One DAC To Rule Them All.... - Introducing the Kassandra from Aries Cerat

[Aries Cerat]

It was neither. Nothing but a gentle poke to Joshua, who seems to be a great sport.
It was meant to spur him into dishing out more details.
There is no law that says we cant have fun and have to be reverential. Nobody has said your stuff is junk or does not sound good...far from it.

All is well.Looking forward meeting you fine gentlemen at the CES... back to work, building the first batch of the 120kg LEs and it's a back breaker.Joshua promised to help with lifting but he is in nowhere to be found

 

[Steve Williams]

Josh, if you enter with a bang...one Dac to rule 'em all. It's encumbent upon you to show the basis of the "reign". Not for us to be ready, but rather for YOU guys to be ready to supply. Strike while the iron is hot. This is your allotted 15 mins of fame...

I am going to strongly suggest you take a deep breath and let the man talk without your constant badgering. Do you think you might be able to allow either of them to say something. As far as you constantly making jokes do you not think you might be somewhat out of line.

I maintain that the thread title was meant as an attention getter albeit with some exuberance until the usual suspects immediately drove this thread off topic. As to the chip and downsampling to 18 bits, I would be interested in allowing the man to explain the product rather than once again someone posting a picture of what' inside and as always the usual people know how the product sounds. It was nice to see my friend JackD201 posting here again. We all love the guy but Jack has made his points here before and I admire him for his honesty even though we see little of him here because of his mentioned concerns.

IMO once again this army of zealots has chosen to undermine another product without so much as one of you ever hearing it

Shame on those of you who think making jokes about a manufacturers product and telling us things about it without even hearing it. We have in the space of one week dumped on a manufacturer from Australia who was chastised for making a poorly constructed inexpensive amplifier which the reviewer felt worthy of discussing in spite of its $2500 price (where BTW some of you objected to the derision only to speak against the product in this thread), and now against the manufacturer of a new very expensive DAC, who also had a thread title that predictably brought out the politically correct police with the proclamations of "yet another $100K product"

From where I sit this is boring and divisive beyond any ill spirited jokes that you make and I am referring to each and every one of you who have made such comments.Once again would it not be prudent to hear a product first before making any comments. To do what you are doing now serves no purpose

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

120lbs/240lbs for a DAC?

What is the cost per pound?

Well that depends. Compared to the engineering level and parts costs of our competitors the word "steal" has come up a few times....

If the reference level is 240lbs and costs $82K then - $341.67 per pound.

I'm trying to figure out the "steal" part.

Naturally anything at this price point can and will be heavily scrutinized. So if it is what is then we can only provide more performance per dollar to justify it.

I wish you success Joshua, I really do! You're certainly on the right forum to try and gain exposure for this unit/brand, and I have no doubt you'll get a few sales as well. Personally however I think the product pricing is obscene, but that's just me.

Thank you Johnny Vinyl.

If you can believe this model was requested to be built and made for commercial for production as a result of its profound improvement over what is available on the market today.

Personally I would agree with you. There are much more things (or people) in my life that would benefit from just getting a reference model and saving 50k.

However, being a founding member I'm sure obscene is just another day in the life here for you...

Although my posts may have been a bit cheeky, they were in no way disrespectful nor did I trash the product. I still would like to know why this product weighs as much as it does.

 

[wisnon]

All is well.Looking forward meeting you fine gentlemen at the CES... back to work, building the first batch of the 120kg LEs and it's a back breaker.Joshua promised to help with lifting but he is in nowhere to be found

LoL

Good on you! That Josh is a sneaky character.

 

[wisnon]

I am going to strongly suggest you take a deep breath and let the man talk without your constant badgering. Do you think you might be able to allow either of them to say something. As far as you constantly making jokes do you not think you might be somewhat out of line.

I maintain that the thread title was meant as an attention getter albeit with some exuberance until the usual suspects immediately drove this thread off topic. As to the chip and downsampling to 18 bits, I would be interested in allowing the man to explain the product rather than once again someone posting a picture of what' inside and as always the usual people know how the product sounds. It was nice to see my friend JackD201 posting here again. We all love the guy but Jack has made his points here before and I admire him for his honesty even though we see little of him here because of his mentioned concerns.

