Mr Perceptive
14-08-2012, 21:24
After being hassled recently by Jerry, I've now put finger to iPad and written a review.
Prior to a recent divorce my monster Meridian/Shahinian System was sold, those that heard it the first Wigwam show will attest that it did loud and very dynamic very well. Also left the family home, a large hilltop farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, so a more modest system had to be acquired to suit my new surroundings - a terraced barn conversion in the centre of a village.
First purchase was a pair of Mackie HR624 MkIIs (no doubt Jerry will want a review on these but he will have to wait!). I'd always liked Mackies and at £580 for the pair (new) represented a bit of a steal. So that was speakers and power amps sorted, I had managed to retain a variety of Squeezey devices and still had my trusty Tranquil WHS, so it was a DAC with a volume control that was on the shopping list, didn't want to use the SBT volume control for 'critical' listening.
After trawling the net I had a short list of suitable DACs up to about £1500 (a value already £300 over my target budget). So here is the audition list and one liner comments (all IMHO):-
Emotive XDA (£300) - a fun piece of kit, did a lot of things right, but ultimately lacking in detail, a lot of box for the money and a remote that was handcrafted from unobtainium, very substantial.
Audiolab M-DAC (£600) - the current PFM fanboys favourite, now I wanted to like this as it met all my input criteria and was half my budget, boy was I disappointed, shrill, lacking in bass weight, just generally nasty, not my taste I'm afraid.
Wryed4Sound DAC2 (£1200) - enjoyable, foot tapping device, I could quite happily live with one of these, however it had a forced drive to the upper bass, which meant that the music boogied along, but it was a bit like having a loudness button pressed all the time.
NAD M51 (£1500) - Interesting functionality, capable of stripping high res audio off HDMI, but just bland to listen to, didn't excite, up samples to something ridiculous and had a 35 bit volume control!
Bruson HD160 (£I don't know, does £800 sound about right) - designed as a headphone preamp with DAC, this was just dull, very lifeless.
Then onto the Leema, initial impressions are that it seemed not to be there, ie just transparent, it just got on with it's job of being a DAC with an analogue volume control, did I mention that, yes it has a real Analogue volume control, not one of those digital dithering things that you're never sure hasn't lost some data. It also has a single analogue input ideal for those with legacy black skinny things (only joking.....).
So the full range of inputs is:-
1 x analogue
3 x optical 24/96
3 x coax 24/192
1 x USB 24/192
Outputs are balanced, unbalanced and headphone.
Currently I'm using SBT into coax, Oppo93 into coax and TV into optical. I would be using a further optical if the BT Vision box would ever stop doing a software update!
I've installed the Triode Enhanced Digital Output on the SBT and can stream up to 24/192 into the coax of the Leema. I haven't used the USB output yet, don't really want a noisy computer in the same room.
Now onto the review. I've had my unit for about 5 weeks, during that time it has been used approx 8 hours average per day, that probably sums it up, you just don't want to stop listening. I've used the balanced outputs and headphones, both are amazingly transparent, the level of detail that the Leema drags out of the recording whether it is Red Book or High Res is just astonishing and it is just so musical, or rather it isn't, it lets the original recording be heard the way it was intended to.
It has the uncanny habit of making my speakers disappear even on mundane TV broadcasts and does the same with the headphones, several times, I've had to force myself to bed in the small hours, as I just wanted to keep on playing more material.
Now I've probably owned a dozen DACs including some high end Meridian processors and heard dozens more and this one in my view stands head and shoulders above all of them. The other thing that is very telling is like all good systems it is happy with all genres/types of music and also handles less good recordings well. This is very important as I want to dictate the type of music that I want to listen to and not have the system dictate it.
High res recordings come across as very detailed, which is expected, and at no time does the Leema DAC draw attention to itself. Also it has never failed to lock up to anything even those apparently very jittery TV optical outs, and Leema state that they design the power supply to be the best that the unit requires as they don't believe in external PSU upgrades.
I can quite categorically say that this is one of the best bits of audio replay equipment that I've ever bought and it will take something special to get me to part with it. If you are in the market for a DAC around the £1200 price point especially if you want some pre-amp functionality then I urge you to get a listen to this DAC.
