Pacific dac: Lampizator's new top of the line dac

[bonzo75]

So Ked, what tt at home are you using the clamp with?

It's to use on multiple TTs on my journeys. Nice travel toy

 

[wisnon]

Thank you Marc. In the present Pacific Lukasz actually used spikes machined by Stacore Bogdan, and not the slate ones above.


Cheers,

Its only for show...not the final prod choice. Indeed he may offer a few interchangeable footers as standard in each Pac.

 

[Stacore]

Its only for show...not the final prod choice. Indeed he may offer a few interchangeable footers as standard in each Pac.

"You know me better than I know myself"

 

[Zero000]

AC, around 3.5 years ago there was a GG room at Munich. Many liked it. I didn't like it at all. Bill and his friend didn't either, Bill decided not to go ahead with his Big 7 order (i was already an owner, the room made him reverse his, then he heard mine again and got one). Now both him and his friend are GG owners. You really cannot make out anything from a show, far less a dac, and the reason for us not liking it then was that we don't like the duos, which were then influencing the sound. Even a well set up dac at home can do only so much if one doesn't like the speaker. I have never liked any Lampi room in Munich. In fact this year's golden Atlantic set up was relatively better than previous GG set ups.

Here it is in fact, shot by me. It sounded pretty good with simple acoustic music. However, challenge it with some bass frenzied electronic music at high volume and it just wouldn't go there (the speakers, not the DAC), I'd wager.

Ked from which website did you read about that new Pacific KR 300B?

 

[wisnon]

"You know me better than I know myself"

It's what he said at the Suncoast event here in Fla yesterday.

 

[Zero000]

Arshad, Ked rightly called out my previous room in London for being harsh, reflective, poor boomy bass, zero imaging etc despite my pleas that the core tone was good.
His diagnosis of my room issues was spot on, and he lent me some Mooks Giants to try out.
And they contributed a lot to making the sound more palatable, textured and inviting, enhancing warmth and extension in the upper bass especially.
I bought the set from him, and whether I used them under my big 85kg balanced transformer or my smaller cdp, they were 100% beneficial. Ked still didn't rate my sound, and felt the Giants weren't ideally suited under a mid size component like my Eera, but the positive effects couldn't be denied.
A slam dunk impvt, and I invited the skepticism of Ron Resnick and other nay sayers when I announced my intention to Mook out my whole system, Giants under bpt and monos, Ultras under cdp and preamp.
Had I stayed in that room, I'd have put aside £00000s to Mook up fully.
---
Fast fwd 18 months, I'm now in my new room, and it's instantly 1000% better than my old space, and that's before I've installed the dedicated power grid or any other tweaks, just power out of domestic sockets into £0.99 off the shelf power cords.
I install the Giants under my cdp as a first tweak, and things are plain wrong. Bass is increased as in London, but now in all the wrong ways, muddy, unfocused, bloated. Replace them with a set of Symposium hard footers and things are motoring again.
Power grid goes in with balanced transformer, Symposium footers good, back to Giants, and if anything it's worse.
Ked informs me it must be "wrong" to use the Giants this way, only Ultras to be used under mid size components. Well, why were the Giants great under the "wrong" component in London? And putting the Giants under the transformer ("correct" here with the unit being oversized) was similarly anti climactic.
Cue disagreement w Ked.
So out they go, and in go the Stacores, first under transformer, then cdp, both with 100% stellar results.
---
Fast fwd to recently where I've been installing SR Black fuses in my gear, all great except for some ambiguity with new fuses in preamp. There are ELEVEN here, so some likelihood of needing longer burn in, but for the first time since I started tweaking out with Stacores, Sablon Elite pwr cords and these fuses, some move backwards in overall SQ with bass a little one note and slow.
I try my luck putting the Giants under my preamp psu, and things streamline in the bass quite a bit, and I resolve to at least use this one set of Giants in the system.
Note, again if one is to take Ked's view, the Giants are "wrong" in this application, with the psu even smaller than the cdp.
---
Things still not quite right however, so I try a couple of things, first correct the reverse phase on my spkr cbls (NAT amps designed to wire to spkrs out of phase, reversing + and - on the spkr cbl terminations). This is against the design ethos of the amps, but for the first time ever it sounds right with "correct" polarity direction.
And then I again remove the Mooks.
And now EVERYTHING snaps into place. Bass bloat, unwanted smearing etc is gone.
---
And so my on/off/on love affair with Mooks is definitely off again.
And all of this has cemented in my mind that Mooks enhance resonance frequency bands in the upper bass/lower mids. Where an acoustic is harsh and hollowed out as in my old apartment, they are a boon, exaggerating a warmth that is desirable but probably not accurate or on the recording.
In a more forgiving room where bass is not challenging, and there is no harshness to start, the Mooks IMHO act as a coloring device, here totally undesirable.
The Stacores on the other hand, don't draw attention to any one frequency, being even handed across the spectrum, and just open up so much of the musical canvas w'out drawing attention to themselves.
I realise my view might be a minority one, but I feel my experience of living with the Mooks over time in two vastly different environments gives me more than enough to work out what they do, and whether they're for me.
And they're undoubtedly not.

Good post, Marc.

