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In the Forum: Didital Things
In the Thread: The LavryBlack DA11 Stereo DA Converter
Post Subject: Just headphone listening so farPosted by Antonio J. on: 5/2/2009
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I'm still in a burn-in phase. I'm having little time these days for some serious listening with loudspeakers, and the unit must have about 30 hours playing time. I have the DA-11 hooked to a headphone amplifier and I'm using different cans. As a transport I'm using an old Sony CD-X707-ES. One of the things that I've found more interesting at this point is that the DA-11 seems less sensitive to the transport quality and the type of digital link used. But nothing really conclusive yet. I'd say the Bidat sounds worse when using that Sony as a transport, and switching from coax input to toslink input has a clear impact in sound, while on the DA-11 that's way less noticeable. Better jitter rejection? What do I know!?

I agree that bass is very good, both in tone and extension. Also it doesn't have all the ultradetail and "airy" annoyances that I've found on most upsampling DACs, specially on voices. The DA-11 sounds very natural to me. However when listening just switched on, it sounds horrible. It needs about 30-40 minutes to settle down and start delivering the goods.
Spatial information seems to be one of its strong points despite I find the width adjustment quite useless, even using headphones. When widening the stage it removes energy forom the center, so anything placed there sounds recessed, very unnaturally recessed, while the image extremes get too energized. When narrowing the stage, everything moves to the center, which gets congested. At 0 sound is OK, but you're left wondering if the sense of space and instruments separation is what was recorded or still some fake processing the unit does. That's one of the things I'll need to assess using speakers.

Can't say much more. In some days or weeks, once I have the time and the unit is burnt-in for 100 hours in the least, I'll listen to it with the speakers so I'll know a few more things.

Rgrds.

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