Ideon Absolute epsilon In The House

[Gregm]

View attachment 94904

Erik and I had set up Scaena 3.2 yesterday.

I appreciate his help a lot.

After assembly of Scaena, we had done brief comparison between Ideon and Dave.

Now the difference is substantial.

Scaena 3.2 give very wide and deep holographic images.

Ideon give more stable images and dynamics than Dave and Hms.

I usually upload the video.
But since Scaena had not been used for 3 years, I notice slight hard edges which may need break in.


Now I have to change my opinion on Ideon Absolute.

It is at least as good as MSB Select II.

Ideon give better dynamics than Select II but Select II give some analog like ease.

I suggest you add the reclocker into the system as well.
BTW, which digital filter are you using? (At the moment I'm on apodizing, linear phase)

 

[thomask]

I suggest you add the reclocker into the system as well.
BTW, which digital filter are you using? (At the moment I'm on apodizing, linear phase)

I am going to be out of town for three week next week.

Thus no more time to try reclocker.


I had used only fast phase

 

[thomask]

I had been to Audio-Ultra to return Ideon Absolute.

It would have been better to have reclocker with it.

But I enjoy my time with Ideon Absolute even without reclocker.

I expect to have chance to listen to various Dacs including Lampi Horizon at Pacific Audiofest to be held later July.


By the way, Audio-Ultra are also in the process of setting up Wadax Dac and server.

I had listened to it for 30 minutes or so.

But it blew my mind.

Now I am of the opinion that Ideon Absolute.and MSB Select II are in the same league to get 100 points.

But top Wadax combo is in another league in emotional sense, 3 D layering and dynamics.

I will give Wadax 105 or 110 points.

But top Wadax combo cost 250k$ beyond reach of most folks.

I consider saving enough money until the end of next year and go for Wadax.



But Ideon Absolute. will be good for most folks.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I had been to Ultra Audio to return Ideon Absolute.

It would have been better to have reclocker with it.

But I enjoy my time with Ideon Absolute even without reclocker.

I expect to have chance to listen to various Dacs including Lampi Horizon at Pacific Audiofest to be held later July.


By the way, Ultra Audio are also in the process of setting up Wadax Dac and server.

I had listened to it for 30 minutes or so.

But it blew my mind.

Now I am of the opinion that Ideon Absolute.and MSB Select II are in the same league to get 100 points.

But top Wadax combo is in another league in emotional sense, 3 D layering and dynamics.

I will give Wadax 105 or 110 points.

But top Wadax combo cost 250k$ beyond reach of most folks.

I consider saving enough money until the end of next year and go for Wadax.



But Ideon Absolute. will be good for most folks.

had the Wadax together with the MSB in my room. heard the complete Ideon Epsilon stack at Axpona. i know what you mean.

 

[Jeffy]

How can you give wadax 105 and never heard it in your system? This is ridiculous

 

[thomask]

How can you give wadax 105 and never heard it in your system? This is ridiculous

I heard Wadax and Ideon in the same setup at Audio-Ultra .

Thus I can witeness that Wadax is in another league althouth Ideon is pretty good.

 

[Jeffy]

Ok

 

[thomask]

had the Wadax together with the MSB in my room. heard the complete Ideon Epsilon stack at Axpona. i know what you mean.

From my 44 years of audio, I immediately noticed that Wadax is something special in digital world.

Congratulation on getting Wadax for your nice system.

 

[Audiocrack]

From my 44 years of audio, I immediately noticed that Wadax is something special in digital world.

Congratulation on getting Wadax for your nice system.

I have been around in audio for approximately 40 years and like you I have never heard a dac that is so transparent, serene, dynamic, fluid and refined as the Wadax reference. All this while I believe my reference dac is not yet fully played in.

And from my own experience with the Tidal La Assoluta loudspeakers, Kondo amplification and Tripoint grounding: add a top notch grounding cable and connect it to a top notch ‘grounding’ box and another digital dimension is being opened.