The current GG uses a metal case that rings like hell to the flick. I think that Lucasz must have decided that to get his DACs to sound more analogue like, one way to do it is to make it behave more like a TT.

That means triodes with any degree of microphony will pick up on this fact and GG owners can verify this is happening very easily by flicking the chassis with some preamp gain applied i.e. normal listening gain with no music playing.

The level of ringing you hear through your speakers as a result is proportional to the loudness of the ringing.

If your fave tubes display a large ringing output you like the sound of this feedback. I have had two GGs in my system and they both displayed this trait with some tubes to an absolutely alarming extent.

 

[bonzo75]

Good post, Marc.

The current GG uses a metal case that rings like hell to the flick. I think that Lucasz must have decided that to get his DACs to sound more analogue like, one way to do it is to make it behave more like a TT.

That means triodes with any degree of microphony will pick up on this fact and GG owners can verify this is happening very easily by flicking the chassis with some preamp gain applied i.e. normal listening gain with no music playing.

The level of ringing you hear through your speakers as a result is proportional to the loudness of the ringing.

If your fave tubes display a large ringing output you like the sound of this feedback. I have had two GGs in my system and they both displayed this trait with some tubes to an absolutely alarming extent.

That's because there is a problem marrying with your pre. If you think anyone listens to ringing like that because they like it...

 

[LL21]

Good post, Marc.

The current GG uses a metal case that rings like hell to the flick. I think that Lucasz must have decided that to get his DACs to sound more analogue like, one way to do it is to make it behave more like a TT.

That means triodes with any degree of microphony will pick up on this fact and GG owners can verify this is happening very easily by flicking the chassis with some preamp gain applied i.e. normal listening gain with no music playing.

The level of ringing you hear through your speakers as a result is proportional to the loudness of the ringing.

If your fave tubes display a large ringing output you like the sound of this feedback. I have had two GGs in my system and they both displayed this trait with some tubes to an absolutely alarming extent.

have you tried HRS damping plates? We use them on the Zanden which is also made of a beautiful mirror polish sheet of metal. When you 'flick it' with your finger (with the HRS on top), it is like flicking a solid billet of aluminum...remove the HRS and it sort of 'pings' like sheet metal. Its super weird how it does that...HRS works incredibly well. I think the latest GG image seems to show room on top for this. Perhaps worth a try.

 

[Jazzhead]

+1 on HRS . Has a positive effect ,ceven on a more substantial built chassis .

 

[Bar81]

have you tried HRS damping plates? We use them on the Zanden which is also made of a beautiful mirror polish sheet of metal. When you 'flick it' with your finger (with the HRS on top), it is like flicking a solid billet of aluminum...remove the HRS and it sort of 'pings' like sheet metal. Its super weird how it does that...HRS works incredibly well. I think the latest GG image seems to show room on top for this. Perhaps worth a try.

Maybe the damping plates are good on thin sheet metal but my experience is that the damping plates have a detrimental impact on anything well built.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

I use the stillpoints LPi on my GG for this purpose - works very well indeed.

 

[sbo6]

That's because there is a problem marrying with your pre. If you think anyone listens to ringing like that because they like it...

His statement is spot on - any component with tubes should have adequate chassis isolation (and tube dampers if you fancy) to avoid microphonics, especially at this price point. A preamp or any other component should be discussed separately. Sometimes a spade is a spade...

 

[sbo6]

I have to admit - they finally put aesthetics front and center, the unit is beautiful (finally, no stick - on labels for I/O). I've also heard positive comments about the sound at RMAF. Of course, it only costs $30k+ to acquire such beauty... ;-)

 

[bonzo75]

His statement is spot on - any component with tubes should have adequate chassis isolation (and tube dampers if you fancy) to avoid microphonics, especially at this price point. A preamp or any other component should be discussed separately. Sometimes a spade is a spade...

My GG starts boinging in Justin's system. It does not do that in other systems is been around. Loud boinging sounds with some tubes can't even turn it on. And he hasn't heard the GG do that in any system except his, and his big 7 does not do that.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Ah, "boinging", that well known audio phenomenon.

 

[Zero000]

Ah, "boinging", that well known audio phenomenon.

It happens when Zebadee arrives.

 

[Jazzhead]

Ked from which website did you read about that new Pacific KR 300B?

New site ... lampizatorpoland.com

 

[wisnon]

I have to admit - they finally put aesthetics front and center, the unit is beautiful (finally, no stick - on labels for I/O). I've also heard positive comments about the sound at RMAF. Of course, it only costs $30k+ to acquire such beauty... ;-)

$25K for SE they said yesterday.

 

[wisnon]

Good post, Marc.

The current GG uses a metal case that rings like hell to the flick. I think that Lucasz must have decided that to get his DACs to sound more analogue like, one way to do it is to make it behave more like a TT.

That means triodes with any degree of microphony will pick up on this fact and GG owners can verify this is happening very easily by flicking the chassis with some preamp gain applied i.e. normal listening gain with no music playing.

The level of ringing you hear through your speakers as a result is proportional to the loudness of the ringing.

If your fave tubes display a large ringing output you like the sound of this feedback. I have had two GGs in my system and they both displayed this trait with some tubes to an absolutely alarming extent.

Mine doesnt do that Justin.

 

[Jazzhead]