Not by the day, but it does keep changing, while the Caiman remains stable.Quote:
Originally Posted by DSJR
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Not by the day, but it does keep changing, while the Caiman remains stable.Quote:
Originally Posted by DSJR
You mean the built in DAC of the Lyngdorf amp? I'll do a bit more comparative listening, but the BM seems a load more dynamic. Had to swap out some Atlas phono cables though for some Linn silvers, which resulted in a much less harsh and more musical presentation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamish
Just my two pennyworth, reckon issues that I've read about more likely to duff units. It happens.
How can you have variable burn in issues ? Doesn't add up.. sounds like specific issues with those bits of kit.
No way that I could describe my BM as having muted high's.. even from the minute it was powered up.
Easy to have variable burn in IMHO. I've heard it with coupling caps and also a new valve amp. Sound would get better then worse again, then better again.
That burn-in pattern can happen with cables before they settle down.
But.. to the extent that has been described?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ali Tait
Ok... I'm surprised.
Well the changes were easily noticeable to me.
Fed-up with lack of progress on the burn-in front with my BM, I resorted to the Maplin XM-20W PSU Stan recommended for the Caiman. I have been using it for a number of years with the Caiman. It kicks-out 15V vs. 12V with the stock BM PSU (the BM is good to 16V according to the instructions). It made quite a difference to the BM: Gone is the mushiness, the highs are back, the bass is deep and tight, the sound stage is much improved - but I still find it tiring to listen too even at quite low listening levels. Perhaps the stock PSU is at the root of the issues some people (including me) have raised.
Not questioning that people have heard changes.. But why doesn't everyone hear the same thing...?
Mine sounds amazing from cold.
Mine too, its as good now as it was out of the box, no coupling caps so no effect. I believe its in the head...shoot me :ner: and as for cables! :stalks: :doh:
What a fascinating read. :scratch:
Mine has sounded great from the off. A bit of forwardness for the first few hours, but spot-on ever since. I listen to it for hours every day. Still sounds the same. That is, amazingly stunningly good. :drool:
What is going on here? :scratch:
I've a Stan-recommended battery PSU on its way - that'll be interesting.
I know nothing of the electronics involved but, if a 16v PSU improves the SQ is it possible that, on the 'perceived to be lacking' BMs, a component or sequence of components is not quite up to spec and a more muscular 16v is coping better? Sorry if this don't make sense :mental: .
Dave.
Maybe its the power supply instead of the voltage. I will be finished building one of the two box power supplies that I make for the Touch for the BM today, given the low current the BM needs its no problem making one supply that can range from 12v to 16v, so I will see if I hear anything.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alp
If anyone is interested, I am happy to send it out on a round robin trip to anyone who wants to try. Only cost would be postage to the next user.
Im with the lucky lot who say it sounded great out of the box, but with a few hours is sounding even better!
A quick query, someone mentioned the dac in a Lyngdorf amp, I have an SDAi 2175i, are we talking the same one here, and could the amp be the reason why I believed the Touch's dac sounded good? (until I got the BM that is!)
I have your Squeezebox Touch PSU Lurcher, which has made vast differences to the SQ of the device, I would be quite happy to trial it out for you and pass on my findings.Quote:
Originally Posted by lurcher
I don't have the most uber Hi-fi setup in the World but it is good enough and average enough to make a good judgement on for the market this device would probably be marketable on.
My "new" Grado GS1000 and RA-1 headphone amp arrived the other day. The GS1000's look beautiful and I've had a little time to listen. I must say regardless of which amp they sound wonderful - a huge leap in SQ from the Grado SR60i. Anyway, as you know I rate the SOHA II I was using esp with the 6N1P-VI or Cryo 6922 valves. Well I have to say I can't tell much difference between the SOHA and the BM headamp. The BM perhaps a tad brighter but overall the presentation is the same that's to say very enjoyable. So considering the BM headamp is a " freebie" with the DAC and my SOHA cost about £300 pretty darn good vfm. :cool:
Now, the RA-1 headamp - I love the wood case and it matches my Quad 33/FM3 teak sleeve and JR149 cabs a treat. While I've not listened hugely and only with the SR60i's despite the forum laughter this amp generates :eyebrows: I don't think it's half bad - it'll certainly be ok with the Quads
Steve
I'd be up for that Nick....Quote:
Originally Posted by lurcher
No I have the Lyngdorf 2200, with dac and room perfect modules.Quote:
Originally Posted by icehockeyboy
Still very good quality, but the BM is much more dynamic.
