Manfred's Presentation

Not the video, but the show was in Pratteln near Basel in Switzerland. That's 70 km away.

Cheers
Manfred

PS the tour has the same name as the last album Hand.Cannot.Erase.
But there were other songs too and the lightshow of the Watchmaker was very similar to the linked video.

I did it again....could not resist and bought some used vinyl.

This one I bought of curiosity, I liked the cover and Corsica too, of course.

It cost one € and the music and recording quality was a positive surprise!

The next one is a box of 4 LP and booklet about the biography of Liszt with great music performed by world class artists like Argerich, Arrau, Kondrashin, Karajan and Bernstein. Nice finding for 4 €.

How tiny can a serious system be?



Source: antiDAC
Preamp: enFase hybrid can amp as preamp
Power Amp: ICE Power ASX125 (2 x 125W / 4 Ω)




Cubo² speakers (16*16*16 cm³)

I'm currently exploring...

Dear mannitheear

This Goldring table, despite the antiquity, is excellent.

With best regards,
4u

Hello Manfred!!!

What's first...
My eyes fall on your room... beautiful room.

I think Cubo's speakers are the Paulo's handmade speakers, right? (the cork stopper makes the signature... )

Nice litle set up, have fun playing with those pieces and share more information, coments.


Kind regards.

Hi José Miguel and Ghost4u,

yes, the Goldring table is really old. Perhaps nearly as old as José Miguel. But he is very young! It's all relative.

And yes, the CUBO² is handmady by Paulo. It's the last stage of development of the CUBO line as far as I know.
They work well even with a evil Class-D amp, but needs according to Paulo some burn-in time. So I wait with more words until it has settled down. I'm lucky that he sent me the CUBO² even knowing that I don't have proper amplification at the time (and may even use cork stoppers of german wine).

In this system (born out of necessity and curiosity) the preamp and DAC get warm in operation while the power amp stays cold, even if it drives the big Tannoy with high SPL.
Very crazy times.

But - the antiDAC and enFase need a bit warmth to do their magic due to the microtubes of the true hybrid circuit inside.
And they are really magic and manage that this setup works quite well even with a class-D amp!

Hi Manfred!

The enFase is one piece that wake's up my curiosity. Right now i am using the Momentum, they don't need that kind of amplification (i think!?! I don't have the experience, but we choose thinking the low impedence will match the ipad or phone...), but one day we hope to get other set of headphones...
Because of this experience in Azores (Luciana come and going... now she returned to Porto), i/we discovered headphones like a nice (very nice) form to get Music.

Interesting that class-D amp can push the Tannoy's, "crazy times" indeed!

Let the Cubo's roll and tell us everything about!

A question: your hybrid amp, from Paulo's hands, is not a good match with Cubo's?

Dear José Miguel,

the enFase is a killer can amp in my opinion. I had years ago a Stax combo, the AKG K1000 and the 580 Jubilee with a Brocksieper Earmax OTL. All is sold (except the 580) but none of these gave me what enFase does easily, a balanced mix of very high transparency, speed, subtlety, dynamics, tonal and harmonic rightness, atmosphere and slam. Indeed it is made to drive high impedance cans and here the Beyerdynamic DT880 is a worst case scenario with 600 ohm AND low efficency.

But it's not only about power. If the enFase gets a good input signal it drives also low impedance headphones much better than smartphones, tablets and even DAPs like for example the Pono player. It can show what a modified Koss Porta Pro can do or even a good cheap in ears.
And the enFase serves now even extraordinary well as a preamp. He (or she?) tells the class-D amp how the music has to sound and it's one reason why the class-D drives all the big and small Divas here (Proac, Tannoy and CUBO² very good. (At least the Tannoy and the Proac can sound even awful with an amp they don't like.) But it was some work with cables, mains cable and mains polarity until i was satisfied.
It's currently not as transparent as Paulo's hybrid amp, though. But the Eden is back in France and I'm waiting for my own hybrid amp Nirvana which is intended to shoot me into Nirvana, at least musical and sonical. 
Meanwhile Paulo rescued me from audio hell but decided I have to stay a while in audio purgatory or listen to cans.

