Location: SE London
Posts: 135
I'm Oliver.
Just ordered a SEG, can't wait to hear it versus my Caiman 2
I'm unusually late coming in for one of these, please tell me how much better it is than the Caiman 2 that I currently have?
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Audio Analogue Pucinni SE
B&W DM607 s2
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Location: Royston Vasey
Posts: 217
I'm AndrewR.
Location: Oxford
Posts: 195
I'm Andy.
It's not that simple, and I can't give you a definitive answer (IMHO obviously) quite yet.
I have the GFU and the SEG and if I only wanted a DAC and didn't want to spend more on a decent power supply for it I'd just keep the GFU, which is excellent. However I wanted to use it as a preamp and headphone amp also, and the GFU isn't brilliant at those tasks. With HD800 (admittedly one of the most demanding headphones on the market) the GFU sounds tight, constrained and somewhat head-ache inducing. It has more bass than the SFW3 it started life as (and is better as a DAC), but it struggles more when driving headphones now. When used as a preamp the low-level channel balance on the volume pot caused problems with the power amps I had at the time. I also got a ground-loop type hum with some amps. If I used a Tisbury passive preamp with the GFU then those issues went away and the combo was superb. That of course meant I also needed a better headphone amp to run off the Tisbury tape outputs, so I was then up to three boxes requiring more shelf space. There was nothing wrong with that combo sonically (I enjoyed it a lot), but it looked messy.
So I decided to simplify the system and bought the SEG, assuming it would be the best of all worlds. It is - and it isn't. Using the supplied SMPS, or any of the other cheap SMPS or linear supplies I had to hand when I first bought it, it actually sounded worse than the GFU using the same PSU. The headphone output was easier to listen to, and the volume control was much better, but the overall sound quality of the DAC suffered enough that it was a trade-off I wasn't willing to make. The SEG therefore gathered dust and the GFU came back into the system. However since then I've tried it again with various PSU that i found, this time including a linear wall-wart from a Netgear router. That actually proved to be very listenable, sounding good as a DAC and also good as a headphone amp. Having renewed my curiosity I decided to try a really good LPSU with it to see what it could do and ordered a Longdog Audio high-current 12v unit. I went with 12v because if the experiment failed I had various other devices I could use it on (router, switch, NAS, headphone amp etc). First 5 days monitoring with headphones were promising but slightly tight and bass light. As the SEG comsumes so little power I wondered how long the burn-in process would take so I left the PSU powering a tube headphone amp instead for a few days, which got the output module warm at least. I tried it on the SEG again yesterday and now there was copious bass through the HD800, but slightly bloated and indistinct. Still, change is good so I've left it feeding the tube amp again and will have to see how it sounds tonight. I really want this to work, but the HD800 are seriously fussy. I have my fingers crossed.
From my point of view, if the SEG matches or betters the GFU as a straight DAC (when powered properly) then I'll be happy, and if the headphone output and volume control both improve over the GFU (which they already have done) then I'm sorted. But it's not an unconditional recommendation for the SEG. I believe (and Stan will have to correct me if I'm wrong) that the SEG reduced the internal power regulation so as to allow more power through for the headphones, but in so doing the DAC is more dependent on the quality of the power supply that feeds it. The GFU (or its SMPS) needs a mains filter to remove noise (as do all the DACs I've used), but otherwise seems largely unconcerned with power quality.
The HD800 needs the extra supply of the 15V in order to deliver the extra dynamic range to stop the bass from sounding compressed. It is a bit of an effort to get the HD800 to work off anything other than a dedicated HPA. I myself use a modded SEG that has the upgraded output driver from the upgraded Capella, which is running off 16V from the Chinese linear PSU mentioned by various users on AoS. The extra 4V plus the better HPA output stage does the HD800 a lot of good.
Website: http://www.homehifi.co.uk
Website: http://www.beresford.me
Website: http://www.homehifi.asia
Location: Rome- Italy
Posts: 4
I'm Giuseppe.
hy to all
i've Stan's dac since a month e i'm in love whit it!
more details and organic medium than items costs double and triple to my ears !
i wait dsd support and for me it is good enough for years!
thanks Stanley
GFU? Girl friends undies?
I'll ask again, is the latest Stan Dac a much better Dac than th mk2 Caiman I currently have?
Bluesound Node 2i
Audio Analogue Pucinni SE
B&W DM607 s2
Chord Shawline X speaker cable
Klotz ic’s