For instance on 'Aint going to Goa' by Alabama 3, I now hear SO much more. There is a bass drum that is almost subliminal that I never new was there. In fact I never knew the little Harbeth 3P ESR's could reproduce such deep bass. At the same time there is a full soundstage of a gospel choir which is stunning all the while all manner of other things happening, all presented in a manner that is just so musical, not tiring and does that old thing of making you hunt out other CD's to rediscover them.
That is why I just don't recognise these other issues that are being reported.:scratch:
Today I replaced the connector on the 16V Paul Hynes power supply I had built for the Caiman, in order to work with the Bushmaster. This is based on Paul Hynes' PR3-16 module. Studying the Bushmaster manual suggests that 16V is the maximum allowable input voltage so I left it set as-is, exactly on 16V.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8349/8...6bc4a729_b.jpg
Listening to the Bushmaster now, when compared with the provided 12V Unifive PSU or the 12V battery, I can hear quite an improvement in projection and a deeper soundstage with more precisely placed instruments. Everything sounds a little livelier with easier to hear rhythm. This is not a 'night and day' improvement as indeed Stan has worked hard to separate the effects of power supply on his circuit. However, the high regulation, high current and responsiveness of the PH module, together with 16V operation, has definitely had a positive effect on the sound so I shall now leave this PSU in place.
I also replaced my RG-59/U co-ax cable with a Chord ProDAC silver digital cable and heard a further small but worthwhile improvement when fed from the Touch.
Just ordered mine today. Still using the 7510 every day, so can't wait to hear the Bushmaster. The fact that the 7510 is driving an all-Linn setup, and holding its own, leads me to think that the Bushmaster will be a stonker. Will post my thoughts, should be with me on Monday, according to Stan.
Hi Ken
Before you go any further, could you please pop into the Welcome area and introduce yourself to our community, as you were asked to do in the registration email you received - ta!
Hi Ken,
Welcome to AoS :)
Before going any further, please pop into the Welcome area and introduce yourself to our community, as outlined in the email confirmation you received, after registering.
Cheers! :cool:
Marco.
Ooo :drool: you lucky b*gger, Steve! I heard the GS1000 'phones at a Show. :eek: :drool:Quote:
Originally Posted by worrasf
Enjoy! :)
Yep - even better got them in mint condition with the RA-1 also in mint for a bargain price I reckon :)Quote:
Originally Posted by jandl100
Steve
Hey all. Had my Bushmaster for a couple of days. Found some very interesting results.
1) The RCA interconnect you use can have a profound effect (duh), but much more so that on the output of my Harmon Kardon HD990 CD player (which also has it's own DAC input). Using my Van Damme interconnect, the sound is way livelier and detailed, with great soundstaging, but the bass loses its warmth. Out of curiousity, I switched to the cheapo one that came with the CD player. Bass came back, but the soundstage became very flat. A real easy listen though.
2) My Arcam amp allows attenuation of each input, so for a laugh I notched up the setting for the Bushmaster. Wow - transformation ! I could never get a good result via this route with the CD player, but the Bushmaster just loves it - the soundstaging has returned, the treble is silky smooth and the detail better. It's the best sound I have heard from my rig yet.
I ordered an NVA Sound Chord before ordering the Bushmaster, in an attempt to sort out a slightly unruly treble issue I had, so now very curious how that will mix in - anybody got any experience on that front ?
In summary - so far, very pleased.
Cheers
Agreed. So far, a Tellurium Q Black interconnect has proven to be the best cable for me, highly detailed, great bass and all-round transparency.Quote:
Originally Posted by bronzeage
A £285 interconnect with a <£200 dac :scratch:Quote:
Originally Posted by MartinT
Agreed, does seem a bit of a skewed balance...Quote:
Originally Posted by roob
When did price ever determine quality? I've standardised on TQ throughout my system, so it makes a great deal of sense to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by roob
Well, it makes sense to me!Quote:
Originally Posted by roob
The BM DAC may cost <£200, but imho it performs well into the multi-£k price band - and yes, I've done direct comparisons. :)
I'm using mine with £250 (I think) rrp i/c cables. :thumbsup:
Hooray! My Bushmaster arrived today...it only took 5 days to come to Australia!