Hugs to you and Luciana.

ok!!!
The path to paradise begins in hell... (Dante and Vigil have so mutch to teach us...) You allready are in purgatory.


Enjoy and share with us!

After a long pause in this thread I wamted to share some of my experiences and thaoughts and perhaps raise one or two questions.

Shortly ago I attended a performance of the SWR Symphony Orchestra with their current chief conductor Teodor Currentzis who is kind of an "enfant terrible" in the classical world and meanwhile quite famous, for example for his recordings of so different worksthe Mozart Da Ponte operas, Mahler and Tchaikowski's 6th symphonies and Rameau, alle high praised by the critics.
The program was Schnittke's Viola Concerto and Tchaikowski 5th Symphony. Because I did not know the Schnittke Viola Concerto I listened in advance to a recording played by Yuri Bashmet to whom Schnitte dedicated the work and found it very expressive and exciting
So my expectations were high and only overshadowed by the fact that I was late reserving a seat and only got a place in the 27th row, because normaly I prefer by far sitting quite close to the orchestra.
The evening was good of course, but especially the Schnittke Concertr didn't touch me like I expected. In fact, this was due to the sound quality, the perception of dynamics and subtleties in the 29th row of a live performance did not reach the level I'm used from the hifi system. Don't get me wrong, I don't claim that my stereo plays better than life - if I would have been in the 3rd row the complete game would be very different. But it reinforced my experience that a stereo system is not only a crutch and the second-best but that it can deliver very extraordinary moments at every time!
The event was broadcast life on the SWR classical radio and can be heard here: https://www.swr.de/swr2/programm/sendungen/konzerte/swr-symphonieorchester-currentzis-dirigiert-schnittke-und-tschaikowsky/-/id=659392/did=23108566/nid=659392/194avvr/index.html
A quite good recording I think, at least it captured more than I heard in my back seat!

Some might know that I have some gear from Paulo (TD124) and love very much what he does! Recently he sent me a power cable and a phono cable to try. No need to say that I found both cables were good and kept them. The power cable lifted the performance of my ICEPower amp to a level where I don't think always to change it to the SMSL or my Tube amp. But the real surprise was the phono cable. I liked it immediately but it was hard to say in which aspects it was better than the old one. I thought the sound was more clear and the spatial placement of the instruments in depth and height was more distinct and accurate. A cable is only a cable but in the end it can change a lot. At least I found myself listening to much more vinyl than before. Because of convenience I used to listen 90% digital and 10% vinyl but with the new cable it changed to 50/50. And when I listened to vinyl I seldom went back to digital during one listening session. This made me curious and I've done even a A/B comparison (the first since years) with one "normal" vinyl (Oregon "In Performance") vs. the Qobuz stream and the result was unexpected clear: Vinyl had better imaging (especially depth layers and height), a more solid image (digital is kind of hollow) and more "atmosphere".

So then of course I wanted to get further with my digital source and thought about what to do. I had the feeling that the digital transport to the USB anTidac was perhaps not the best, but all of my tryings fo far (Raspberry Pi vs. computer, USB Regen or not, Aurirvana vs. Roon vs. HQplayer vs. foobar vs. AIMP etc. etc.) did not seem to make dramatic differences. So what? I considered that I attached a HD with the files to the Raspberry Pi and percaps this could affect the SQ?
So I attached the HD to the Fritzbox router and activated it's built-in NAS feature.
I was curious ith this would work as desired, because the data stream is over Wifi network and the built-in NAS of the router doesn't have the same performance as a real NAS but to my pleasure it worked and even high res files played without clicks or dropouts. And, to even more pleasure, the sound quality evolved very audible. Everything got cleaner and clearer, strings got more beauty and lushnes, brass were more shiny and "hot" but in a pleasant and natural way without unnatural piercing sharpness.
Sibilance was reduced and spatial definition improved.
But now I don't know where I stand with the Pi as a transport, at 50" of what is possible or 70%? What would be a better alternative? I could imagine that a NUC might be even better - but is this really so? At least using the computer with Audirvana wasn't better...

