I am nearly certain its still changing and I installed last thursday. Just getting slowly more and more dyanmic and tactile and a little less brittle (not like it ever was realy brittle but its filling out some)
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Stage on twelve is just so phenomenal. Smaller than the dual, but the placement, delicacy, depth, butter smooth movement, and basically everything else are just like nothing I’ve ever heard.
Also, fairly sure warmup is finaly over. Sounds just as I remember from Friday finaly.
7 Likes
So I’ve got kinda 3 main chains in house right now (see below) and found the way each reacted to the twelve fairly interesting so I figured I would talk about it.
The Chains
graph LR
Twelve --> AIC
Twelve --> Z10e
AIC ---> Susvara
AIC --> Wee[Woo Wee]
Wee --> Shang
Z10e ---> Shang
AIC → Sus
This is the chain that far and away had the largest change. TBH, I haven’t ever really considered this combo super transparent just due to how heavy handed the coloration of AIC (everything plugged into AIC kinda just sounds like AIC with slight nuance changes). Moving from the dual (and WD edition) to the twelve is honestly a pretty damn massive step up in basically every way. Tactility, stage usage, detail, texture, and especially sub-bass information (didn’t realize sub-bass was so one dimensional before the twelve tbh). The step in each of these traits, all though different in size (detail was the biggest change), was sizeable none the less.
Z10e → Shang
The changes here were the least expected (both in good and bad ways). Before twelve there were some issues with tonal density and bass tactility that are honestly just gone. Shang has none of its thinness or dryness left (which is especially weird considering dual was a solid step thicker and denser than twelve) and while its still obviously bass light, the extension being a far shout better has actually gotten me to the point where I would live with it. On those two notes the twelve upgrade was a massive success.
On the other hand though, the detail and stage presentation steps that were massive on AIC feel basically non-existent. Like it is a little, but not to the level I would be happy with the upgrade if this was my main chain and not on loan. TBH, this outcome really surprised me. Overall Shang is significantly more pleasant on this chain with the twelve and I’m quite happy with the sound overall, but the upgrade not messing with detail and stage usage/accuracy much is super weird to me tbh. Im not really sure what is holding this chain back though (as you will see in the next section)
AIC → Wee → Shang
This was the only of the three chains to change for the worse (preference wise). The stage usage/accuracy was a pretty big step up here (much much more so than Z10e but a bit less than sus) and quite welcome. Though the detail step was a bit different than what I got from the Z10E (Z10E detail step was most noticeable in the upper parts of the treble and really micro detail focused whereas the step here is very heavily texture and mid-range focused) it was larger in size bringing the wee combo a bit ahead overall in raw resolution but not by much. The issue with this change and why I say its worse is the tonal change. As I said, the dual is a bit thicker than the twelve and this makes the fact that AIC is a bit under powered for wee → shang even more apparent. Bass tactility is “fine” but certainly not up to the quality had on either of the other two chains. Further, the real lack of impact and sub-bass rumble is acutely obvious. There is also a bit of an obvious thinness to the sound that I have come to associate with underpowering the cans (that isn’t present on the much thinner overall Z10E mind you) that isn’t really to my taste, but the real annoyance is orchestral drum hits sounding like they have a cymbal overlay.
Wrap-up
Overall, the changes with twelve have been quite interested and not always expected. I think the AIC chain scaling as well as it did was probably the most unexpected part (frankly, the detail step between aic/sus and wee/shang is in spitting distance now where as it use to be massive), with the tonal issues of the Z10E chain being fixed being the second. Overall I think what this has shown me is that if I want to go shang, I will need to either move up to a more powerful amp (I am quite interested in Levante tbh, but worried about noise with sus and overall gain issues) or get a more technically capable energizer (3ES/Viva STX/T2) in house to really take advantage of the twelve.
For some quick stack ups:
Detail: Wee(shang) >= Z10e(shang) >= AIC(sus)
Preference: Z10e(shang) = AIC(sus) >> Wee(shang)
Stage width: Z10e(shang) >> Wee(shang) > AIC(sus)
Stage accuracy: AIC(sus) >= Wee(shang) >> Z10e
Frankly, the other parts of the presentation differences aren’t really worth ranking here or have already been compared above.