Straight out of the box, it sounded pretty good. After a couple of hours it definitely got better. Most noticeable was the vocals. Singers had the right size mouths with plenty of air during their vocalizations and plenty of differences in singing intensity from soft pouts to roaring crescendos. analog like mids for sure, not euphonic valve but rich enough for such a short warmup.
IMO, If the speakers are voiced accurately, this attribute is immediately noticeable
Lots of depth and separation between instruments, attribute to the blackness in between these layers of sound
More depth than width at the moment. Height ok too
High Frequencies are smooth and quite shimmery, not metal dome relentless zing like some other DACs or speakers. Will listen more before commenting . I prefer a smoother treble anyway with good impact and extension but not harsh.
Before I forget, good bass too, not the flat bongy type but full rounded bass with a good kick
One of my fave Live CD (flac) is Asleep at the Wheel-Live at Billy Bobs sounded really alive! Warts and all, it gave a realistic playback of the atmosphere of the concert.
I could go on but I would give it a lot more listening hours first.
Great job Stan, top value product!
Before abandoning the inexpensive Van Damme interconnects, try reversing the direction. Sounds daft must may help a tiny bit.
What is it about Tellurium cables that makes it seem like the guy has re-defined the physics of an interconnect eh? We're talking low frequencies in the audio band here, not microwaves FFS... Noone's measured any yet I think, so it must be some jiggling around with capacitance and inductance to get a result, surely?
Further impressions of the BM:
It resolves the ebb and flow of music really well. Like a good turntable LOL. The BM allows the music to flow, giving instruments and voices their own space, in time with the rest of the performance. Like a good Big Band that swings, the BM does that in spades
I played Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, and the breathing when they played their saxophones practically made me breath with them. Cat Stevens Tea for the Tillerman was really good. Bee Gees Alone have plenty of their falsetto swing etc etc etc
Some call it PRaT, but IMO different equipment presents PRaT in their own way. Naim for instance is different in their presentation of PRaT than a good valve amp
I remember my first Linn LP12 and how it made my feet tap to the music. True, it may have sins of omission but certainly preferable to sins of commission. Owning SOTA, Oracle and numerous other turntables since then haven't captured for me that toe tapping feeling. Many digital sources tried have been found lacking in that regard. I dont have high end money to spend nowadays so cannot speak for mega-buck DACs but I've heard plenty.
The BM DAC makes me tap my toes to the music and overtime as it "burns in" (if such a notion exists), I feel the overall presentation would just get better overall...
I am waiting, Stan.Quote:
Originally Posted by StanleyB
Still on the drawing board. Too many projects in front of me.
Sound Cords are really good ic's, but in my own experience bettered by the Silver High Breed Quintessence. I only recently made this comparison using the BM as I own both.Quote:
Originally Posted by bronzeage
You could always make your own IC buffer/volume stage you know, with modern fast low noise op-amps . Carefully soldered up it would be acoustically transparent to the signal from the BM so all the new benefits would come through...Quote:
Originally Posted by Labarum
You could, but technology won't progress by much if we kept improving expensive old methods instead of introducing more cost effective and cutting edge new ones. The US and the Far East have been taking those risks, and it is time that more British designers did the same. Otherwise we'll never clear that £1trillion debt..Quote:
Originally Posted by DSJR
Hi David - I don't recall receiving one. Happy to introduce myself - can you please resend or point me in the right direction, thanks.
Ken
Hi Ken, you must have received an activation e-mail to get this far? Please would you go to the welcome area here and introduce yourself? Thanks!
I used the variable preset power supply that you so kindly built for me when I was developing the Bushmaster. Is that the prototype that you are going to turn into a finished product? If it is, then I can certainly recommend it. To be honest, I used it on the 16V settings to test that the BM could perform reliably at 16V, and can't ever remember lowering the voltage setting on it.Quote:
Originally Posted by lurcher
Yep Stan, thats the same supply design that I am just finishing off now. Should have it ready to go to the first person who wanted a play by the end of today. At the moment I have it at 13.5v, I will do some more comparisons and see if there is a sweet spot.
I have me LDA PSU running now ...
My god this thing is good! There has gotta be some sorta voodoo going on here Nick!
