adding the Lampizator SE GG to the Trinity dac

[adyc]

Why is the fabric not stretched? There are a quite few wrinkles. Is there some special reason to do that?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike, have you tried the 300bs yet? I prefer the 101d replicas you are using on orchestral, for detail, dynamics, and stage, but they are a bit rougher for vocals and chamber where 300b (or 45s might sound better).

The GG takes a while to get going because of the caps in the supply (possibly even 6 months )

At the levels you play at, you need to get the WE original 274b, 101d, and 300b

I do have a set of the Psvane WE 300b replicas sitting unused so far, waiting for break in to reach a plateau after 500 hours (where it's said the changes start to come slower) where I can then judge what tubes I most like. as I'm a guy who typically chooses linearity first, and mostly avoids colorations, I expect the 101d's will be my long term choice, but I'm open to wherever my ears lead me. and tastes can change to what moves you. I think 300b's have to considered for a product like this.

I would say that vocals and chamber music are stunning with the 101d's.....but that is relative to my previous references from the dsd files. maybe the 300b's will give me a new reference.

once I find the 'presentation' I prefer I may do the big boy 'for real' WE's. I've thought about it, but I've likely got to take a deep breath and just enjoy what I've got for a while.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

The following statement is praise & complimentary; said in advance in case someone tries to twist the good intentions:

Are you truly one person that is getting all these components set-up properly & evaluated, or do you split into 3 or more people when alone with your equipment?

zz.

trust me; I did not plan all these things happening all at once.

I ordered the new preamp almost 2 years ago, and paid for it in full 13 months ago, September 18th 2014.

the 2 tone arm enhancements I ordered back in June.

I've been working on the room tuning with treatments in earnest since March of this year.

I've had a desire to find better/the best digital performance for about a year or so, and so that has just been percolating along independent of my preamp, room and tone arm thinking.

I purchased the Trinity in early August, and started the process to get the server built then. and I ordered the GG in mid August.

it just so happened that the tonearm upgrades finally happened last Saturday, the preamp arrived (or rather I drove to Portland to meet the delivery truck at the distributors home) on Monday, and while I have had the GG for 2 weeks, I had not posted about it because I wanted to first make sure it was a keeper, and that did not come to me until late this week.

set-up on the preamp is nothing, Herve set up both phono pre's for my cartridges before it left the factory in Switzerland, and it replaced the same size chassis in the same place.

the tone arm builder/designer installed those upgrades himself.

as far as the digital, any set-up issues are behind me except for the tube issue and break-in.

the room tuning is an ongoing process which is pretty much at, or nearly at, the end of the road.

it is crazy how all this stuff all of a sudden happened. I had not changed anything in my system for 3 years, and kept the same brands amp/preamp/digital/speakers for 8 years.....tonearm for 7 years. same cartridge for 3 years, same tape decks and output electronics for 7 years.

so lots of change is not typical for me.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Mike, can I ask what the small Dartzeel box is on the bottom shelf under the GG?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Bravo Mike! - but perhaps you should have taken a full month off to drt up and listen to the new equipment. Did you have any special reason to buy the SE GG, not the balanced one?

yes; turns out one week has not been enough time to sort through all the issues.....but I'm not complaining....I'm loving every minute of it!

yes; as Adam mentioned, one big reason for the SE version is the dart pre is mostly SE; I'm using the one XLR on the dart pre for the Trinity which is a balance design and only outputs XLR. the new dart pre no longer uses a transformer for it's XLR input or output and it sounds great.....as good as the SE inputs.

but there are other reasons for me preferring the SE version. it's $4000 cheaper to begin with. and if I did want to buy a set of big boy 'real deal' WE tubes.....it would be 'only' $10k for the SE set of 2 instead of $20k for a set of 4.

but also I'm of the belief that SE circuits sound better generally.....assuming a great preamp and a system with lots of dynamic energy and.....super low noise floor. there is simply less 'stuff' in the signal path and it's simpler.

I think that SE circuits 'can have' more nuance and subtlety. are those things true about the GG SE compared to Balanced? I have no idea.

add it all up and SE seemed right for me.

I absolutely 'get' the attraction of the Balanced GG with it's more weight and authoritative presentation, and better ability to drive an amplifier directly. those are simply not needs for me. I got the preamp of my dreams and all the weight and authority in my system already.

