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

[adamaley]

Btw, how come there is no love for the Western Electric 275A output tubes? Seeing as folks are willing to splurge on the likes of Tak 300B and EAT 300bs.

@Sfox7076 Do you still use it with your Lampi? If so, which Lampizator is it, and can you give some impressions?

 

[bonzo75]

Btw, how come there is no love for the Western Electric 275A output tubes? Seeing as folks are willing to splurge on the likes of Tak 300B and EAT 300bs.

@Sfox7076 Do you still use it with your Lampi? If so, which Lampizator is it, and can you give some impressions?

That's a rectifier?

 

[dminches]

That's a rectifier?

No, the 275A is an output tube. I haven’t tried them with my Pacific yet. I didn’t like them with my Big 7 MKII.

 

[adamaley]

274A/B are rectifiers. 275A is an output tube. They are quite spendy, of course, but it'll be interesting to know where they stack up. @dminches, I am sure you will do the needful once everything settles down in your system;-)

 

[christoph]

No, the 275A is an output tube. I haven’t tried them with my Pacific yet. I didn’t like them with my Big 7 MKII.

After you have them anyways, you should definitely give them a try
And report afterwards

 

[dminches]

After you have them anyways, you should definitely give them a try
And report afterwards

I certainly will.

 

[dminches]

Right now my favorite combination is RD27AS/Tak 274B.

That could easily change but my weekend listening was split between the RD27AS and the Tak 300Bs and the former was preferred.

 

[moby2004]

Sorry to jump in as i also don’t have VC in Pac - high gain on all tubes and using it for months with Tesla RD27AS

I am jumping in as well as I have a Pac with no VC and a low gain/high gain switch.
I prefer the high gain switch as it is giving more dynamics and bloom in my speakers setup. With my headphones slight advantage for the high gain level as well but much less difference.
However depending on your downstream gear you can have some digital clipping issue with the KR242 tube / high gain switch so I would advise you to ask Lampizator to fine tune the Output level to accommodate the high gain output level with this particular tube. ( I don’t know if this is doable actually but I guess so. You don’t have the flexibility of the VC but like you I prefer avoiding an additional VC)

Alex

 

[Alrainbow]

If you don’t have a vol control I. Dac. Use the voltage control in playback software. J River is very good as is hq player
Sadly Roon is horrible. The point is I’m software it allows to back off just enough to stop digital ring and keep dynamics

 

[moby2004]

Unfortunately I am using Roon but yes will probably try the Roon/hq player combo as it is now possible to use this combo in my server ( Extreme)

 

[Alrainbow]

Good I love Roon but it’s vol control kills things the combo of Roon to hq player works great and gives you the vol control enjoy and post how you feel. This helps all of us along. There are many do, s and don’t , s. Issue is not all are true. post all ty

 

[Tuckia]

Reading here today reminded me to experiment with the gain switches. I’ve had them set to the low gain (attenuated) position for the last 6 months. Now that the system changes have ended it was time to try the small things. I’ve settled on the RK PX25 for some time so am familiar with them.

I pulled the copper cover off, reinserted the tubes, powered up. First off I didn’t note any distortion or other high gain type anomolies. Just sounded like the volume control was turned up. Dynamics were similar. But it did sound worse. A bit worse. The sound was unfocused and somewhat hollowed-out and reverberant. I speculated the cover was the culprit and this proved true. The cover is heavy and well damped on the bottom side. Reinserted, the sound improved per normal. A good demonstration of how the environment can degrade the sound and the importance of isolation. Sound levels were less than 70 dB for this testing.

But the high gain position requires a lower volume attenuator setting. This preamp needs to run at a higher setting to function as the sound will collapse if just cracked off of idle. So back to the low gain setting. Higher efficiency speakers don’t help in this scenario.

Back to isolation of a different kind. Leaving the cover off is one thing, support is another. Currently I run DiDs (Daedalus Isolation Devices) under all equipment The only component that hasn’t responded to these is the CX used as a server only. I made my equipment rack out of a 2x4 and a pile of dowels 35 years ago. I‘m kind of thinking it may be time to retire this relic. What makes a suitable base for a Pacific? The server is the only other component supported by this 2x4 antique. Thanks in advance for any suggestion.

 

[howiebrou]

What gain setting do you use on your Pacific and on which tube?

I have never opened it up but I gather it is set to high by default. I am using Tesla RD27AS with a 596 Recti but I also like the Psvane 274B recti and the RK KR PX25 tubes.