IMO once again this army of zealots has chosen to undermine another product without so much as one of you ever hearing it

Shame on those of you who think making jokes about a manufacturers product and telling us things about it without even hearing it. We have in the space of one week dumped on a manufacturer from Australia who was chastised for making a poorly constructed inexpensive amplifier which the reviewer felt worthy of discussing in spite of its $2500 price (where BTW some of you objected to the derision only to speak against the product in this thread), and now against the manufacturer of a new very expensive DAC, who also had a thread title that predictably brought out the politically correct police with the proclamations of "yet another $100K product"

From where I sit this is boring and divisive beyond any ill spirited jokes that you make and I am referring to each and every one of you who have made such comments.Once again would it not be prudent to hear a product first before making any comments. To do what you are doing now serves no purpose

Are you serious?? SMDH. You are casting your net too widely and lumping everybody together. You also conflate Redgum with what's happeing here and I dont see a direct parallel.

When have I ever stopped anyone from posting here? Drove what off topic? Who more than I have asked for more details?
Josh himself is partaking of the jokes and is a good sport. Stavros has "gotten" it as well and seems to be primed to move on to give us the juicy details.
I am out of here long before I am forced to become reverential though. THAT, you can be sure of.

 

[Steve Williams]

Are you serious??

When have I ever stopped anyone from posting here? Drove what off topic? Who more than I have asked for more details?

Unbelievable! SMDH.

says you

I am not going to get into any online debates here except to say what I have. I SMDH reading your comments as well. Enough already

One last question,,,,,do you think you made these two members feel welcome or encouraged them to discuss their product

 

[Hi-FiGuy]

In that case,it is done with feedback-feedforward combination,which is not the case with the NOIS, which has neither.Again....

Well since I live in Austin and you live in Dallas why don't you round up the boys and we can meet after CES at Albert's place to put it up against anything anyone wants to bring. Then we can report back here and go back to talking about price

This!

Please report back AFTER this event takes place. Please at that time put "Update" or something in the thread tittle so I will know to check this thread again.

Thank you

 

[wisnon]

says you

I am not going to get into any online debates here except to say what I have. I SMDH reading your comments as well. Enough already

One last question,,,,,do you think you made these two members feel welcome or encouraged them to discuss their product

Most welcome. Ask them directly! I have no ill-will to them whatsoever and kept the banter light and funny.

 

[Keith_W]

Steve, time for some moderator green ink.

 

[Aries Cerat]

Although my posts may have been a bit cheeky, they were in no way disrespectful nor did I trash the product. I still would like to know why this product weighs as much as it does.

The 120Kg version of the Kassandra is a Limited Version,with the 2 out of 18 to be produced already out of the door,this is not the main version available.

Let me elaborate on JUST the weight though.

For this version we used three choke filtered capacitor banks,acting as quasi-battery energy sources. Total of 3F capacitors are fed via chokes and feeding the next filters/regulators for the 25 analog and digital PS of the converters. This solution was the quietest solution we could come up to,from 1Hz to several MHz.Batteries were excluded for various reasons.

4 separate power transformers feed everything,this was the only practical way of eliminating crossfeed of parasitic oscillations from rectifiers.

For the negative bias PSU of the tubes,we use tube rectification ,again for noise reduction.

Tube PSUs are consisted of their separate transformer, double choke filtration,xenon gas rectifiers and big film capacitors, sized 100mmD X 220mmH each.

70 local RC filters using rf chokes and polymer caps for each individual buffer-IC-PSU.This ,along with other active and passive solutions, allowed us to eliminate and cancel jitter,down to the actual IC refresh signal.

You can add the separate 16 analog reg for the four converter banks, IV transformer, and hefty output transformers, and easily reach the mentioned weight, after taking into consideration the stainless steel chassis.


My back and I wish there was way to make it smaller.