 

[matthias]

I had been to Audio-Ultra to return Ideon Absolute.

It would have been better to have reclocker with it.

But I enjoy my time with Ideon Absolute even without reclocker.

I expect to have chance to listen to various Dacs including Lampi Horizon at Pacific Audiofest to be held later July.


By the way, Audio-Ultra are also in the process of setting up Wadax Dac and server.

I had listened to it for 30 minutes or so.

But it blew my mind.

Now I am of the opinion that Ideon Absolute.and MSB Select II are in the same league to get 100 points.

But top Wadax combo is in another league in emotional sense, 3 D layering and dynamics.

I will give Wadax 105 or 110 points.

But top Wadax combo cost 250k$ beyond reach of most folks.

I consider saving enough money until the end of next year and go for Wadax.



But Ideon Absolute. will be good for most folks.

To be fair to Ideon:
Did you listen to the combo Absolute Time / DAC vs. Wadax?
if not, it might be that you get with Time the extra what Wadax brings to the party

Matt

 

[thomask]

To be fair to Ideon:
Did you listen to the combo Absolute Time / DAC vs. Wadax?
if not, it might be that you get with Time the extra what Wadax brings to the party

Matt

At Audio-Ultra, I had listened to the combo Absolute Time .

It sounds pretty nice thus I had decided to do home auditioning of Ideon.

But since i have a reclocker and no enough room for extra reclocker, i brought Ideon only.


The combo Absolute Time sounds excellent but Wadax is in another league above either MSB Select II or the combo Absolute Time.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

i think being one of the dacs (5 or 6 or more) all considered (by various groups) 2nd best to the Wadax is pretty fine company. not that we will ever have any proof of anything subjective about dac ranking. we can only observe the growing data points that seem to lead us to conclusions.

at 3x to 5x price differences between the Wadax and these others, even including adding a top streamer, these other dacs should be worried about winning the battles among themselves rather than stressing about the Wadax.

i'm not expecting the Wadax-denial pressure to fall off any time soon, but i do see that it's inevitable it will happen, as the group of sincere Wadax pursuers do their due-diligence and then relate their findings. these head to heads leave no doubt. i know i would have preferred that my MSB was up to the task, but it was not to be. i continue to recommend the MSB frequently to those who ask me. it's a great sounding dac and sound investment.

 

[caesar]

Your analogy is incorrect. As for what the guy has, he introduced me to my first horn speakers ever. They were his DIYed, many years ago, and I wondered how a horn and a midrange as transparent and as agaile as my electrostats. I later would make the connection that horn beryllium drivers like TAD and Radian have that electrostat similarity. His were TADs. I heard them with very low watt SETs, and loved the Lampi.

Yes, I agree. And I think it's awesome you were abel to meet this gentlemen. My post was more across the typical SS (yet non ladder dac) - tube type divide.

As for Ideon, I have heard it twice, and I see it more on the SS / non ladder DAC side of things.. but better than MSB, dCS, etc.

I am looking for more data points

 

[bonzo75]

As for Ideon, I have heard it twice, and I see it more on the SS / non ladder DAC side of things.. but better than MSB, dCS, etc.

MSB is quite superior to dCS

 

[Gregm]

MSB is quite superior to dCS

Usually I'm not party to such blanket statements -- but, admittedly, I had the exact same reaction when, back in the day, I compared a Select II to a TOTL dCS (don't remember the model, 3 boxes?).
My experience, my tastes, of course (and I dislike bashing products).

 

[Colekat]

…. Just chiming in … I have had some really nice DACs , systems with DACs that is … and at these prices it would be fools gold for me to not audition any of them in my own very well set up system in my own audio space . Even at the best of set ups with certain DACs in my system , they all have responded to “ tweaking “ … cables, power cords , room treatments , etc. They all have had strengths and weaknesses , but to conclude absolutely about any of them as better than any another one … I haven’t been able to do that with absolute certainty !