 

[Steve Williams]

Mike

Careful with those tubes cuz it can be like playing the slots. Sooner or later (hopefully much later) you turn on your system and a tube can go. You only pray it ain't one of those WE

I also agree with you about SE vs balanced.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike, can I ask what the small Dartzeel box is on the bottom shelf under the GG?

it's the new charging box/power supply. the old one was 'just a bare aluminum box' which I had under the big rack in the back out of sight. the new one is so pretty it deserves to be seen. right now I've got a nice Absolute Fidelity power cord on it, but it really does not need any great power cord since the preamp is always running on the battery, worst case the battery would act as a buffer even if it was discharged. so the quality of the power fed to the battery for charging is not relevant to the performance.

 

[zztop7]

Tubes

I do have a set of the Psvane WE 300b replicas sitting unused so far, waiting for break in to reach a plateau after 500 hours (where it's said the changes start to come slower) where I can then judge what tubes I most like. as I'm a guy who typically chooses linearity first, and mostly avoids colorations, I expect the 101d's will be my long term choice, but I'm open to wherever my ears lead me. and tastes can change to what moves you. I think 300b's have to considered for a product like this.

I would say that vocals and chamber music are stunning with the 101d's.....but that is relative to my previous references from the dsd files. maybe the 300b's will give me a new reference.

once I find the 'presentation' I prefer I may do the big boy 'for real' WE's. I've thought about it, but I've likely got to take a deep breath and just enjoy what I've got for a while.

If you get near Edmonds, let me know in advance. You can stop by & borrow:
300Bs - grid or carbon or both
2A3s
etc.
PM me for the phone #
zz.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Congrats! Does your GG have PCM? If have PCM, how does it compare to Trinity?

no, my GG is dsd only. so anything I say about the level of PCM playback would just be a guess. I did briefly hear PCM on Bruce's Bal GG in his studio a few weeks ago. it certainly sounded quite good, but it's an unfamiliar system and unfamiliar recording. I also heard PCM on the Bal GG at RMAF. again; sounded quite good.

GG definitely needs break in. The sound is ordinary The first day I got GG. However, it improves tremendously when the capacitors start breaking in.

no doubt. it has beauty and tone from the beginning but the detail, openness, and agility/speed take time. it's a bit opaque and then.......it's not.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Why is the fabric not stretched? There are a quite few wrinkles. Is there some special reason to do that?

the intention of the fabric is to knock down high frequency hash that is changing the tonal balance as well as obscuring detail. my room is extremely 'lively' sounding with all the hardwood, diffusion, and the wood floor in the front third of the room. the ceiling is also hardwood. most added room treatments change tonality (absorb) by adding soft mass of some sort. my goal is to not absorb much. the fabric against the wall eliminates that reflectivity but does not absorb much lower frequencies.....as long as it is on the surface of the wall. if it hangs out and air is behind it then it acts like a curtain and really muffles everything.

the wrinkles are not intentional, they are simply the type of fabric used. that particular fabric is what was used for the bass traps in the room and matched the other fabric. as bass trap covering, they were stretched around a frame and covered fiberglass and the trap chambers.

my intention once I know exactly where I want the fabric is to have a professional come in with the proper product and have it installed right. but I'm not yet done with my experimentation; although it seems it is very close.

I've made great progress on the performance, and only spent maybe 300-400 so far in materials. so it's appearance is somewhat secondary for now.

 

[Audiocrack]

Glad that you are starting to like what you hear with the GG dac lately Mike. As mentioned in our private mails, the GG needs a lot of breaking in time before it starts to shine. Be prepared that it will get clearly better the next 300-400 hours of playing. And although the steps seem to get smaller, the next two-three weeks of playing in the end will be very important as well.

After breaking in the performance of the GG can be (dramatically) improved by:
a. Using a top notch ic between it and the preamp. In my case the Taralabs GM evolution demonstrates eg how much details the GG can dig up.
b. Using good supporting feet. As Bonzo and Audiophile Bill I like what three Shun Mook ultra's are doing.
c. Magnetic decoupling ( in my case Accurion/Halcyonics micro 40 units).
d. Grounding the GG ( in my case with a Tripoint Troy se).
e. Using a top quality grounding cable ( in my case a Tripoint Thor se).

All these steps but in particular all these steps combined contribute significantly to sound quality produced by the GG: lower noisefloor, better info retrieval, better (perceived) dynamics, more smoothness in the sound, better transparency etc.

So enjoy your GG ride as there is undoubtedly still quite a lot to discover.

 

[bonzo75]

Hi AC, I was chatting with Bill Ying of shun mook (he is very responsive on email) and he said that the resonators have changed a lot over the years and he has added more weight and changed the size of the diamond tip.

