Hi Guys
Was at a comparison yesterday between:
1. The Phasure
2. The Killer
3. Playback Designs MPD 5
It was with Adam Tensor active speakers fed by an Audio Research Reference 5 SE pre.
Different outcome than I expected. It should have been the AR pre triumphant comparison.
It was amazing. All the DAC's sounded great through this pre. People have been telling me about it for ages - the soundstage widens and envelops you - voices just sound great. But its not dripping in honey etc - its undoubtedly some kind of valve euphonics, but what its doing is subtle - the effects aren't - but what it's doing to achieve it aren't clear to me - not clear at all. I am going to have to eat crow - I originally thought it was just hype about this pre - it isn't. Still at nearly $20k here in Aus I wont be getting one any time soon - but its good to know you are actually getting something special for that type of dosh.
Anyway I liked all DAC's in this system, but my ordering (worst to best) was the Playback Designs, then Phasure, then Killer - but I would have to say I could see that my liking the Killer over the Phasure was purely the harmonic richness - it didn't sound uninteresting at all - it's just I found the Killer a bit more interesting. But in compensation it had greater detail - which is better - can't say - I liked the richer sound - but that's just me. The PD still sounded too polite for my tastes, but one guy thought that was because it presented stuff in proper perspective - other DACs may have been emphasizing things.
Just to see what the pre was doing we fed the Killer directly into the active speakers. Its the most harmonically rich of all the DAC's and it was thought it was experiencing the lift of the pre the least. It simply dropped away - dull and uninteresting in comparison.
I guess a lesson here is, if you have a top notch tube pre, then if your DAC is tube or not isn't that important.
Thanks
Bill
Was at a comparison yesterday between:
1. The Phasure
2. The Killer
3. Playback Designs MPD 5
It was with Adam Tensor active speakers fed by an Audio Research Reference 5 SE pre.
Different outcome than I expected. It should have been the AR pre triumphant comparison.
It was amazing. All the DAC's sounded great through this pre. People have been telling me about it for ages - the soundstage widens and envelops you - voices just sound great. But its not dripping in honey etc - its undoubtedly some kind of valve euphonics, but what its doing is subtle - the effects aren't - but what it's doing to achieve it aren't clear to me - not clear at all. I am going to have to eat crow - I originally thought it was just hype about this pre - it isn't. Still at nearly $20k here in Aus I wont be getting one any time soon - but its good to know you are actually getting something special for that type of dosh.
Anyway I liked all DAC's in this system, but my ordering (worst to best) was the Playback Designs, then Phasure, then Killer - but I would have to say I could see that my liking the Killer over the Phasure was purely the harmonic richness - it didn't sound uninteresting at all - it's just I found the Killer a bit more interesting. But in compensation it had greater detail - which is better - can't say - I liked the richer sound - but that's just me. The PD still sounded too polite for my tastes, but one guy thought that was because it presented stuff in proper perspective - other DACs may have been emphasizing things.
Just to see what the pre was doing we fed the Killer directly into the active speakers. Its the most harmonically rich of all the DAC's and it was thought it was experiencing the lift of the pre the least. It simply dropped away - dull and uninteresting in comparison.
I guess a lesson here is, if you have a top notch tube pre, then if your DAC is tube or not isn't that important.
Thanks
Bill