 

[Believe High Fidelity]

In the spirit of moving in the right direction lets adjourn for the day and we can pick up tomorrow with weight. Of all points listed this seems to be the most pervasive so we can discuss why they are designed as such, the steriods needed to lift them, etc...

Then we can move onto the E280F and why that is pervasive in most of the designs vs conventional tubes, and so on...

N'est ce pas?

 

[Believe High Fidelity]

The 120Kg version of the Kassandra is a Limited Version,with the 2 out of 18 to be produced already out of the door,this is not the main version available.

Let me elaborate on JUST the weight though.

For this version we used three choke filtered capacitor banks,acting as quasi-battery energy sources. Total of 3F capacitors are fed via chokes and feeding the next filters/regulators for the 25 analog and digital PS of the converters. This solution was the quietest solution we could come up to,from 1Hz to several MHz.Batteries were excluded for various reasons.

4 separate power transformers feed everything,this was the only practical way of eliminating crossfeed of parasitic oscillations from rectifiers.

For the negative bias PSU of the tubes,we use tube rectification ,again for noise reduction.

Tube PSUs are consisted of their separate transformer, double choke filtration,xenon gas rectifiers and big film capacitors, sized 100mmD X 220mmH each.

70 local RC filters using rf chokes and polymer caps for each individual buffer-IC-PSU.This ,along with other active and passive solutions, allowed us to eliminate and cancel jitter,down to the actual IC refresh signal.

You can add the separate 16 analog reg for the four converter banks, IV transformer, and hefty output transformers, and easily reach the mentioned weight, after taking into consideration the stainless steel chassis.


My back and I wish there was way to make it smaller.

Oops, never mind...you got him excited

**Important Edit - 120Lbs regular version and 240lbs SE version. I just noticed I used kg instead of lbs

 

[wisnon]

Oui, oui, mon ami!

Especially interested in the E280F discussion. i have a few mint ones I picked up in my local tube barn...Phillips SQ with the gold pins.

 

[Aries Cerat]

Oui, oui, mon ami!

Especially interested in the E280F discussion. i have a few mint ones I picked up in my local tube barn...Phillips SQ with the gold pins.

I did not liked the Philips from all E280F.Can give you couple that i have from the tests.....Siemens all the way

 

[wisnon]

I did not liked the Philips from all E280F.Can give you couple that i have from the tests.....Siemens all the way

Usually Siemens are described as clean but lifeless..however, i know design/factory etc are all big influencers of SQ.

I actually am not using them, just picked up a couple just in case.

I am much more interested in 5v rectifiers and DHTs of exceptional qualities, to use in my Dac.

BTW, the Kassandra was mentioned for several pages here a year ago (start from post 42):

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...est-DACs-today&p=295635&viewfull=1#post295635

Joel loved it!

 

[LL21]

i'll throw down and say i am intrigued.
...massive super-amp sized power supplies for a DAC? heck if i know why...but i can say my bit of reading and personal experience is that quality power affects (positively) most everything in the audio chain. With presumably insane levels of capacitance (did i read 1 Farad somewhere?! which is akin to a set of Gryphon Mephisto monos!), does this effectively become like a battery for the DAC so that there is very little interference from the wall? I recall that the guys at Living Voice essentially trucked in loads of super-batteries to power the whole system and keep it largely off the grid during the audio show.

anyway, enuf speculation since i am no techie...i am however intrigued.

I am particularly intrigued by their Reference speaker

The 120Kg version of the Kassandra is a Limited Version...Let me elaborate on JUST the weight though.

For this version we used three choke filtered capacitor banks,acting as quasi-battery energy sources. Total of 3F capacitors are fed via chokes and feeding the next filters/regulators for the 25 analog and digital PS of the converters. This solution was the quietest solution we could come up to,from 1Hz to several MHz....Tube PSUs are consisted of their separate transformer, double choke filtration,xenon gas rectifiers and big film capacitors, sized 100mmD X 220mmH each.
...

Well, i 'guessed' sort of right i suppose! Most intriguing.

When you get some time, i would love to hear more about the design/thinking behind your reference speaker as well...i have posted photos of it here having read about your Kassandra DAC.