mannitheear escreveu:

... This made me curious and I've done even a A/B comparison (the first since years) with one "normal" vinyl (Oregon "In Performance") vs. the Qobuz stream and the result was unexpected clear: Vinyl had better imaging (especially depth layers and height), a more solid image (digital is kind of hollow) and more "atmosphere". ...

Some people are lucky enough to have a real turntable ... others no

You're doing good experiments ... very interesting

Biz Man

Hi man, we've just savoured a quiche (perry & roquefort) with Pierre and Patrick with two very andsome whites from south ... listening to Garrard! Vinyl wasn't really a major listening for experienced ears  ... but they're troubled by my "new" digital system. So we're living in opposite worlds ... despite we're in border countries, and close friends !!!

We've listened these wonderfull albums in both formats: Fennesz_Venice & Max Richter_The blue notebooks...

Biz

mannitheear escreveu:

Vinyl had better imaging (especially depth layers and height), a more solid image (digital is kind of hollow) and more "atmosphere".

That's what vinyl is all about.

António José da Silva escreveu:

That's what vinyl is all about.

I think digital is capable of doing the same or even better but deserves the same attention!

Congrats to the OTL!

TD124 escreveu:

Hi man, we've just savoured a quiche (perry & roquefort) with Pierre and Patrick with two very andsome whites from south ... listening to Garrard! Vinyl wasn't really a major listening for experienced ears  ... but they're troubled by my "new" digital system. So we're living in opposite worlds ... despite we're in border countries, and close friends !!!

We've listened these wonderfull albums in both formats: Fennesz_Venice & Max Richter_The blue notebooks...

Biz

What's the "new" digital you use? The Garrard you told me isn't exactly your favorite...
So, I would not say these are "opposite worlds" because the fact that vinyl is a bit ahead tells me that there is still work to do in the digital domain! And some is just done!

I ask me, what might be really "the best" digital transport for an USB DAC? The statements in the forums are very contradictory, as always. An Allo USBridge might be better than the Raspberry Pi, but I'm not sure about NUC.

mannitheear escreveu:

The statements in the forums are very contradictory, as always.

A few years ago we compared my "classic PC" transport vs a friends Odroid C1. Both sufficiently tricked out. Mine is a low power i3 with linear supplies for all voltage rails, severely handicapped Windows with almost everything non-essential stopped. The Odroid has a single linear supply but some of the onboard caps and regulators have been upgraded. Both use ethernet attached storage and are of course headless.

As much as i liked the purity of the sound the Odroid made, it lacked power and dynamics, especially in the bass. It is probably not ideal for a sbc (single board computer) to use USB as direct i2s is possible and easy, just needs reclocking, which many dacs do anyway. Obviously more experiments are required.

As for software, after some trials and errors i am back with JRiver. HQplayer does not work as well for me and i have zero use for its upsampling abilities. More interestingly, even the client-server connection in which HQP resides on a different machine and the PC works as a simple NAA (network audio adapter) did not yield better results. Years ago a similar experiment using Jplay + Windows 2012 Server in text mode provided a very different outcome. Rpi can also be used as a NAA

All this only confirms that there are no universal recipes. For some environments one solution is clearly better than others but this can be found only through experimentation.

Someone, whose opinion i trust has given up on sbc in favour of a pc based upon an Alix MB. Another venue worth exploring.

