors at the high end of what Lukasz is recommending, but might need to do so as the DSD512 engine output seems to be quite a bit lower than the R2R engine playing PCM (noise floor issues). I may try the high end of that range 470K and see how the S/N ratio changes. Not sure how that affects high end rolloff.

Yeang

Good work Yeang! Do please give us a follow up on how the different resistors work out for you. Some with thicker wiring will take quite a bit longer to burn in.

 

[seatrope]

So, part II of what I have been up to recently with the GG.

If you guys remember, a while back I posted that DSD512 native with linux endpoints (i.e. microrendu in my case) is possible now. Essentially, I had volunteered to be a beta firmware tester knowing that I would probably have to reflash my Amanero firmware down the road.

Now after I fixed the volume issue with the resistor modification as I described in my previous post, I could finally sit down and do some serious listening, as compared to my trusty Big 7 (which by the way, sounds remarkable with the new 242 tubes that came with the GG).
Overall impressions were very favorable, DEFINITELY a step up from the Big 7, but not earth shattering. I'd estimate maybe 20-30% better, for sure worth the upgrade. Transients were cleaner and more defined, high end seemed slightly more extended.

However, here I ran into a problem with the beta firmware. PCM @ 192 Khz and DSD 256x48 and above would playback with an loud, high pitched squealing noise over the music, which was playing back at the wrong speed. At the time we were not sure that this was firmware related, as the factory tests were all reportedly perfect. It was unclear if the tests were done before the beta firmware was flashed.

In any case, weekend before last I ended up flashing the latest (at the time) Amanero firmware. This was VERY straightforward (I have probably swapped between 5 different firmware versions now). The process is outlined on Amanero's website and basically involves shorting two pads on the Amanero board for 1-2 seconds with the power on to the board. Then installing the appropriate driver on your Windows computer (I used a windows, not sure if this is available for Macs). The oemconfig tool downloadable from Amanero website then will give you a list of firmwares which are pulled over the internet from Amanero and are hence fully up to date.

For those of you who are interested, there is a github thread where Domenico (the developer of Amanero), Jussi Laako (of HQplayer) and hifi25nl (of audiolinux) have been posting regularly. I have been giving my feedback on there:
https://github.com/lintweaker/xmos-native-dsd/issues/12

So, I flashed firmware 2003_rc1 a couple of weekends ago, hoping for the best....