Thought I'd put an update here on how the system has changed over the past year or so. I had posted a few months back about downsizing the system and packing up the Rethm gear here: http://www.hifivision.com/my-audio-v...rse-while.html . After that I had set up a simple system with Pulz speakers and amp, along with an old Asseblage DAC. The Pulz amp was past its prime so I looked around for another amp and finally got one from Kanwar (Zypher Labs). Eventually the Lampizator got pressed back into service and now the Pulz speakers have been replaced by a pair of Dynaudio Contour 1.3 SE speakers.
I've written about my experience with the Lampizator before. It continues to be an exceptional DAC. The transport being used is the Teac VRDS 10. The speakers are again ones I was quite familiar with and they live up to their solid reputation. The real surprise in the setup has been the Zypher amp.
Its a 250w (@4 ohms, detailed specs pasted below) amp and weighs in at 25kg plus. Seems extremely well put together with the only two bugbears being: 1) a noisy fan which comes on after more than an hour of running in Bangalore weather. I cant hear it when music is playing but do notice it in quite passages. 2) pro connectors - XLR for input and speakon for output. That apart, sonically this amp is something quite special.
Initially when I got the Dynaudio's, I was running the amp directly from the DAC using the two volume controls (one per channel) on the amp. This arrangement had worked fine with the Pulz speakers but wasn't quite coming together with the Dynaudios. While they had more than enough power and dynamics, and the soundstage was fine, the tonality was off with the overall system sounding a bit thin. So I started to experiment a bit. First I added a preamp in the chain - a Matrix M-Stage headphone amp (modded with a class-a bias mod and upgraded op amps). This helped add a bit of body to the sound but there was a still a bit of harshness in the highs. So I changed the digital cable. I earlier used to use a Black Cat Veloce with the Rethm setup but had moved to a Belkin Synapse with the Pulz speakers for a little more bite in the highs. Moving back to the Black Cat cable helped clean up the highs and now the system was coming together properly. I still need to do a bit more tweaking (maybe experiment with cables - right now using ICs and speaker cables that Kanwar made, which are fairly basic). Overall, the system is working well now with the Dynaudio's being given an opportunity to work their magic.
To me, the big surprise in the setup is the amp. I got it for a fairly basic setup and it has scaled up exceptionally with the rest of the setup. So much so that if I were to think of upgrading a particular component in this setup, it would be a tossup between the amplification and the DAC. Its a very clean, neutral amp with no real harshness, great separation and soundstage, enough power reserve to fully carry through dynamics in the music and enough transparency to show up even relatively subtle changes up the chain. The only thing that I keep thinking about changing is the fan - there are a fair number of options available from the quite pc cooling market to do a better job.
These are the specs for the amp that Kanwar had sent me when I got it:
(250 + 250 WRMS @ 4ohms , 0.1% max THD at full rated power bandwidth 20-20khz
Damping Factor: 1000 @100hz @ 8 ohms.
Input sensitivity: 1VRMS,
Input impedance: 22k
Temperature controlled fan
Dual power supply 2X Toroidal transformers , 12 X 12000uF Capacitors.
Dual volume control
Built in LO-pass/ Hi-pass/ Full range Filters
Bridging interface.)