For a PC/Mini PC solution I would prefer a minimalist Linux instead of Windows, perhaps Daphile or AudioLinux, but the latter looks very complicated. Besides I cannot imagine running Windows 10 headless. Interesting that you use JRiver. I had JRiver on OSX but it was sonical worse than Audirvana or Roon, which I found sounding similar. On Windows I used only foobar and AIMP. But the point is, that I cannot live with that Windows style User Interface of foobar and AIMP, HQPLayer or JRiver. I tried each of them, but after a few days it simply it blows me out the mind.
I use Windows all day on work 8 hours and is ok for this purpose, mainly because the IT department cares for all the security and upgrade stuff but at home all that and the unintuive GUI bores me to death. But it's a matter of taste I suppose!

New speakers have moved in, the Sonus Natura Extremi.



https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sonus-natura.com%2Fprodukte.html

Very nice speakers !!!
Tannoy drivers ?

Milton escreveu:

Very nice speakers !!!
Tannoy drivers ?

The drivers are professional drivers from Beyma, the tweeter horn is specifically modified for the Extreme to linearize the frequency response.

Here are some technical data:

Sonus Natura Extremi Technical Data
● 2 1⁄2 Way Speaker with 12” Coax and Woofer
● Frequency Response -6dB: 33Hz – 20kHz
● Crossover at 100Hz and 1.2kHz, 6dB Filter with analog delay between mids to highs
● Dimensions:35x40x105cm(WxDxH)
● Weight: aprox. 50 kg

Some measurements show the high sensitivity and low distortion:

The Extremi have a time-coherent transition between bass/mids and the tweeter and a linearized impedance to be very tube-friendly even for SET.

In the real-world they need 2 - 4 W for boneshaking levels in normal sized rooms.

But the Extremi are very alive already at low levels. They are tuned to a even frequency response and as a result they sound very refined and subtle with each kind of acoustical music, too.

Is there a subwoofer sneaking around the right tower?....

mannitheear escreveu:

New speakers have moved in, the Sonus Natura Extremi.



https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sonus-natura.com%2Fprodukte.html

WOW Man! Oh YES!!... They're impressive, congratulations

What about the sound in your listening room ???

Biz Man and enjoy

reirato escreveu:

Is there a subwoofer sneaking around the right tower?....

Yes, good eye! There is another on the left side but I used these only when watching movies in a 5.1 setup.

TD124 escreveu:

WOW Man! Oh YES!!... They're impressive, congratulations

What about the sound in your listening room ???

Biz Man and enjoy

Hi Paulo,

the sound in my room is already quite good, these speakers are kind of a "white canvas" where the music can unfold! But they deserve an excellent amp, simply The Best to reach Nirvana!!!!

Biz Paulo and a nice stay in Portugal !!!!

mannitheear escreveu:

... the sound in my room is already quite good, these speakers are kind of a "white canvas" where the music can unfold! But they deserve an excellent amp, simply The Best to reach Nirvana!!!!  ...

Indeed that's a wonderful challenge (both for you and me) to make them sing as we want. These speakers remind me (in a better concept...) the philosophy of Pat's Monitor One by Davis:

Both speakers share Beyma's Professional drivers modified and the same boomer! The speed and resolution need control & subtlety by the amp with a great sense of "tempo" ... a neutral but "alive" amp, i really like that !!!

Me and Alice will think about you today with the others and drink a glass for you ... one of these days we're going to do it together again !!!...

Biz Man and see you soon

TD124 escreveu:

Indeed that's a wonderful challenge (both for you and me) to make them sing as we want. These speakers remind me (in a better concept...) the philosophy of Pat's Monitor One by Davis:

Both speakers share Beyma's Professional drivers modified and the same boomer! The speed and resolution need control & subtlety by the amp with a great sense of "tempo" ... a neutral but "alive" amp, i really like that !!!

Me and Alice will think about you today with the others and drink a glass for you ... one of these days we're going to do it together again !!!...