 

[Aries Cerat]

Usually Siemens are described as clean but lifeless..however, i know design/factory etc are all big influencers of SQ.

I actually am not using them, just picked up a couple just in case.

I am much more interested in 5v rectifiers and DHTs of exceptional qualities, to use in my Dac.

BTW, the Kassandra was mentioned for several pages here a year ago (start from post 42):

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...est-DACs-today&p=295635&viewfull=1#post295635

Joel loved it!

Thank you for the link.
Maybe we could talk about DHT magic at CES.


The Siemens E280F are far the best of the bunch of E280F not only sound wise,but construction quality and consistence as well.
I will share some info.
High transconductance tubes like the E280F are usually all over the place mu-gm wise,as the slightest variation on grid pitch,and i am talking about micro scale,you have large deviation.

So ,testing a dozen of valvo tubes,dozen of Philips on my custom valve tester-tracer, i got variations up to 1V offset on curve trace,from tube to tube.Siemens were 0.1V which is something amazing and cannot believe the quality control they had back then,

Do not get me started on Philips dark and mellow sound
I will bring some with me,if we do have time at CES we can compare so you can hear "first hand"

Stavros

 

[Aries Cerat]

Well, i 'guessed' sort of right i suppose! Most intriguing.

When you get some time, i would love to hear more about the design/thinking behind your reference speaker as well...i have posted photos of it here having read about your Kassandra DAC.

Thanks
We plan on making a world first presentation of the new Contendo speaker at Munich,hopefully very soon.Our Symphonia(presented at the CES) speakers share many breakthroughs with the bigger brother.I will start a new thread about these two speakers very soon.

 

[esldude]

I am going to strongly suggest you take a deep breath and let the man talk without your constant badgering. Do you think you might be able to allow either of them to say something. As far as you constantly making jokes do you not think you might be somewhat out of line.

I maintain that the thread title was meant as an attention getter albeit with some exuberance until the usual suspects immediately drove this thread off topic. As to the chip and downsampling to 18 bits, I would be interested in allowing the man to explain the product rather than once again someone posting a picture of what' inside and as always the usual people know how the product sounds. It was nice to see my friend JackD201 posting here again. We all love the guy but Jack has made his points here before and I admire him for his honesty even though we see little of him here because of his mentioned concerns.

IMO once again this army of zealots has chosen to undermine another product without so much as one of you ever hearing it

Shame on those of you who think making jokes about a manufacturers product and telling us things about it without even hearing it. We have in the space of one week dumped on a manufacturer from Australia who was chastised for making a poorly constructed inexpensive amplifier which the reviewer felt worthy of discussing in spite of its $2500 price (where BTW some of you objected to the derision only to speak against the product in this thread), and now against the manufacturer of a new very expensive DAC, who also had a thread title that predictably brought out the politically correct police with the proclamations of "yet another $100K product"

From where I sit this is boring and divisive beyond any ill spirited jokes that you make and I am referring to each and every one of you who have made such comments.Once again would it not be prudent to hear a product first before making any comments. To do what you are doing now serves no purpose

The only posts that are shame worthy or disrespectful in this thread IMO are yours.

Yes, others have been a little cheeky. Some like myself have spoofed the high price. No one has said it sounded bad or couldn't be good and several have asked details of the device and its operation. Legit questions. When someone wades in and says, "I have the baddest of them all" about anything I think they should expect some questioning, skepticism and extra scrutiny. Of course beyond feeling they have a really great and special product they wanted to grab people's attention. Considering all the replies they have done that. As the old saying goes, no publicity is bad publicity.

If you think we should grovel prayerfully at the feet of all with a high price and a high opinion of themselves just because we haven't heard it I think your expectations are ridiculous. Many here have heard some very high quality products. You don't just step in from the blue and better those in one fell swoop by saying it is so. Nor should anyone who does get a free ride until it gets auditioned.

 

[ack]

(where BTW some of you objected to the derision only to speak against the product in this thread)

That's funny... FWIW, I hear Aries Cerat enjoys a very good reputation in Europe.