 

[Alrainbow]

A very honest an accurate post.
down here I bought a used pair of Maggie’s 3.6r
and I’m using an old halfler dh500 I built many years ago
Many SS dacs I think need more attention to get best then some others. im
using a Deqx hdp4 bypass two channels for now.
i need to adjust the player volume to stop piano ringing. some dacs are much more comfortable at the start
like ideon is and this makes the journey faster and more rewarding
I have a lampi trp here it’s much nicer to start with too. you can go far on SS dacs if you pay attention
some need a preamp to amp more then others.
ideon is a dac that needs less to give you more
where lampi does this to but has a tube euphoric feel fast.

 

[thomask]

During my one week auditioning of Ideon Absolute Dac, I got very favorable impression as shown in video.

It sounds stable, nice bass with no hard faults at all.

But when I had listend to top Wadax gears in the same setup as I had listened to Ideon at Audio Ultra, I realized that Wadax is something specila in another league with fulidiy and timber.


Let us face it.

How many people can afford 250k$ digital gears?

For most of the people, Ideon will be more than good enough.

The other Dac that I wish to listen to is Lampi Horizon which I expect to listen to during Pacific Audiofest.

 

[Colekat]

A very honest an accurate post.
down here I bought a used pair of Maggie’s 3.6r
and I’m using an old halfler dh500 I built many years ago
Many SS dacs I think need more attention to get best then some others. im
using a Deqx hdp4 bypass two channels for now.
i need to adjust the player volume to stop piano ringing. some dacs are much more comfortable at the start
like ideon is and this makes the journey faster and more rewarding
I have a lampi trp here it’s much nicer to start with too. you can go far on SS dacs if you pay attention
some need a preamp to amp more then others.
ideon is a dac that needs less to give you more
where lampi does this to but has a tube euphoric feel fast.

… I have a Horizon on order , will definitely seek your experience to help dial it in … I have a lot of listening with the Ypsilon hybrid DAC , both Cu winding Tformers and Au … but this will be the first tube DAC in my system .

 

[RaChiK]

...and I am astonished* by the sound! So I thought I would share the experience...

The musicians are alive, they have presence, and the instruments are real, they have size, weight, highs and lows... and the music sounds right - complete and coherent and widely dynamic.
On a side note, there is at least 1.5 extra octave in the bass and sustained, high energy. I didn't know that digital had /hid so much bass (maybe it survived the mastering police because they couldn't hear it )

Some things are probably similar to what Mike (Lavigne) experienced with the big Wadax, albeit I no longer have my Select II, so the contrast in my case is much bigger.

So far the Epsilon has only about 100 hrs on it at home but as it's the Munich 2022 piece it has accumulated some mileage already. I'll wait a while before I address speaker positioning and similar audiophiliac syndrome considerations to take over. For now, it's the music and, of course trying out native DSD

*Before I had to downsize & sell, I had reasonably good systems (Select II, Simon Yorke TT / Praedikat; Gen Vs modded by their late lamented designer; Symphonic Line, CAT, and Goldmund electronics; Valhalla cabling...) and equipment changes would bring about perceived improvements -- i.e. more resolution here, more dynamic impact and swings there, crispier presentation, etc.

The sound with the Epsilon is in a different dimension altogether.
It is also orders of magnitude better than what I heard at the Munich show -- which goes for most show conditions no doubt. Additionally the Ideon room at deLuxe was small and dwarfed by those huge speakers...

Anyway, I hope it all doesn't go away and I'll keep you posted! View attachment 95014

Looks like it is missing a box.
I did listen to Ideon with vivid and JMF amps at Axpona. I wanted to be wowed as I had preconceived love for Ideon and vivid. I was not wowed, but again, music is about subjective preference and not absolute science. I don't like companies that necessitates you to have tons of boxes to get best out of them, especially, when we all know that it needs some high quality (and often expensive) power cords. I believe that, when there are more boxes in chain, there are associated alterations (mostly good, but still not pure) in music/source. Having said that, they are built well and looks incredible too. I am glad you liked them in your system.