For those on a tighter budget, starting with the Helene or Kassandra Ref is a solid choice. While the Lampizator Horizon stands as a strong contender for an excellent DAC, the Aries Cerat Ithaka or Kassandra LE reign supreme in my listening experience. Budget considerations will undoubtedly influence buyers’ decisions. Personally, I lean towards Aries Cerat proves to be more user-friendly and manageable in comparison.
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Agree 100%, grew up a couple of miles from Seal Beach, CA and spent every available minute fishing and surfing off Seal Beach and Huntington Beach piers. Now freshwater.
Not intentional, my bad phrasing. Incidentally, I spent latter years working for largest power company in VT. We built VYNPC, now long decommissioned.
Honestly, I'm sure you have had a huge, positive impact on people's lives in their formulative years and beyond and are very proud of it as you should be. I am stunned at your memory. I am one who thinks having manufacturers, dealers and retailers post here is a positive thing with the caveat that they clearly identify as such. I was just surprised that you were one as I had admittedly skimmed over a lot of your posts and never quite noticed. Let's not agree to disagree.
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Please do keep us in the loop on your search. My digital side is pretty much an over site on my system, mainly because the learning curve is steep. I just use the DAC on my Esoteric K-03XD (a lovely CD transport, mechanically), and a Lumin U1 streamer. This is actually excellent but room for improvement exists. FWIW, I’m extremely interested in the Nagra HD DAC X and nearly pulled the trigger just based on my ownership of the Nagra HD preamp, which is shockingly good. I also did a shoot out between the Nagra HD phono and many other phono preamps and it ended up in the top 3, losing out purely on my subjective taste. Long way of saying, I almost bought the DAC unheard just due to experience with other products. I also like the idea of tubes on the digital side for reasons I can’t logically explain. Id be particularly interested if you get one of the MSB products, the Mola mola, or the Weiss. I will admit I’m not in love with the Weiss chipset. The MSBs get stupid in price and can cost the same as a mid tier Range Rover, but their middle products seem to have most of their features So in my musings, the Mola Mola is the leader, but I’ve literally never heard any of them, except the MSB and it was in a friends house during a party and less than ideal listening circumstances. |
@jetter I left Audiogon years ago. I started to post more recently since we got back from pandemic. I only started on the business side by happenstance. Hans Looman of Infigo flew from Canada to my house 5 years ago after I assisted another company at an audio show. He told me about this amp he had been developing for the last 7 years. I was dismissive at first so he flew down I invited 15 friends over and it proceeded to blow my the amp in my system to smithereens. First I was surprised that he flew to Dallas and I thought so much of him I decided to work with him. That’s how I ended up working with his company. I did it because I saw he was innovative smart and was a good person. But more than that I believed in the product and it gave amazing sound. Man I know so guys come here to sell sell sell. I don’t have to. I have a regular career where I have represented nba players and others etc. I do this because I’m an audiophile that’s excited about what I’m hearing. That’s all. Thanks for your response brother. |
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