12 Likes
Can I have my Wee back now 
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Even at that level… My imagination cannot fathom. Following your journey was really interesting 
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If you don’t mind the questions, what’s the all in $ spend on the TD stack and I forget are you using the driver? If you are, can the driver be used independent of the DAC?
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I purchased this stack from audiogon. No drivers, but an added reclocker (streamer I’m just using as a reclocker) and the dac only has the direct output (no buffered output). All said and done it ended up right around 20k flat. Just for refrence, given what I thought I could get for dual, this was about the same that i would have paid to upgrade dual to triunity but kepts the gen1 reclocker (and love power for both). Now I didnt factor in just how many damn cables I would need for the stack when I jumped but yah…
Its absalutely wild man. Im becomming more and more convinced there just is no ceiling to be seen.
Hahaha. Im sure its not over yet. TBH even if I have 0 plans to change dacs at this point (outside of maybe stepping up to sublime at some point) there are still a lot of ones I want to hear just to play with tbh
9 Likes
My cable to do SPDIF out of P6P finally arrived. Been listening all morning (RCA coax into the streamer instead of usb from the computer) and my impressions are fairly mixed. The image seperation and texture are better (meaning detail is a little more apparent but I think is overall lower), but background is less black and eveything feels somewhat compressed. I think I distinctly prefer USB, but this is realy not the set of tradeoffs I was expecting tbh.
4 Likes
TBF you went from one noisy device to another that could potentially be noisier! No experience with the P6P but I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that thing is designed around the HP output and the digital out is a convenience feature in comparison. Cramped components in a handheld sized computer, and a noisy LCD screen are not going to help.
Noisy or not, increased seperation and worse background blackness are not things I expect to go hand in hand
1 Like
Hopefully you can return the cable!
It works as advertised so returning would feel scummy. Either way, not a bad thing to have in hand. Plus it was only like $25 anyways. Just a play around item
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Ah, I see. I was thinking you’d gone deep since lately you’ve been talking about stretch goal cables. I’ve got a bin full of $25 dollar cables but I guess that’s not an uncommon thing in the hobby.
Oh! Nah. It’s just a cheap adaptor cable to play around with. P6p was never intended to.be a main part of the chain
1 Like
The Transparent Premium AES feels like a small step up in micro detail and maybe texture but also feels more neutral than the TD offering (bass feels more detailed but less and idk how I feel about that tbh). With this being their hyper basic one and 2 of my 3 AES cables being a step down from the UP12 that this is at least the same tier as, I may actually just go for 3x of the reference to tide me over until i can jump to something up a tier.
Havent installed Berk yet, so impressions will wait until next week.
2 Likes
Notes with Berkeley Ref 2 on for 10 minutes tops (put transparent AES on Berk with just a normal USB cable, nothing fancy):
- Why does this thing get so hot? It’s significantly hotter than my amp
- Holy shit is it forward (thinking this will relax a tad with warm up?)
- Seems more detailed than twelve. Will see how that plays out as I get more time. Could just be DS VS NOS playing some tricks but I kinda don’t think so. Will also need to try the alpha USB on TD
4 Likes
Hmm, never noticed the heat, my unit is warm to the touch but not particularly hot, since it doesn’t have a power button it’s always on. Maybe this is another difference between the vs1 and 2 
Give it 24 hrs to come into it’s own but yes the signature is bold and goes nicely w/ some complimentary equipment after it. 
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Poking around, it looks like just the left side is fairly warm and it’s evening out more. Right side is room temp max and left is now cooler than a few minutes ago
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Wow. So I just wholy prefer Berk off of the TD reclocker over the Berk reclocker. Removed basicaly all of the etch that I was having issues with. Nearly gurenteed I’ll be keeping this as my second dac now.
Only downside I’m seeing right now is that it’s a little slower on bass impact (basicaly the only thing I think it beat the TD stack at) but that’s a toraly acceptable tradeoff imo
8 Likes