 

[Golum]

Reading here today reminded me to experiment with the gain switches. I’ve had them set to the low gain (attenuated) position for the last 6 months. Now that the system changes have ended it was time to try the small things. I’ve settled on the RK PX25 for some time so am familiar with them.

I pulled the copper cover off, reinserted the tubes, powered up. First off I didn’t note any distortion or other high gain type anomolies. Just sounded like the volume control was turned up. Dynamics were similar. But it did sound worse. A bit worse. The sound was unfocused and somewhat hollowed-out and reverberant. I speculated the cover was the culprit and this proved true. The cover is heavy and well damped on the bottom side. Reinserted, the sound improved per normal. A good demonstration of how the environment can degrade the sound and the importance of isolation. Sound levels were less than 70 dB for this testing.

But the high gain position requires a lower volume attenuator setting. This preamp needs to run at a higher setting to function as the sound will collapse if just cracked off of idle. So back to the low gain setting. Higher efficiency speakers don’t help in this scenario.

Back to isolation of a different kind. Leaving the cover off is one thing, support is another. Currently I run DiDs (Daedalus Isolation Devices) under all equipment The only component that hasn’t responded to these is the CX used as a server only. I made my equipment rack out of a 2x4 and a pile of dowels 35 years ago. I‘m kind of thinking it may be time to retire this relic. What makes a suitable base for a Pacific? The server is the only other component supported by this 2x4 antique. Thanks in advance for any suggestion.

As my rack is good old Finite elemente spider, Pac is sitting on Ceraballs as per picture while entire rack is on Cerabase so i would assume its nicelly isolated.
But also i would say all tube gear responds very nicely to proper isolation.

 

[Golum]

Right now my favorite combination is RD27AS/Tak 274B.

That could easily change but my weekend listening was split between the RD27AS and the Tak 300Bs and the former was preferred.

Glad to hear you like RD. I don’t have Taka recti but with WE274b indeed is a kick a.s combo.

 

[Golum]

Thank you, Golum. Maybe you can try the low gain setting with 242 tubes and let us know if you hear any difference?

Actually when i received Pac factory setting was on low gain so i did listen in this position for months as i was lazy to pull the cover off and i did use 242/25 non stop. Later i moved to high gain setting and i prefered it more but to define now the diff i honestly can’t. Sorry

 

[Golum]

It is surprising that my Pacific doesn’t have a gain switch or is it hidden somewhere?

David all non VC units have them and they are inside at the back of the unit at the edge of the board where the tubes are. There are two switches.
You can easily check also the output V via tech sheet as the values for the high/low gain V are written on the bottom of the first page.
And yeah its meant to be used

 

[Alrainbow]

Reading here today reminded me to experiment with the gain switches. I’ve had them set to the low gain (attenuated) position for the last 6 months. Now that the system changes have ended it was time to try the small things. I’ve settled on the RK PX25 for some time so am familiar with them.

I pulled the copper cover off, reinserted the tubes, powered up. First off I didn’t note any distortion or other high gain type anomolies. Just sounded like the volume control was turned up. Dynamics were similar. But it did sound worse. A bit worse. The sound was unfocused and somewhat hollowed-out and reverberant. I speculated the cover was the culprit and this proved true. The cover is heavy and well damped on the bottom side. Reinserted, the sound improved per normal. A good demonstration of how the environment can degrade the sound and the importance of isolation. Sound levels were less than 70 dB for this testing.

But the high gain position requires a lower volume attenuator setting. This preamp needs to run at a higher setting to function as the sound will collapse if just cracked off of idle. So back to the low gain setting. Higher efficiency speakers don’t help in this scenario.

Back to isolation of a different kind. Leaving the cover off is one thing, support is another. Currently I run DiDs (Daedalus Isolation Devices) under all equipment The only component that hasn’t responded to these is the CX used as a server only. I made my equipment rack out of a 2x4 and a pile of dowels 35 years ago. I‘m kind of thinking it may be time to retire this relic. What makes a suitable base for a Pacific? The server is the only other component supported by this 2x4 antique. Thanks in advance for any suggestion.

If you can leave sws on high and Lower volume on player to maintain sweet spot on preamp
Post results then I’m interested in the results.

 

[christoph]

Right now my favorite combination is RD27AS/Tak 274B.

According to some, this must be an awesome combo

That could easily change but my weekend listening was split between the RD27AS and the Tak 300Bs and the former was preferred.

After I know and love the second combo, the first one must really be very special

 

[christoph]

I wish a gain switch is hidden somewhere inside my GG2. But it is not. Rather annoying for a 15K piece of kit.

Lampizator has extremely generous trade-up policies
Maybe this is a sign for you to go Pacific