Yums the man my man!
It's honestly like a breath of fresh air has just blown through my system ...
This is easily as big a step up in quality as the dac was in the first place...
Stan, Nick... Good work!!!
For a total of just shy of £400 I can't see how this dac/psu could be beatable for a serious amount of money!
I am absolutely blown away...
I rarely get this excited about this sort of thing, but I really wasnt expecting it to get this much better!!
http://i728.photobucket.com/albums/w...l/e63e134a.jpg
Nick, if you find an optimum voltage will you let me know?!
I've had to submit to the eastenders half hour now ...
So yeah ...
This thing basically takes what the bm does normally and literally sound as though it's put a rocket up it's ass ...
Still all of the same attributes but very much emphasised ... It's only downfall is it takes it further away from what I was used to and is goin to mean I'm gonna have to get used to it all over agin ... I don't think for a second that it's a bad thing mind!
Very impressive indeed
You got these on the site yet David?
Shall I do you a slide for the slider?
Oh go on then!Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamish
Glad you like it, is it fair to say that Stan's latest creation and the LDA PSU transforms the DAC into the super league?
Hamish, be careful what you admit to on here about submitting to SWMBO, it's likely to get you a diatribe of criticism heading your way :lol: .Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamish
Dave.
Hamish.. tell you what matey, you plug in headphones into the BM right now and you'll be a tad deaf for a while. !!
Hamish, did you try battery? How it compares to LDA PS?
I did mention on another forum a while ago that this PSU is the nearest thing to using batteries, if you would like to know more about the design there is a paper that Nick has written, exert from it is below for anyone who is interested.Quote:
Originally Posted by RoboCopper
.................................................. .................................................
When thinking of regulation, it’s worth remembering the Roman god Janus. Who was the god of gateways, and was a two faced god looking in both directions. Likewise a good voltage regulator is required to look in both directions at once. From one direction you have the mains supply, with the ever increasing noise, distortion and random variation that exists on our household mains supply. In the other direction you have the device you are supplying power to. The load will be asking constantly varying current, and the job of the regulator will be to ignore the varying load and to supply a rock steady voltage that ignores the changing load.
To ask a single regulator to perform both tasks means that it can not do either as well as it could. We don’t ask our regulators to be two faced, we split the two functions into two separate regulators and put them both where they can do the best job.
The first regulator is close to the mains supply, its job is to take the incoming mains and convert it into a low(ish) noise DC supply, and to isolate the mess that is our household power lines from what follows. In most power supplies on the market, the output of the first stage would be directly connected to the load device, and that would certainly be an improvement over the supplies that most manufactures provide. But we can do better by adding the other face of Janus to the system.
The second regulator is supplied with a clean low noise supply, and its job is to handle the changing demands of the load. To do that, it needs to be as close to the load as possible. So we remove the second regulator from the main box, and place it close to the load, both electrically and physically, that removes it from the noise and interference of the mains supply, and allows it to spend its time looking towards the load. Typical commercial voltage regulator chips are general purpose devices, but are not quiet enough for the task on hand, so the second regulator uses a bespoke regulator based on a low noise multi stage filtered voltage reference, a low noise error amplifier and a high current low resistance mosfet. To allow it to handle the changing load it also needs to supply current on demand, so all the remaining space in the second regulator is filled with low impedance capacitors to act as a local energy source.
Using the two stages of regulator, we achieve a noise floor equal or better than most battery supplies, and a effective source resistance of the order of 0.02 ohm (and the short cable run to the load avoids increasing this valve by adding copper where its not needed, and the use of a discrete regulator design allows that tiny value to be maintained way above frequency any audio device operates at.
It's extremely impressive, that's for certain!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mains Cables R Us
I've not tried the battery option ... I'm not sure I'll bother now! ;)
Glad to read that you have increased your listening pleasure with Nick's power supply.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamish
But without putting a damper on things, it's not the same power supply that Nick developed specifically for the Bushmaster. Nick built me a special power supply with an extra connection that hooks up between the earth terminal on the BM and his PSU. After I finished my own R&D, Nick has been fine tuning the design based on my feedback of my technical findings. Since then he has taken possession of a production version of the BM and put the finishing touches to his dedicated Bushmaster linear power supply. I mentioned a few post back that he was almost ready to release it.