Biz Man and see you soon

The Beyma drivers are made in Spain. Cay told me that they are manufactured with very low tolerance and with amazing consistency, the new drivers measured practically identically as the drivers of the demo speaker which are now almost 10 years old! The crossover could remain unchanged.
Because these drivers would take a very long time to break-in with listening room levels, Cay performs a 12 hour burn in process with very high power (80 W) and a stochastic but natural signal, a recording of the Rhine cascade in Schaffhausen, Switzerland!

I don't know the Davis Monitor One but the Extremi are already surprising subtle, resolving, fast and essentially neutral. I think the amp should sound neutral, elegant and nimble. A little control will not hurt, but the Extremi don't need a lot of grip, there is no boom. It's a high end speaker with PA capability....

Biz to you, Alice and the AAP folks!
Manfred

mannitheear escreveu:

(...) It's a high end speaker with PA capability....

In other words ... it's heaven

Congrats Man, i must listen that

TD124 escreveu:

mannitheear escreveu:

(...) It's a high end speaker with PA capability....

In other words ... it's heaven  

Congrats Man, i must listen that  

Yes, you must listen that.

I have listened now to perhaps hundreds of tracks and many of them were critical tracks but all are played honestly and were a pleasure to listen. There were no bad surprises but in many tracks I found aspects and nuances I never heard before.
I"ll write a more detailed description soon!

The only downside is that the speaker is only available in Germany at Sonus Natura and currently no shipment is possible. Cay has a customer in Bremen who ordered the Extremi blind without having heard it before and he is very happy with it, too. He even will now replace his Mastersound 845 SET power amp with the Lumina SET after having heard them side by side. The lumina is much smaller and costs only 1/3 of the Mastersound!
But know even better amps than that...

Hi Manfred,

I've never seen or had any contact with these speakers before, but I am really very happy when you seem to be delighted with them after, (I suppose) you have been looking for such kind of quality and sound pleasure.

It's ammazing when we get it. Isnt't it?




I wish you tons of luck and good hearings with them.

Hi Gonçalo,

can you look into my head? It's exactly as you say it! I searched for speakers which can do "everything". I considered very different concepts until a buddy from a all german forum gave me the crucial tipp. Just in a similar way as AJS brought me to JP and Paulo/TD124.
And yes, it's really a very special and amazing moment when you realize that's it!!!!

Hi Paulo,

I don't want to disturb your holidays in Portugal or get in any trouble with Alice or Arno - but there is waiting a lot of work in France for you!  
I've written about the Extremi in the German forums - and everybody asks only for the amplifier they will be paired with!
I'm afraid I can not hold people for much longer  


Biz to you all!
Manfred

mannitheear escreveu:

(...) I don't want to disturb your holidays in Portugal or get in any trouble with Alice or Arno - but there is waiting a lot of work in France for you!  
I've written about the Extremi in the German forums - and everybody asks only for the amplifier they will be paired with!
I'm afraid I can not hold people for much longer  
...

YES!!!... a lot of work is waiting in Montpellier, but its good work

I really think (specially with the Extremi) that a dual mono Nirvana will be the perfect fit ... maybe two monoblocks as Pierre and Pat

We'll need an iron fist in a velvet glove as we say in France to fully control the speakers. The sound of Pat's "Ultimos" with more finesse, tension and speed would be an interesting path

The open sound of enCore and enFase could be the ideal préamp to match with

Biz Man and enjoy your beauties

We need something really wicked with Autechre's electronic beat ... extreamly natural on voices and heartbreaking on Bach's harpsichord and cello ...

That's the path to go for

TD124 escreveu:

mannitheear escreveu:

(...) I don't want to disturb your holidays in Portugal or get in any trouble with Alice or Arno - but there is waiting a lot of work in France for you!  
I've written about the Extremi in the German forums - and everybody asks only for the amplifier they will be paired with!
I'm afraid I can not hold people for much longer  
 ...

