Any Digital Impressions of the Caiman yet?

[Themis]

Agree to disagree, but I find the Caiman rather immune to transport.

And no, I don't find it harsh. It's a bit over-detailed like a pro equipment, to be honest. But then, almost all recent dacs I've tested have this feature.
In my opinion, a source has to be detailed. If I need to "alter" the sound, it has to be done later on in the chain (at the amplifier/speaker/room level).

[chrism]

Agree to disagree, but I find the Caiman rather immune to transport.

And no, I don't find it harsh. It's a bit over-detailed like a pro equipment, to be honest. But then, almost all recent dacs I've tested have this feature.
In my opinion, a source has to be detailed. If I need to "alter" the sound, it has to be done later on in the chain (at the amplifier/speaker/room level).

Hi Dimitri,

I find the the Caiman has the most transparent sound I have ever heard. The only mod I have done to mine so far is go for a top quality 15v linear supply. This made the sound smoother and weightier which is what I like. A bit more "analogue" sounding if you know what I mean.

So Stan, please keep on doing what you are doing as I for one think it's brill.

Regards

Chris

[nightyy]

On hearing Klipsch speakers at last year's hi-fi show in London I thought they were bright speakers so partnering equipment would need to be carefully matched.

The Caiman is on its way to me and I'll give that combination its chance! I am totally prepared to get some awful sound at first until it's burned in, and I will report my findings here. It will be a great investment for my K-701 in any case!

[Themis]

The Caiman is on its way to me and I'll give that combination its chance! I am totally prepared to get some awful sound at first until it's burned in, and I will report my findings here. It will be a great investment for my K-701 in any case!

The sound won't be awful at all, except if you already find the sound of the KingRex/RF-7 unbearable.

[Shanedudddy2]

I was using USB connection.

[technobear]

I was using USB connection.

Interesting!

And were you using any special drivers like Kernel Streaming or ASIO or just regular Windows?

[Kooma]

Hi,

At last I have got all of my set in some condition, at the same time I got Yamaha GTT-2000L with two different arms and mini hp+caiman, so lot of issues to deal with. Anyway I also have this small Corda movie3 with sennheiser 580HD and a price differences between Caiman and Corda are marginal, but sounds are different, Corda dark and more power of lower section, Caiman refined(transparent), fast perhaps more likeable, I don´t know coz it depends on your musical taste. But for me Caiman took more of everything I like. This was with Sennheiser.

Then I transfered some cds on HP 5101 hd (Karan i180, Ref 3a RV,apple lossless, usb) and straight to box it sounds too good without any burning time and I was very happy, so if it even goes better than this it is bargain. What I can say about sound, transparent, ultrafast(perhaps Karan has something to do about it?) also very nice lower and mid . A lot of detail and more analogue sounding than usually dacs are, but if I compare it in short to Yamaha gt-2000L TT with ysa-2/Clearaudio beta/ear834p that Yamaha took the first place(it sounds unbelivable good), but compare to price you pay this dac is amazing.

Ari

[nightyy]

Finally, after the christmas days and being sick till yesterday I just have to write something about the Caiman that arrived some days ago.

My main fear was the Caiman could sound too sharp in my setup, where the Klipsch RF-7 emphasize the highs and things tend to be too brilliant sounding in the end.
All I can say now is that I am finally absolutely loving what i get from my equipment, that means my search for a DAC is over.

My impressions (comparing to TC-7510 MK VI/4) are:
- highs are less intrusive and sharp, but absolutely just there with lots of detail
- lows are a little less quantity-wise, but in comparison to the 7510, which laid a thick carpet of less precise lows, what the Caiman does is really sophisticated. (e.g. Dream Theater - Pul me under or Dvorak - New World: IV)
- Strings are beautiful and you can hear every tab. My wife listened to Sol Gabetta (Cello) for some time, the album now really came to life
- Vocals and brass wonderful (Windsbacher Knabenchor - Christmas CD)
- no fatiguing with the Caiman, in fact I now often turn around and am so intrigued that I have to listen conciously for a minute. Can listen for hours no problem with it

This was all heard using a Dell D830 (Sigmatel STAC 9205) ASIO SPDIF(coax) > Beresford Caiman DAC > Kingrex T20U+PSU > Klipsch RF-7

I did not have the time to listen to the headphone out yet, but had been keeping my K-701 plugged in and so the headphone part should be quite burned in.

Thanks a lot, Stan. Music is music again finally!

[webby]

I'm resurrecting this old thread as I've just acquired a gatored caiman after agreeing a fantastic deal with Werner; an offer I couldn't turn down.

Since hooking it up to my Mac via Airport Express and an optical cable into the Caiman I have noticed the beginning of some tracks being missed. I vaguely recall reading something about this being about signal lock. However, the dac stays on, as does the mac, so what would make the signal lose lock?

I did wonder if it may be something to do with pre gap.

[Werner Berghofer]

Lee,

an offer I couldn't turn

just for the record: I did not place the head of a slaughtered horse in your bed, though I'm a big fan of epic Italian family histories.

Werner.