Oh my, oh my - Aries Cerat Helene DAC

I can't stay silent - today we received Helene DAC, "baby" DAC from Aries Cerat. What a baby, what a beauty. From the very fist second the sound was sublime, digital rarely gets better than this - in form of Kassandra DAC only probably. I am not saying this lightly, just compare Helene to all the big guns, you would be surprised. Rich, transparent sound, real body of instruments, timbre to die for, as analog as possible, but most importantly, natural music flow, touching your heart and soul. Be warned, after listening you might need to sell some very expensive equipment. But there is solution - you buy Kassandra LE, thus may be less painful.

 

Sorry for reviving an old thread but I just got an Aries Cerat Helene in as a demo (I am a new dealer in NJ) and did a compare to the Playback Designs MPS-6.

I have done comparisons testing of dozens of DACs using the same five songs, Duke Ellington and John Coltrane's In A Sentimental Mood, Sting's Be Still My Beating Heart, Anette Askviks Liberty, Bozzio Levin Stevens Duende and the Berg Quartett doing Mozart's String Quartet No 14 in G Major.

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Dear Verdant Audio

Please listen to the Helene in Inverted phase (speaker inverted phase, red to black , black to red) and let me know what you hear.

Cheers
Stavros

 

Came back and listened and was pleasantly surprised with a very refined sound right out of the box. I then played it as much as I could for about a week. and this is my POV after maybe 60 hours of burn-in.

I would add that the DAC will continue to benefit from further playback hrs on the clock … the tone and texture of instruments and vocals, and the flow of the same , will open up even further adding to the sense of musicality as a whole.

 

I will reverse the phase and report back tomorrow.

I know more hours make better but since this is tube based, I don't like just leaving it on for 500 hours. That said, it is impressive as is.

 

I will reverse the phase and report back tomorrow.

I know more hours make better but since this is tube based, I don't like just leaving it on for 500 hours. That said, it is impressive as is.

Quite correct regarding not leaving it on in order to burn it in however I wouldn’t worry unduly about run time as the E280F’s are multi thousand hour valves , likewise the the GZ rectifier will prove to be a long distance tank

 

On my Helene I notice a better spatial presentation and a wider soundstage. My Wavlet for my Legacy Audio Aeris has a Stereo Inversion button to flip back and forth through the Wavlet software.

 

Dear Verdant Audio

Please listen to the Helene in Inverted phase (speaker inverted phase, red to black , black to red) and let me know what you hear

So this was an interesting as the impact was different between my flagship amps (Canor Virtus M1s) and my secondary amps (AGD Tempo). I have a switch that allows me to swap between two amps and I hooked one up in phase and the other out of phase. I reversed phase on my tube amps and left it alone on my SS. WOW.

With the Tempo something was obviously off between the front speakers and the subwoofer. They clearly were fighting each other. With the Canors it was off just a hair. It sounded better with the phase reversed but it was not as radical of a change vs. the AGD. I messed with the phase setting on the sub and found that 0 degrees delivered the most pleasing result which confused me.

I turned off the sub, reversed the test with the tube amps and the SS. That is, I reveresed the + and - on the AGD and the Canors. Everything made more sense. With the subwoofer off, the bass on the Canors just disappeared with the improper phase setting. To a point where I am guessing the active DSP on my Perlisten sub must have effectively filled in the reduced bass. I flipped the test back reversing cables on both amps again and low and behold the AGD held on and delivered a bit more bass than the Canors when out of phase. Basically, a good DSP on my sub mostly corrected the issue.

That said, correcting the phase with the Canors did improve the staging. It had less of an impact on width in my system and more the depth. It is much deeper and maybe even more stable than before. This is possibly the deepest staging I have heard. It is also closer to completely holographic which was missing a hair when out of phase. It will make a very interesting re-test vs. the Playback. I also have an EMM DA2 coming in tomorrow so that will be another interesting test.

 

I should at least that I had the Baach4Mac on active for both my inverted / non-inverted changes. I am not sure it would have changed anything.

 

Hello, I’ve noticed that the description of Helene dac on my AC distributor page now says: ”compatible with DSD (DoP).” Is it a mistake or the dac supports DSD now?
Thanks.

 

Hello, I’ve noticed that the description of Helene dac on my AC distributor page now says: ”compatible with DSD (DoP).” Is it a mistake or the dac supports DSD now?
Thanks.

It still doesn't support DSD natively. However you can use your streamer to transcode the DSD stream (DSD over PCM) to playback DSD files.

 

It still doesn't support DSD natively. However you can use your streamer to transcode the DSD stream (DSD over PCM) to playback DSD files.

My streamer can transmit DSD files in 3 different ways: natively, DoP or convert DSD to PCM on the fly. Are you saying that the dac has hardware support for DoP? If yes, which rates?

 

Hello

Which distributor page? It is a mistake, so we need to rectify.

Thanks for catching it up

Cheers
S

Hello, I’ve noticed that the description of Helene dac on my AC distributor page now says: ”compatible with DSD (DoP).” Is it a mistake of the dac supports DSD now?
Thanks

 

Hello

Which distributor page? It is a mistake, so we need to rectify.

Thanks for catching it up

Cheers
S

Sent you a pm.

 

I am currently auditioning Helene dac: very smooth presentation, great soundstage, but a bit on the dark side. Do I understand correctly that increasing the bias setting would add some air and make the presentation more neutral? What is the recommended bias setting for the dac?

 

I am currently auditioning Helene dac: very smooth presentation, great soundstage, but a bit on the dark side. Do I understand correctly that increasing the bias setting would add some air and make the presentation more neutral? What is the recommended bias setting for the dac?

Hi

Before doing anything, try inverting your speaker phase ( red to black, black to red).

Also, what bias do you have it now?

Cheers

 

Hi

Before doing anything, try inverting your speaker phase ( red to black, black to red).

Also, what bias do you have it now?

Cheers

Hi,

I can use a phase polarity setting on my preamp, will it be the same as switching the speaker cables?
I am not at home now, will double check in the evening, I think it is 246 now.

Thanks.

 

Yes, if preamp can do it (and sonically non-intrusive method) then yes.

 

The bias was 246. I changed it to 230. Is it the recommended setting? What is the acceptable range? Do I just turn the dial and it is done for both channels simultaneously? I do not have the manual, that is why I ask all these questions

Thanks in advance.

 

Send me an email with the serial number to send you a pdf with the unit's manual.

Best
Stavros

 

Dear Verdant Audio

Please listen to the Helene in Inverted phase (speaker inverted phase, red to black , black to red) and let me know what you hear.

Cheers
Stavros

Hello Starvos. Why if using RCA connections the phase has to be inverted? If using XLR I can easily understand but not RCA

 

I tried reversing the phase using RCA connections, but did not hear much difference.