Anthem STR or Lyngdorf TDAI 2170?

I will add some info here that I think people will find useful.

I am back to comparing DSP because a too big for my room speaker is available for me to buy. For some unexplained reason I want to put this unsuitable speaker into my room instead of something smaller and more sane.

My room is treated and currently sounds very good with KEF LS50’s.

The 3 DSP engines I am considering are:

SPACE OPTIMIZATION - Linn Selekt DSM (heard it)
ROOM PERFECT - Lyngdorf 3400 (I heard the 2170)
ARC3 - Anthen STR pre (not heard)

I was first thinking of going with the Linn + Katalyst DAC upgrade because it sounded very good. However, after a lot of research I realized that ROON and Linn are strange bedfellows and not a good long term marriage. So the Linn is out.

Now it is down to the Lyngdorf and Anthem. The arguments presented here about the Lyngdorf sounding dry I agree with, but I am now looking at warm sound speaker which may compensate for that. However, saying this, I have demoed the 2170 with an external amp and the sound was awesome, not dry. The preamp in the Lyngdorf is very good. The unit is dead quiet as a Benchmark AHB2 amp, it sounds great at low volumes, the ROOM PERFECT will also work with an external amp. I confirmed the last point with Lyngdorf.

I do not know how important or audible the following feature is.

ICC (INTER-SAMPLE CLIPPING CORRECTION)

When music is being mastered, the level is often very high; upon analysis, you will often find several consecutive maximum samples, indicating something has been clipped away from the original signal. Audio that exceeds 0 dBFS (decibels relative to full scale) will sound very compressed because the headroom is nonexistent. This harsh sound is an unfortunate trend in the music industry and is typically referred to as “the loudness war.”

In order to compensate for this, we have created ICC (Inter-sample Clipping Correction). With ICC, the TDAI-2170 can automatically adjust up to 12dB headroom in the signal processing to avoid clipping of the signal. Through this you will enjoy the full dynamic range and a more natural sound.

I was not able to test ROOM PERFECT and the room I demoed was big so the effects of DSP would likely have been minimal. The Lyngdorf has a built-in Ethernet (RJ45) streamer, though Ethernet was not my preferred connection option. I will check out the EtherREGEN as a solution to lower RJ45 noise into the Lyngdorf if I go that way.

https://uptoneaudio.com/products/etherregen

The Anthem STR pre does not have a (maybe noisy) amp inside it’s chassis like the Lyngdorf. It also does not have the ICC feature of the Lyngdorf. However, it has defeatable ARC on the analogue inputs (I have a few). It has balance speaker settings which could be useful to me since I do not sit right in the middle of my speakers. The feature set on the Anthem seems better to me than the Lyngdorf. The sound of the Anthem pre has been described as a little bright in some reviews.

https://www.hifi-advice.com/blog/review/digital-reviews/spdif-dac-reviews/anthem-str-preamplifier-and-power-amplifier/

Which is not necessarily a bad thing for the warmish speaker I am considering.

The Anthem STR pre does not have a media player built-in like the Lyngdorf, I would use my computer as the medial player. I prefer this and would connect with a Fiber Optical cable to a Sonore Sgniture Rendu SE Optical.

https://www.ui.com/unifi-switching/unifi-switch-8-150w/ + http://sonore.us/systemoptique.html (the Signiture Rendu replaces the Optical in the diagram).

I will soon head out to demo the Anthem Integrated (without the amp) and the Lyngdorf 2170 integrated (without the amp) connected with an external Class AB amp. This will not answer the issue of which DSP is better but at least I can test the preamp and DAC on each. The room I will demo may not be ideally suited to show the benefits of DSP.

I hope I like the Anthem better because the feature set is perfect and not wasteful for my needs.

I would urge anyone interested in DSP preamps to try the units in their own system. I have found published reviews unsatisfactory, usually cursory and misleading.

I own an Anthem STR Preamp & think its DSP and overall sound are very good indeed. It replaced a more expensive Classe CP-800 and is far superior in clarity and depth of sound; also, its DSP is considerably more transparent. (I cannot speak to the Lyngdorf, as I’ve not heard it.)

No DSP preamp is perfect. I wish I could combine the best features of my old TacT 2.2X with those of the STR -- that would be an ideal unit!

Others to consider might include the miniDSP SHD and the DSPeaker X4. I considered a used Trinnov, but it has a fan, and I’ve found any fan audible in my very quiet environment.

 Another extra data point for anyone interested and a important one for me since I plan on running very long internally balanced XLR interconnects between the preamp + amp. Not sure about the Anthem because they did not get back to me.

Hallo
yes – we can confirm that the balanced output of the TDAI-3400 are according to the AES48 standard !


Best regards
Flemming Smith
LYNGDORF AUDIO

Yes, the Anthem does have good XLR outputs. I use 25' balanced cables from mine to the power amp.

@mike_in_nc The question I asked Anthem was whether they supported the Balanced AES48 standard.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/internally-balanced-cables-supporting-aes48-standard

I am assuming from your statement that the 25' XLR's you use sound good. 

BTW - what amp and XLR are you using with the Anthem STR preamp?