The other thing is I recently bought a shun mook rca. Greg baron of UHA tape deck fame had mentioned in a post on this forum that he preferred it to a 18k RCA he had. I initially found the RCa weird but then realized it was more natural than the others I have been trying. It has excellent timbre, more realism. On details it will be moderate and won't have SOTA bass. But once I locked on to the realism, I can't now add in others I have demoed which include some of most expensive brands, even if they were gifted to me free. It is made from original western electric cables, looks messy, and comes only in 7 and 14 feet lengths

 

[Audiocrack]

Hi AC, I was chatting with Bill Ying of shun mook (he is very responsive on email) and he said that the resonators have changed a lot over the years and he has added more weight and changed the size of the diamond tip.

The other thing is I recently bought a shun mook rca. Greg baron of UHA tape deck fame had mentioned in a post on this forum that he preferred it to a 18k RCA he had. I initially found the RCa weird but then realized it was more natural than the others I have been trying. It has excellent timbre, more realism. On details it will be moderate and won't have SOTA bass. But once I locked on to the realism, I can't now add in others I have demoed which include some of most expensive brands, even if they were gifted to me free. It is made from original western electric cables, looks messy, and comes only in 7 and 14 feet lengths

Interesting Bonzo. All my Shun Mook items are at least 5 years old so I have no experiences with Billy Yings latest modifications (clever businessman as he is). Coincidently I spoke with Greg last week. Wanted to investigate the idea of adding a tape deck to my systems - I am somewhat hesitant given the heavy investment this requires in good hardware and soft ware - and we talke about SM as well. Greg is really fond of what the SM items are doing sonically fot his tape decks.

 

[bonzo75]

Greg's shun mook mods are legendary http://unitedhomeaudio.com/shun_mook_for_the_uha_tape_d.htm

If you have 5 years you should be fine. I was talking more like 15 years. I had asked Bill because I was eyeing an old set in the used market, and, he said they are damn good but yes, things have changed since.

Anyway, back to Mike's GG

 

[spiritofmusic]

no, my GG is dsd only. so anything I say about the level of PCM playback would just be a guess. I did briefly hear PCM on Bruce's Bal GG in his studio a few weeks ago. it certainly sounded quite good, but it's an unfamiliar system and unfamiliar recording. I also heard PCM on the Bal GG at RMAF. again; sounded quite good.



no doubt. it has beauty and tone from the beginning but the detail, openness, and agility/speed take time. it's a bit opaque and then.......it's not.

Please tell me what I'm missing.
First, Elberoth aquires a GG and Trinity DACs
Then Audiocrack.
Now Mike.
Three top guys, running two purported SOTA DACs, one Euros 40k, the other Euros 15k-20k.
One for DSD, one PCM.
Are we saying a SOTA DAC can only do one or the other and therefore if you want to run multiple native formats, one must run multiple DACs?

 

[Audiocrack]

Please tell me what I'm missing.
First, Elberoth aquires a GG and Trinity DACs
Then Audiocrack.
Now Mike.
Three top guys, running two purported SOTA DACs, one Euros 40k, the other Euros 15k-20k.
One for DSD, one PCM.
Are we saying a SOTA DAC can only do one or the other and therefore if you want to run multiple native formats, one must run multiple DACs?

I do not know the answer to your question but my reasoning was the following: I was the first of the WBF members to buy a Trinity dac and after that a Trinity server because it is by far the best pcm reply I have come across so far. But I also wanted to be able to play dsd files in their native mode: Wisnon brought me in contact with Lukasz and I am happy he did because I like very much what the GG is doing with dsd (not so much with pcm but apparently the new pcm application of the GG is much better). I have not even experienced dsd 256 yet in my Tidal LA set up because the dsd 256 application in my GG needs to be fixed. Have not heard eg the Nadac dac which apparently is also very good (see David's review in positive-feedback) so maybe there are dsd dacs out there that can actually compete with the GG but I have not yet heard any of those if they really do exist. So in short, I have not yet discovered a dac that can play dsd and pcm at state of the art levels.

 

[bonzo75]

Please tell me what I'm missing.
First, Elberoth aquires a GG and Trinity DACs
Then Audiocrack.
Now Mike.
Three top guys, running two purported SOTA DACs, one Euros 40k, the other Euros 15k-20k.
One for DSD, one PCM.
Are we saying a SOTA DAC can only do one or the other and therefore if you want to run multiple native formats, one must run multiple DACs?

Mike, why don't you, after your DSD settles down, go to Bruce's place and let us know how native DSD compares to native PCM? Or take your Trinity along.

SOM, don't forget to add the Turntables they already have, and the R2R decks that they have as well or will get. AC also has two sets of speakers. That is how the hobby works.

