I've got one !

[Tmltech]

Hi All

I managed to meet up with Stan yesterday at his premises in London as I was working close to him . Firstly many thanks to Stan who is a thoroughly nice chap to do business with, we also had a short natter about things other than the Caimen etc. Unfortunately time was pressing so could not stay long as I had to get back home. Stan if you are reading this the huge monster of my car averaged 55.6mpg (just under two gallons) on way back to Longleat

Picked up the latest Caimen, PSU and Dorado along with recommended COAX and Optical cable from his site. He did me a really good deal, thanks Stan

Looking forward to installing this on Saturday the 23rd February, Ill give it about a week or so to run in and then report my findings.

Looking forward to it

Andy

[AJSki2fly]

Hi All


Picked up the latest Caimen, PSU and Dorado along with recommended COAX and Optical cable from his site. He did me a really good deal, thanks Stan

Looking forward to installing this on Saturday the 23rd February, Ill give it about a week or so to run in and then report my findings.

Looking forward to it

Andy

Your in for a very pleasant surprise, I use mine for digital streaming from RPi/DAC and as pure DAC from my Meridian 508 24bit, both with excellent results IMO.

Enyoy

[Hypnotist]

As said above your in for a surprise how different your music is going to be, needs a bit of a burn in though to reveal itself.

[Tmltech]

Thanks was going to plug in on Saturday morning and leave it running on CD on repeat or online radio with headphones plugged in for 72 hours or so, I'd that sufficient enough or should I increase that? My headphones took 100hrs plus to really come on song so am a great believer in run in

[AJSki2fly]

I found that 20-30 and there was a marked improvement

[Hypnotist]

Yes 30hrs was a turning point for mine as well

[pitadavespa]

I also bought one, with the Dorado.
I listened to it for 3 or 4 hours and couldn't stand it. I packed it the same moment and return it to Stan a few days later.

What improvements did you notice after those 20-30 hours?

[AJSki2fly]

I also bought one, with the Dorado.
I listened to it for 3 or 4 hours and couldn't stand it. I packed it the same moment and return it to Stan a few days later.

What improvements did you notice after those 20-30 hours?

If you had let it stabilise and settle down then I think you would have noticed that even it was digital that it actually sounded very natural musically speaking. That is if you put a reasonable feed through it. In the morning we listen to BBC radio 2 from Rpi and Volumio through Caiman and the feed is at 320kbps which (see http://steveseear.org/high-quality-bbc-radio-streams/ it’s not cd level but still sounds quite good. If I listen to cd level files or feeds from TIDAL then the SQ is excellent.


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[pitadavespa]

If you had let it stabilise and settle down then I think you would have noticed that even it was digital that it actually sounded very natural musically speaking. That is if you put a reasonable feed through it. In the morning we listen to BBC radio 2 from Rpi and Volumio through Caiman and the feed is at 320kbps which (see http://steveseear.org/high-quality-bbc-radio-streams/ it’s not cd level but still sounds quite good. If I listen to cd level files or feeds from TIDAL then the SQ is excellent.


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That was the problem... To me it was far from natural (or neutral)... I felt like I had connected an equalizer in my system and boosted some frequencies, like a big loudness button. I didn't like it, although I tried. Maybe it was just not for me...
Also, I felt (and I never thought I would say this in my life!) that music had too much dynamic. To me, the SEG somehow boosts the volume on the louder parts and does the opposite on the quieter ones. Every album I listened to resulted in more dynamic than the disk itself has. Nothing sounded real or natural to me.

I have to say I don't believe in burn in when mechanical parts are not involved. I just don't get it. In a normal home ambient temperature, after a few minutes everything has to be playing as it should.
My new TV doesn't have better image after a few days burning in, nor my new computer is faster or more accurate doing its calculations.

Regarding the rest of the system, I was using a RPi (with Volumio and Tidal HIFI) or my CD transport, so they were not the culprits.

I asked Stan for some advice, data regarding frequency response measurements, or even if I could be doing something wrong, but he said that if I didn't like the DAC, I could send it back.
He suggested that if I was not accustomed to the high quality frequency response and dynamic range of a good DAC, maybe I should buy a Chinese DAC and save money.


I'm sure Stan's a nice guy and all you guys can't all be wrong about his DACs.
Maybe I have a different taste or am accustomed to a different sound. I don't know...

Cheers, enjoy your music,
Luis

[AJSki2fly]

Hi Luis, bear with me but this may be as you infer due to how/what you are used to listening to. If you are of of younger age then your listening may have been predominantly with compressed music files or modern music mixes where the dynamics are compressed and you have what is known as the modern wall of sound. If this has been predominantly your listening experience then aspects of light and shade will have been lost. To get and idea of what I’m talking about listen to a couple of hi res tracks from Supertramp - crime of the century this is well know for big dynamic range.




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