Originally Posted by
gninnam
Had a few good days listening to the amps using my Myryad preamp and various front ends – Orbe through the Firebottle Phono amp, Technics CD player and also the Raspberry Pi, using stored FLAC files and the CD player up sampling the tunes to 176.4Khz on the Pi.
Start with the TT first. Started with some simple music, not over produced with generally just voice and simple arrangements (David Sylvian being one) and found the amps to allow the music to flow without appearing to not add or subtract anything.
Found it very easy to get lost in the music and before you know it the LP had finished. Wonderful.
Next up was music with more going on, more electronic and a bit faster paced (such as later recordings by A Certain Ratio) – midrange was very good (valve like) but the bass seemed a bit more muddled compared to the Burson and the Pure Sound valve amp – no real issues with the high frequencies, perhaps a bit forward but not in your face.
Next up, let’s go digital so step forward Mr Pi. Again, started with some simple (in structure and instrument wise) using FLAC files (such as Ludovico Einaudi) and absolutely no issues – the music appears to come across with nothing added or taken away and found it enjoyable. Used the same music through the CD players and very similar to the FLAC file (apart from the Technics CD player seemed to add extra sparkle to the highs – not the amps fault!!)
Tried it using more electronic (Nine Inch Nails) and faster paced (808 State) music on CD and FLAC format. Similar to what I heard using the TT, the bass a little muddled at times but nothing too detracting and on CD, the highs sometimes brighter than using FLAC or the TT so not a fault of the amps.
Very satisfied with how the amps were performing.
Next few days I took the Myryad preamp out of the equation and used a passive preamp (thanks BigBottle) and also the Pi direct to the amps.
The main difference with the PI now going direct was the bass seemed to be grasped better than when using the Myryad so perhaps the synergy with this and the BOSC amps wasn’t quite there (will look into this later).
Using the Passive Pre, I tried the TT and found that the simpler music worked very well, although less impact from the bass than before but the rest of the audio spectrum sounded great then moved to digital music. Much as before with the same issue with CD and the highs.
Went back to the Myryad and dug out some older (not sure who made them or where I got them from) interconnects and replaced the ones from between the preamp and the BOSC amps.
Noticed a slight improvement with more complex and electronic music in the bass registers – not a massive change but a little clearer in the lower registers.
Summary.
In general, I found the amps to be very good (a slight step up on the Burson but I need to do some opamp rolling) and on par with the valve amp – perhaps better grip when the volume is cranked up.
Liked the small form factor but found the PSU’s sizes to be on the large size.
Didn’t find the sound to be ‘digital’ at all but did prefer them with more simple music (as you could probably tell with from the text above), but paired with the correct preamp and cabling I am sure will work a lot better for more complex tracks – the more I tweaked the better they sounded.
Hope the above helps anyone interested in these.