I´ve had the Calypso on loan for a week. The Calypso came a) with stock tubes and b) with some very high quality Telefunken and Roederstein tubes with Herbie tube dampers. All contacts have been treated with Walker E-SST.
The mods in the K-5xe were: new high-quality Cryo treated silver-gold power inlet; damping of the casework with Sorbothane; K37 laquer treatment; exchange of the low quality fuse with a Hifi-Tuning ceramique-gold-silver device; exchange of the medium level balanced in´s and out´s sockets with state-of-the-art devices; exchange of some medium quality internal parts with highest quality parts and Walker E-SST treatment. All units were used with/ without Stillpoints Universal Resonance Dampers and Shakti Stones as well as pyramidal shaped Rose Quarz. Including labour this was round about 900,- per unit which is a bit more than US $ 1.050,00. I can tell you: the mods were worth every penny!
If you are familiar with the dramatic improvement the RAM basic mods (US $ 1.190,00) do to the standard Esoteric DV-50 S performance (outperforms the costlier UX-3 / UX-1 in CD/SACD mode) you can imagine how far these mods push the envelope with the K-5xe and V-5xe. Even my local dealer was totally astounded how good my rig performed against his private K-1xe / V-1xe / D-1xe set-up - it was nearly on par for 50% less in costs.
Sources in this listening test were:
Esoteric DV-50 S (RAM modded); Audio Aero Capitole Reference; Ayre D-1xe; Simon Yorke S 7 + Simon Yorke tonearm and Jan Allearts moving-coil cartridge. Phono amplification was Ayre P-5xe and Clearaudio Basic Symmetry Ltd. Speakers were Ayon Seagull Ceramique; Avalon Ascendant and Verity Audio Parsifal Encore. Cables were a mixture of Shunyatas, Acoustic Zen, Electraglide, Fadel Art, Audioquest and some custom made stuff. The K-5xe was in all set-ups superior to the Calypso (lower noise floor, much better detail retrieval, speed, clarity, neutrality and soundstaging were at least one level above the Calypso with the Telefunken+Roederstein tubes). The standard K-5xe was in some areas better than the standard Calypso in some areas weaker. Def. better in quality of casework, ergonomics and look.
Rgds. and happy listening!!