YES!!!... a lot of work is waiting in Montpellier, but its good work  

I really think (specially with the Extremi) that a dual mono Nirvana will be the perfect fit ... maybe two monoblocks as Pierre and Pat

We'll need an iron fist in a velvet glove as we say in France to fully control the speakers. The sound of Pat's "Ultimos" with more finesse, tension and speed would be an interesting path

The open sound of enCore and enFase could be the ideal préamp to match with

Biz Man and enjoy your beauties

Hi Paulo,

enjoy your holidays, I'm not totally clear about the amp. You know I use enFase as preamp with great success. But with the Extremi I had the impression, it was simply "too much" of all, especially in the treble and even in the bass. Last evening I tried the PP tube amp without enFase but directly connected anTiDac and Brutus and this eased the sound ub, without getting too pale and flat as it was the case with the Tannoy and the Tablette.

Perhaps a bit control could help, but it is essential to maintain the ability to go very deep. The bass quality is outstanding, the double basses in symphonic works have the combination of energy and ease as in a concert hall, even if they are played loud. Fortunately the room load at the frequencies of the standing waves are not worse than with the Tannoy but the whole bass capability is like comparing the torque a 105 PS Ford with a V8 5 litres Corvette...

But the bass doesn't bloat or bleed into the midsi!

I'm still exploring, more the following days!

It would perhaps be interesting to try the speakers with one of your magic "small" amps!

Biz Paulo!

TD124 escreveu:

We need something really wicked with Autechre's electronic beat ... extreamly natural on voices and heartbreaking on Bach's harpsichord and cello ...

That's the path to go for

That's exactly the way to go!!!

Little modification after "clear up the system"

mannitheear escreveu:

Hi Paulo,

enjoy your holidays, I'm not totally clear about the amp. You know I use enFase as preamp with great success. But with the Extremi I had the impression, it was simply "too much" of all, especially in the treble and even in the bass. Last evening I tried the PP tube amp without enFase but directly connected anTiDac and Brutus and this eased the sound up, without getting too pale and flat as it was the case with the Tannoy and the Tablette.

Perhaps a bit control could help, but it is essential to maintain the ability to go very deep. The bass quality is outstanding, the double basses in symphonic works have the combination of energy and ease as in a concert hall, even if they are played loud. Fortunately the room load at the frequencies of the standing waves are not worse than with the Tannoy but the whole bass capability is like comparing the torque a 105 PS Ford with a V8 5 litres Corvette...

But the bass doesn't bloat or bleed into the midsi!

I'm still exploring, more the following days!

It would perhaps be interesting to try the speakers with one of your magic "small" amps!

Biz Paulo!

Dear AAP friends,

here now some photos of the current setup which includes the new Arno Amp!

It was yet initially very imressive and meanwhile I've done some experiments with power cord polarity, streamers etc. and the tube did some burn in so that the last listening sessions were very satisfying: a very high degree of resolution, openness and transparency is complemented with natural smoothness, deep, substantial and quick low end and speed...

Dear Manfred, thank you for sharing that very pernonal space and collection of Audio equipment. It is a good opportunity to say: Good Things Come in Small Packages... with the exception of those big speakers.


Keep sharing!

Kind regards.

mannitheear escreveu:

Dear AAP friends,

here now some photos of the current setup which includes the new Arno Amp!

That's great to see the Arnoamp in the system! Compared to Extremi and Anti-Lenco he seems really a dwarf

Have you ever heard the Sonus Natura Audire and the tube amp Sonus Natura Lumina ???

Are you glad with the present sounding results ???

TD124 escreveu:

That's great to see the Arnoamp in the system! Compared to Extremi and Anti-Lenco he seems really a dwarf

Have you ever heard the Sonus Natura Audire and the tube amp Sonus Natura Lumina ???

Are you glad with the present sounding results ???