AL Rainbow has Lampi PCM and MSB stack as well.

Btw, my comparison reports with SOTA CD players were PCM only.

 

[wisnon]

I do have a set of the Psvane WE 300b replicas sitting unused so far, waiting for break in to reach a plateau after 500 hours (where it's said the changes start to come slower) where I can then judge what tubes I most like. as I'm a guy who typically chooses linearity first, and mostly avoids colorations, I expect the 101d's will be my long term choice, but I'm open to wherever my ears lead me. and tastes can change to what moves you. I think 300b's have to considered for a product like this.

I would say that vocals and chamber music are stunning with the 101d's.....but that is relative to my previous references from the dsd files. maybe the 300b's will give me a new reference.

once I find the 'presentation' I prefer I may do the big boy 'for real' WE's. I've thought about it, but I've likely got to take a deep breath and just enjoy what I've got for a while.

Wise move Mike.

 

[wisnon]

yes; turns out one week has not been enough time to sort through all the issues.....but I'm not complaining....I'm loving every minute of it!

yes; as Adam mentioned, one big reason for the SE version is the dart pre is mostly SE; I'm using the one XLR on the dart pre for the Trinity which is a balance design and only outputs XLR. the new dart pre no longer uses a transformer for it's XLR input or output and it sounds great.....as good as the SE inputs.

but there are other reasons for me preferring the SE version. it's $4000 cheaper to begin with. and if I did want to buy a set of big boy 'real deal' WE tubes.....it would be 'only' $10k for the SE set of 2 instead of $20k for a set of 4.

but also I'm of the belief that SE circuits sound better generally.....assuming a great preamp and a system with lots of dynamic energy and.....super low noise floor. there is simply less 'stuff' in the signal path and it's simpler.

I think that SE circuits 'can have' more nuance and subtlety. are those things true about the GG SE compared to Balanced? I have no idea.

add it all up and SE seemed right for me.

I absolutely 'get' the attraction of the Balanced GG with it's more weight and authoritative presentation, and better ability to drive an amplifier directly. those are simply not needs for me. I got the preamp of my dreams and all the weight and authority in my system already.

Vintage 101ds need not be so expensive Mike:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pair-of-STC...hash=item463331da20:m:mU0aMTSmxyHjKpTiWVajO5Q

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2PC-NOS-Wes...498663?hash=item2c80be0867:g:S-oAAOxyBvZTToU8

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Western-Ele...114309?hash=item1a07821145:g:uUcAAOSwy4hUTY2t
http://tubeworldexpress.com/collect...s/300b-western-electric-used-good-1988-1-pair

http://tubeworldexpress.com/products/copy-of-101f-st-shape-western-electric-nos-1953-1955

http://tubeworldexpress.com/products/copy-of-101f-st-shape-western-electric-nos-1953-1955
and

http://www.ebay.com/itm/One-SUPER-R...197331?hash=item2ee3f85113:g:oF0AAOSwd0BVsAEV

I recall a batch of moderately strong WE 101d pairs going for $800 6months ago and a few Lampi guys picked some up.

Oh and Brent Jessee is always reliable: http://www.audiotubes.com/audtube.htm
300B Western Electric.

NOS test, in original box. ORIGINAL W-E STOCK, THIS IS NOT A REISSUE! Grab a real W-E 300B while you can, and see for yourself why this tube is legendary! These test close enough to be used as a matched pair. These have the yellow label on blackbase, 7552 and 6839 date codes indicating 1975 and 1968, and carefully tested with results confirmed at NOS levels (very close to each other also), fully guaranteed. Tested on our Western Electric KS-15874-L2 cardmatic tester using the correct 300B test card. No Mickey Mouse substitute tube testing done with these rare tubes! These tubes have bright shiny getters, not cloudy; the base is tight with no rattles, the glass clear with no white flakes inside and no discoloration at the tops. The 300B that all others are measured by, and possibly the most sought after new old stock tube in the world. A rare opportunity to try one or to get a spare if you have a set of these fine tubes. Shipped worldwide by insured UPS with premium packing service only. Priced per single tube.

$2999.00

2 single tubes

 

[wisnon]

Mike

Careful with those tubes cuz it can be like playing the slots. Sooner or later (hopefully much later) you turn on your system and a tube can go. You only pray it ain't one of those WE

I also agree with you about SE vs balanced.

In a Dac, the tubes run at Preamp power levels, like 10% of rated capacity. The tubes should last for 20 years or so, if they are in great shape to start with. Remember, a Dac is not equivalent to a power amp.