Wasn’t sure if to ask this here, in home theater or 2ch but anyone ever hear the Lyngdorf TDAI-1120?
Wowzers, had not heard of them but one hell of a pedigree, would not blink twice site unseen and unheard to grab anything from them…
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Scenario: holo dac and satie dac, with analog volume controls, suddenly stop working (ie. changing volume doesn’t work). you also don’t hear the clicks, happens on both.
So this happens very rarely, and a simple standby cycle does the trick, but I was wondering if anyone has an idea what would cause this type of malfunction. Not enough to bother me, but I find it weird.
Given that it happens to both, I assume at the same time, it’s most likely a power spike, or more likely a transient voltage drop that cause the uController that controls the relays in the volume control to crash.
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Never had them running at the same time. It was on different occasions, separately. They were connected to a pp too, if that helps (not at same time).
It’s going to be the uController crashing, that’s why power cycling it fixes it. The only question is what causes it, given you have 2 different devices that have the same issue, it’s likely external to the devices.
Power is the most obvious, but I’d be surprised if it were something at the wall of your plugged into a PP maybe the amp causing a spike on a shared ground, but thy also doesn’t seem likely.
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Would it be worth buying from the EU (Viva/ Aries Cerat or from any other brand that won’t do a voltage conversion) and use them with step up transformers. Has anyone actually tried using external transformers with amps.
My concerns are:
Safety: Going from 50 to 60hz seems to be safe from what I read?
Sonic penalty: There is mixed opinions about this in forums.
Resalability in the US: If it’s expensive gear there is a chance people don’t want to use them with voltage converters?
I think you list all of the concerns I’d have and it would be enough to scare me out of it. Going from US to a Japan component doesn’t seem as drastic and you don’t have the 50/60 Hz issue either. Also from a voltage standpoint whether rightfully to think this or not, going from 120 to 100 seems more… “appropriate” for lack of a better word.
I’ve no experience but would definitely be interested in seeing a response from anyone that does.
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I considered the same, and spoke w/ an owner of an Egoista that ran it with a step-up transformer. Hard to know the sonic impact but certainly there’s a huge resale impact. He eventually paid Viva US to have it re-wired.
Aries Cerat is a different beast. I looked at a 230V Genus and confirmed 2x that it needs to be sent back to Cyprus and the transformer reworked. One of my friends just had a AC issue and shipping was $2k+. At some point it’s too far off the deep end for me; the now back and forth w/ Poland has tested my tolerance for this sort of stuff.
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You bring up a good point that I missed. If any issues come up then there is a chance that the North American distributors won’t take care of it and then it will have to be shipped back to the manufacturer.
50-60Hz is a none issue, technically you would need more capacitor in the power supply for 50Hz, but most amp power supplies are massively overdesigned and likely the only thing the manufacturer changes between 120 and 240 is the transformer.
Sonic penalty: Who knows, it’s about the same as using an isolation transformer, some people swear by those. I have one and don’t use it.
I personally have resisted buying 230/240 gear in part because it’s hard to resell, the the AC markup in the US is enormous, so it’s very tempting for that specific brand.
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Yeah its crazy. No idea why the business model is setup this way.
AC is what triggered my post. There is a guy on HF looking to sell his Genus. Even with shipping it’s less than 50% of a new one here.
With the asterisk that all amps and preamps are different… Would there be any issue with running the volume on my Studio B wide open and using my Lampi’s volume control do the work?
It sounds better this way but not so much so that i want to push things too much with my luck.
Fwiw, I do this on my amp (not studio b) all the time. I don’t see a problem doing so as long as you’re extra cautious about it. A low quality pot sounds 
, doesn’t it… Fills me with agony.
Isn’t what you’re doing commonly called unity gain?
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Not sure, since the amplifier, well, amps so it is not keeping the same in as out. But that kind of is the idea.
More for nullifying the $20 weak link pot in the SB and having that unit act just as a full power amp.
I would love to put in a TKD pot as it is better but the ideal is a true bypass or an attenuator with a true bypass notch.
Not the same but it’s the same in principle to what I do with my BHC. I set the volume at a certain level and then just use and output from my LTA to control the volume.
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https://audiosector.com/docs/patek-amp/details
anyone with knowledge about this type of amplifier architecture or first hand experience with an Audiosector amp?
It’s just using TI chip amps, like say the Vista Audio Spark. With cute packaging.
Chip amps can sound quite good, though they aren’t likely to compete with higher end discrete solutions. Generally the quality is determined by the quality of the supporting components.
As an example, the spark sounds pretty good for it’s cost, and the component quality when you look inside the case is surprisingly high.
IIRC Danny at GR research apparently uses Chip amps in at least one of his demo systems.
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I read allot about them years ago over on AudioCircle, they are popular. Never got a chance nor had particular interest to try one though. 