Had a slip up and let curiosity get the better of me yesterday. Found a good deal on a couple week old OG Susvara for $2300 and couldn’t pass it up. Haven’t owned them in a couple years and my chain has made some decent moves since then so it’ll be interesting. Got an email that the Kiwi Ears Serene was launching and I got the $20 coupon for that, so put payment through for those. Then I got an email from Kaldas Research that my custom painted Olympia is about ready and lost all control at that point and ordered a Susvara Unveiled and HE1000 WiFi. Along with the Fiio JT7, Verum 1, and Verum 2, and $800 HE1000se (2 month old set i got for a driver swap 3d print project) I ordered/received last week, I should probably settle down a little lol.
lol, you mad man!
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts between OG & Unveiled. I can see me likely picking up an OG in a few years after our move.
Hi, I use the Laiv uDAC for my TV/Spdif Connection and is lovely for TV-stereo (I’v to say, use it with external Linear PSU and sounds almost equally to his bigger brother!) - only issue:XLR-out-only.
I’ve listened to it a little while working this week, but work has been nuts and so it has had little attention. I’m going to sit down this afternoon and assess it.
I have heard that a good DDC and a good PSU elevate uDAC more than you would asdume. I can say it already sounds good. But I wish to assess it on its current state before I decide it’s a keeper and purchase an upgraded 15 V PSU.
To be honest, I’m still shook by Cyan 2. It sounded so bloody good, just too in my face. This could be the universe telling me to buy a May, but I’m going to go in with an open mind and see how I find it.
As a former Holo May KTE owner: Cyan 2 reaches already most of it, to fraction of price 
.. but KTE is outdated, compared to newer R2R …
Fitting thread to drop this in 
I smiled for a second and then realized that it’s simply a meme of my life.
The acoustic treatment adds realism, otherwise this would feel like just ridicule. lol
New stuff gets the body moving
Right there with ya! 
Like looking in a mirror…
Speaking of new stuff…
I got board of trying to find a new DAC and bought this in the meantime. Gonna fire it up over the weekend. Very busy with work today and so likely won’t get a chance.
YG Acoustics Carmel 3 received.. finish in bronce (front panel with special brushing) 
Will take some time to play in…very impressed about this small closed-box speaker…more in some weeks in the YG thread…
What did end up thinking of the SDS? There’s one for sale in the U.K. and I’m wondering if it’s worth me having a go of it but there’s barely a mention of it on SA/in the DAC trilogy articles!
It was alright, it’s been awhile, and it wasn’t that memorable to me, so I can’t say lol. I do remember that it scaled well with a better clock and psu I think, maybe sorta dcs ring dac esque design, really rough on that one sorry
Got my first mechanical keyboard a Logitech G pro 60
I only like silent key presses but this is the best ive heard by far, and the optical switch is just the way I like
The windows key died 1 day in and its not hot swappable so im going to return it to amazon and try out an iqunix 80 but im sad that I couldnt find a higher end pre built keyboard that looks as good as this one (subjective)
So I got really impatient waiting and decided to buy a DAC that may or may not be “it”. The other night on eBay a Sonnet Morpheus popped up for a very good price. I bought it and was satisfied that I was going to hear something different - though, from reading the DAC comparison trilogy, it actually sounds like the furthest thing from what I want. However, I know we don’t all things the same - from reading about Cyan 2, that should’ve been “the one”. But for some reason my ears can’t hear how well everyone else says it does depth, so I was willing to take a punt on something different to what I had previously heard as it was a bargain.
Long story short, the seller sold and then retracted the sale, twice! I was perfectly calm and satisfied that I was going play the long game and wait for the right DAC to come along up until the Sonnet debacle, but the rollercoaster of emotions I experienced in buying that Morpheus twice, even getting so far as a tracking number …it made me really impatient to resolve my current lack of a DAC.
I accelerated my searching, reading all that I could on SA and then aggregating impressions from reviews and other forums using ChatGPT, then using AI to compare options I had shortlisted. However this approach was different to previous efforts. I wasn’t investigating my ideal DACs based on my preferences from the theoretical wealth of options I could buy if budget and availability were unlimited. I was instead focussing on specific DACs for sale on the used market that I could pull the trigger on immediately if I decided to.
This was a dangerous game as it quickly became apparent that my £1k-1.5k budget was too hopeful. I kind of already knew that but this strategy was forcing me to admit that my last £500 of my £2k budget I had marked for a decent streamer was likely better spent on getting the DAC right now and that a streamer would have to come later.
I narrowed my choices down to three DACs: Wavelight, SF Processor 3 and a Pavane L3.
I went with the Pavane. I was skeptical of the P3 and how it’s performance may stack up to the other two because of it’s age, I was concerned about reliability - plus, it was the most expensive out of the three, pushing me a good few hundred pounds over my new stretch budget of £2k. Although I thought the Wavelight was a good buy and I could probably move it on the most easily out of the three, from reading impressions, it’s signature is supposedly more forward and that was something I was looking to stay away from after my experience with the otherwise perfect Cyan 2.
From all the impressions I read, apart from Mon’s, the Pavane sounded like it came closest to my requirements, though I don’t think I could’ve gone wrong with any of these three. I’m fairly sure that my downstream chain is a bottleneck now for the Pavane, which is funny considering all of this effort I have gone to to find a DAC that synergises with it and meets my sonic requirements.
Well, it arrived today. I’ve been away with work for a few days and have quickly plugged it in to get it warmed up. I won’t pass judgement until the 48 hour mark but hopefully I’ll get a little listening time during work tomorrow. I’ve got it plumbed in via coax. I’m aware that this sounds it’s best via I2S over ethernet so I must find a half decent cable and replace the USB board with the RJ/E one.
Question, which DAC would you all have bought? We have different chains and preferences, but just as a fun aside, I’d be curious to know which of the three venerable DACs you’d pick and why.
Got the Kaldas Olympias in today. These things are fucking nice. Crazy good build quality and the tuning is actually really really neutral and normal instead of straight wonky like most estats. Need to give them some more time, but so far I’m super impressed.
Try these 2 tracks for soundstage depth;
Bubbles. Yoshi Horikawa. There will be balls popping. Lots of left to right and forward back movements. Again, the depth and extreme separation are there. Things should be sharp and pop out at you.
Traust, Heilung. The first 60 seconds, you should be able to place the ringing chime in various locations behind the speaker, off to the sides, center and deep, center and forward, after the vocals come in see how far back in the soundstage you can place the voices. When the bass kicks in it should be high up and way back in the stage. High up though above the speaker plane. It’s all there, the depth. Take your time and don’t rush through.
