BTW, how do you like your GA?
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…no one tell him
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Lol… I’m very curious about the GA vs B3… 
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@Souldriver has a ton of experience with the GA… In fact, I’m sure he’ll write an article about it soon… 
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oh no… 
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Baltic 4 must be just around the corner
Yeah, it looks like theyre doing a lot of upgrades for things to get to the “Engine 11”
From my experience while the horizon preamp is awesome, it can’t really match a similarly tiered preamp, at least with my systems, but I think it could for others. Then again, I really don’t think it’s fair to compare the horizon to an amber 3 in terms of preamp quality lol
I’m personally fine with it AS LONG AS it can be effectively bypassed when wanted, otherwise then it’s a constant bottleneck in the chain if you don’t use it imo
Correct
Very
It’s an improvement enough to where I want to mod a full pot bypass on mine lol, although using a FMA preamp instead of the horizons when that comes in
You’re actually killing me inside
Really curious what that will bring, any step closer to a horizon is an easy win lol
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I want to upgrade the alps they use in the studio B so darn much. I feel like its the reason the amp feels muddier at low volume. I was looking at the tkd pots as it was in the Shiny Eyes and that was excellent at lower volumes. I would also look at stepped attenuators and see if the last step can be made “wide open”.
I tried this with the leedh digital volume on the Lumin and it is a nice step in the right direction. A lot of low level info and technicalities felt much more present. I would like to see what the GA can do.
I wont tell you about the mojo x either…
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Yeah I was sorta thinking the same thing with the stepped pots like something from khozmo, glasshouse, audio note, what have you and have the final one be basically a full bypass
I don’t even want to hear about it at this point
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SBAF has a guy selling one of these right now, the fancy shunt one and i am tempted. I just dont know if it will be best as it mentioned some impedance variation as you row through the switch and i dont like to fuck with things i dont know.
While I planned to get this together during a some vacation time, things got turned on it’s head and I did something during quarantine #1.
While it was very very nice having this one out for a day or two, as you can see it is not livable until something changes. It had to on the floor, in front of the desk sitting on the case.
Short Impressions:
The stock PSVane EL34s suck. Suck reeaaaaallll bad. I am surprised these came with the DAC as with something at this price it sounded like a sub $1k piece. The imaging, staging, and seperation were all jank. Imagine Moses parting the sea, everything in front of you is deep and clear, but those walls of water on the side are made of smeared vaseline and everything on your laterals is just greasy mush set to the width of a high school locker. They also had a weird hollowness to everything.
Luckily i bought a few sets of tubes for the GA when they popped up. Looking at other forums these were some of the favorites without going crazy rarity diving, needing an adapter, or both. Those guys have much more cash flow than me so I will let them settle whats is what with their wallets. All these were driver tube changes keeping the rectifier the stock KR 5U4G. Though I would like the RK anniversary if those can ever be found.
Gold Lion KT77s: Woof! Way better! Like holy frick thank god for these other tubes. Why these are not stock i dont know as they are current production, inexpensive, and said to be a favorite of Lukasz. Those weird side boundaries are gone and things are well spaced out and there is actual seperation. Tonality feels nice and linear from top to bottom. It is all solid, tight, and square. And the reason I liked KT77s (even before it was cool) the texture and tactility. Absolutely through the roof, the scritches, the scratches, the strain, the pieces reaching out to touch and poke you. Great holographicity™.
NOS Grey Glass GEC KT66s: This was the first holy grail tube before all the archaic and adapter needing tubes started flooding in. And tbh, it really earns its praise. Very big but nimble bodied. Euphoric and fun without missing the technicalities. Extended but sweet high end and a heavy thumping bass. Both seem to be at the limit of being too sweet or too round and loose respectively, but the KT66s keep it all withing limits to produce a high quality, high character soundscape where it could of pushed it too far and instead made a mess. Mids were thiccc but nuanced, if i was nit picky i would say it may have been a little too much for my mid bass sensitivities but this cost is well worth everything else you get. Great tubeyness that gave some spooky ethereal qualities despite the weight. I am not sure if it added more of the traditional tube influences to the Studio B or if it just enriched what was there, but if you listened to this chain only as is you would have been fooled into thinking the EC was a wet amp.
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New or already burned in, the PSVane tubes take absolutely forever to burn in, and can change quite substantially in that time? Though I haven’t tried the EL34’s specifically.
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No clue. They came with the dac which was used. The tube boxes were open so they had some time on them, i just dont know how much. While their ACME 300Bs were good when i heard them (burned in a few hours). These baseline EL34s were may e the worst tubes i heard and were detrimental to the sound.
I know they have some 6cvyalmnop tube which is an equivalent, and people like that. But i would need a try out before ever considering them.
I’ve been playing around with DAC’s the past few weeks, the end result is that it’s just a matter of synergy and preferences that wins out in the end. Quality is not what makes or breaks a system once you have reached a stage where you are intimately familiar w/ your room acoustics, equipment and preferences, in the end you need to find the final bit of synergy which simply edges out one piece over another.
My Innuous Zenith Mk3 is a great streamer BUT it only has USB output and when all is said and done my Lampizator Baltic 3 is THE DAC to use in conjunction with an FTA Callisto USB and my Vinnie Rossi L2i SE amplifier.
The Lampizator Baltic 3 in my various experiences allows for the widest, deepest, tallest, most spacious soundstage when fed via good USB and the FTA Callisto cable in comparison to various other pieces I have played with in this set-up. There is also a certain visceral richness to the sound that just works well in this room with the associated equipment. Lastly, on some tracks sounds are thrown well behind me or off to the edges of the room which when it happens is a most cool and awesome experience 
. Allot of pieces have sounded absolutely fantastic on the rack, I simply think the Lampizator/ Vinny Rossi/ Innuos combo integrates together pretty damned well.
The Innuos PhoenixNet network switch after many weeks of burn-in is finally settling down, there were maybe 2 or 3 weeks where I was getting worried I had made a mistake in purchasing the unit, an annoying grain had developed in the midrange that was perplexing and frustrating me, i gritted my teeth and forced myself to keep pushing through the incident and finally many weeks later there is clarity, deep blackness and NO granularity 
I’m sure eventually I’ll come up with a possible tweak or maybe even a substantial upgrade somewhere, I’m simply unsure currently if it’s fiscally prudent to keep messing w/ a good thing.
Things will change again eventually, for now though this is really enjoyable performance. 
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So looks like lampi updated their site recently and have realy narrowed down their offerings and I cant realy find a rhyme or reason to it
Currently for sale:
- Horizon
- Atlantic 3 TRP
- Baltic 4
- Amber 4
Retired:
- Pacific
- Golden Gate 3
- Big 7 mk 3
Kinda shocked at the GG3 and Big 7 MK3 since both are less than 6 month old and both use the newest “engine eleven”
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Where did you see that? US website or other? Th US still has them all
Interesting. Might explain the nice prices they offer for some Pacifics now… might help it drop down a bit more maybe? It’s about $3-4K over what I’d hope today (for balanced without volume control)
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Lowest I have seen balanced pacific for is ~ 12k. TBH I dont think you will see them drop below that