Prior to a recent divorce my monster Meridian/Shahinian System was sold, those that heard it the first Wigwam show will attest that it did loud and very dynamic very well. Also left the family home, a large hilltop farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, so a more modest system had to be acquired to suit my new surroundings - a terraced barn conversion in the centre of a village.
First purchase was a pair of Mackie HR624 MkIIs (no doubt Jerry will want a review on these but he will have to wait!). I'd always liked Mackies and at £580 for the pair (new) represented a bit of a steal. So that was speakers and power amps sorted, I had managed to retain a variety of Squeezey devices and still had my trusty Tranquil WHS, so it was a DAC with a volume control that was on the shopping list, didn't want to use the SBT volume control for 'critical' listening.
After trawling the net I had a short list of suitable DACs up to about £1500 (a value already £300 over my target budget). So here is the audition list and one liner comments (all IMHO):-
Emotive XDA (£300) - a fun piece of kit, did a lot of things right, but ultimately lacking in detail, a lot of box for the money and a remote that was handcrafted from unobtainium, very substantial.
Audiolab M-DAC (£600) - the current PFM fanboys favourite, now I wanted to like this as it met all my input criteria and was half my budget, boy was I disappointed, shrill, lacking in bass weight, just generally nasty, not my taste I'm afraid.
Wryed4Sound DAC2 (£1200) - enjoyable, foot tapping device, I could quite happily live with one of these, however it had a forced drive to the upper bass, which meant that the music boogied along, but it was a bit like having a loudness button pressed all the time.
NAD M51 (£1500) - Interesting functionality, capable of stripping high res audio off HDMI, but just bland to listen to, didn't excite, up samples to something ridiculous and had a 35 bit volume control!
Bruson HD160 (£I don't know, does £800 sound about right) - designed as a headphone preamp with DAC, this was just dull, very lifeless.
Then onto the Leema, initial impressions are that it seemed not to be there, ie just transparent, it just got on with it's job of being a DAC with an analogue volume control, did I mention that, yes it has a real Analogue volume control, not one of those digital dithering things that you're never sure hasn't lost some data. It also has a single analogue input ideal for those with legacy black skinny things (only joking.....).
So the full range of inputs is:-
1 x analogue
3 x optical 24/96
3 x coax 24/192
1 x USB 24/192
Outputs are balanced, unbalanced and headphone.
Currently I'm using SBT into coax, Oppo93 into coax and TV into optical. I would be using a further optical if the BT Vision box would ever stop doing a software update!
I've installed the Triode Enhanced Digital Output on the SBT and can stream up to 24/192 into the coax of the Leema. I haven't used the USB output yet, don't really want a noisy computer in the same room.
Now onto the review. I've had my unit for about 5 weeks, during that time it has been used approx 8 hours average per day, that probably sums it up, you just don't want to stop listening. I've used the balanced outputs and headphones, both are amazingly transparent, the level of detail that the Leema drags out of the recording whether it is Red Book or High Res is just astonishing and it is just so musical, or rather it isn't, it lets the original recording be heard the way it was intended to.
It has the uncanny habit of making my speakers disappear even on mundane TV broadcasts and does the same with the headphones, several times, I've had to force myself to bed in the small hours, as I just wanted to keep on playing more material.
Now I've probably owned a dozen DACs including some high end Meridian processors and heard dozens more and this one in my view stands head and shoulders above all of them. The other thing that is very telling is like all good systems it is happy with all genres/types of music and also handles less good recordings well. This is very important as I want to dictate the type of music that I want to listen to and not have the system dictate it.
High res recordings come across as very detailed, which is expected, and at no time does the Leema DAC draw attention to itself. Also it has never failed to lock up to anything even those apparently very jittery TV optical outs, and Leema state that they design the power supply to be the best that the unit requires as they don't believe in external PSU upgrades.
I can quite categorically say that this is one of the best bits of audio replay equipment that I've ever bought and it will take something special to get me to part with it. If you are in the market for a DAC around the £1200 price point especially if you want some pre-amp functionality then I urge you to get a listen to this DAC.