I drove a manual BMW 535i for 27 years and always preferred it to a limited edition AMG my family guilted me into buying. As much as I am charmed by the reviews and opinions of the Poseidon, and I am convinced the Poseidon is by far a better DAC than my GG1, in my closed off and narrow thinking mind I don't want to believe it could surpass the magic of DHT's. My pre-amp is an Allnic L8000 that runs 4 DHT's like the GG1.
I concur on the BMW. Drove a 325 with 5 speed for many, many years. My current X3 is a soulless appliance in comparison. I also had a GG1. There was a bit of unit variability back then so can’t really comment with certainty on yours, but the GG2 then Pacific were much better than my GG1, while retaining the DHT sound. I considered my Allnic L9000 to be a good pairing with the Pacific. Below you can see what I have today. I don’t think I’ve lost anything from where I was. Note the 300b SET for the DHT flavor.
My VW Golf is manual and my 911 is PDK. I’m in the VW most days….full disclosure, I did trade my GG2 for a Horizon.
With the Horizon all of the positive attributes of GG2 remained, but the details buried in the music were much easier to hear and almost overwhelming. Good recordings, bad recordings , streaming, rippped CD’s Hi Rez etc….everything had new details and nuances that I never heard. I kept thinking that all ot of my music had been remastered (in a good way).
To me, this is always the dividing line between high end solid state DACs and romantic tube DACs. I own a variety of DACs, from the romantic lush sounding Pacific Lampi to the clear-as-spring-water Mola Mola Makua DAC+preamp+phono stage to the ultra-transparent-yet-almost-clinical Chord Blu2/DAC. By carefully matching the components, I can get musical satisfaction out of all of them, hence I keep them all. To me, if you want detail, there‘s absolutely no touching a top class solid state DACs, which give you oodles of resolution, but without careful system matching, poor recordings can sound too clinical. I imagine Horizon does give you a taste of high end solid state DACs with a touch of romanticism from its use of tubes. We forget how much the overall system defines what you hear and enjoy. I just set up an all ARC/Quad system in my dining room for late night jazz enjoyment, and now that the weather is getting cooler in the Bay Area, it’s time to bring out the big beast — the massive ARC Ref 210 tube monoblock amplifiers with their huge 8 KT120 output tubes that can produce nearly 250 tube watts per channel. This beast runs warm, almost 400 watts per channel idle, so you need the weather to be cool enough to run this monster. But, boy, does it sound absolutely divine. To match it, I am using the ARC Ref 3 preamp (last of William Zane Johnson’s original designs, all the newer ARCs are just copies and variants), and the ARC Ref CD8 player. Playing into a Quad 2805, it just sounds so easy on the ears that you want to listen through the night. But, this is a music lover’s system, not an audiophile system. You get the gestalt of the music, the absolutely creamy midrange of the Quad 2805, and the sheer crossoverless transparency of Walker’s original delay line speaker that still sets the standard for reproduction. The Ref 210s allow playback at high levels without any change in the harmonic structure. But, it’s not going to be a dynamics demon the way a Klipsch La Scala or a large Wilson will sound like. But those are not phase coherent, and their crossovers etc. are quite noticeable in listening. In a nutshell, it‘s all about the system, not necessarily the individual components alone that make a system sing.
true, I aquired new speakers Horning Agalme, these and newly aquired Pacific just changed the game completely, with Agalme I believe I do not need more details they are just incredibly detailed and perfectly balanced as well, meaning that everything i? the picture is in the right proportion, highs, midrange, lows just as the music calls for ....I wonder how Horizon would perform in my system......so yes when switch speakers to Tannoy Westminsters it is like a night and day in the same setup.....and the tube rolling is making huge impact as well, for instance my new Psvane Acme 274b(musical without being romantic) sounds incredible with Pacific compare to Philco 5u4G(cold and sterile like poor tranzistor system)
A friend is getting to demo it in his system on the 31st and have the opportunity to see and hear it as well. Can't wait!!
What if I replace my GG2 and CHP L1 with Poseidon? I can’t afford Poseidon on its own, but if it is so good as a line stage… Any thoughts?
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We are indeed planning to have our Horizon DAC in the Great Room at Florida Audio Expo alongside a statement system fronted by Acora Acoustics.