Hi Paulo,

yes, I could hear the Lumina: about 95 % of the initial listening of the Extremi at Cay's place was done with this very fine sounding and very beautiful Triode amp which was designed to match with the Extremi (and similar high efficiency speakers of course). It would have been my first choice if I hadn't heard anTiTon amps before ;-)
Another Extremi owner replaced his impressive Tubeguru 211SE with the much smaller and lighter Lumina after a comparison.

I did not listen to the Audire yet. I've heard, they are very good, too and they would have been probably the most reasonable choice for my modest sized room, but I could not resist the Extremi...

Am I glad? Pretty much. because the present sound is by far the best I ever had, but to be honest I could not quite yet achieve the desired ultimative naturalness with acoustic music. But there's another ace coming soon!

Biz, Paulo!



Manfred

mannitheear escreveu:

... It was yet initially very imressive and meanwhile I've done some experiments with power cord polarity, ...

You've a small hole on the AC inlet wich indicates the proper polarity of the power cord. You just need a tester screwdriver to find the phase ... and then plug it in the same direction of the sign !!!

Biz Man

TD124 escreveu:

mannitheear escreveu:

... It was yet initially very imressive and meanwhile I've done some experiments with power cord polarity, ...

You've a small hole on the AC inlet wich indicates the proper polarity of the power cord. You just need a tester screwdriver to find the phase ... and then plug it in the same direction of the sign !!!

Biz Man

Yes I know because I did actually read the Manual! And I like that very much, it's convenient and pragmatic!!!

It was the phase of the enFase / anTiDac transformer which also makes a difference and the phono Pre!

My last post in this thread is shockingly over 1 year ago, the enthusiasm for the Extremi and the incredible anTiTon electronics has since become even more!

In the chain has done a lot, about the small Arno Amp I had already reported and also about the Cocktail Audio X50D Streamer and also new since then is the Enigma DAC with hybrid output stage from Antiton. In addition, the pseudo-DBA (active counter-bass) story has been refined a bit. This all sounded very good until recently, but somehow I had the feeling that there is more to it.

Digitally I had heard that a Reclocker between X50D and DAC should still bring something in the direction of analog naturalness. When recently a Mutes MC-3+ Smart Clock USB in Ebay classifieds was offered "cheaply" I struck.
In addition, I had long suspected my speaker cables to form a sonic bottleneck. Since a friend had very good experiences with VOVOX cables and was very enthusiastic about it, I ordered a Vovox Excelsus Drive for testing....
What can I say, that together is the bull's eye! The components were already a super base, but they were apparently by the digital feed and the apparently not sooo important LS cable (cables don't make a difference    downright slowed down!



For epic reports I lack the patience, but the following points have crystallized for me:

• with violin, the body is more realistic and plastic, even at low volume. Since I like to listen to early music and chamber music, this is essential
  
• the spatial presentation gains in height and depth
  
• the "space" of the recording venue becomes much more perceptible (and bigger)
  
• some small annoyances and sharpness in the upper mid and high frequencies is gone
  
• at higher volume it was sometimes minimally strained and exhausting, this is also gone
  
• at lower volumes there is more substance and more subtleties, i.e. the "usable" volume range has increased.
  

In the end, the music is reproduced more vividly, nuanced, touching and involving!
At the moment, in any case, not many wishes remain open.

   
mannitheear

The new transportable mini Can rack....

Hi Manfred,
Very nice rack

I see EnFase, but the other three boxes are what?

Hi Gonçalo

the Box right of the Enfase is the Antidac USB Dac. Below the Antidac is a Allo USBridge digital transport with Volumio software, SSD and wireless Qobuz streaming and the box below the Enfase is a transformer for Enfase and Antidac.
So I need only a power connection and Wifi access for Qobuz. If no wifi is available, the USBridge makes its own hotspot for the control via browser or app.

And Paulo promised me 2 fancy white faceplates for the 2 boxes I made myself.

Thanks

Cool, very cool

mannitheear escreveu:

The new transportable mini Can rack....

Hi man, very cool indeed ... its really a beautifull rack for your CanSystem!!!

Biz Man