RWA amp with DODD preamp both battery powered

Hi Mrjstark, interesting that you find the Isabella a little bit "warmer", more musical, and yet it has a more "precise" imaging.

I am not good at audiophile glossary at all. I always thought that a gear that sounds 'warmer' tends to give away the precision of the image. Nevertheless, I am a photographer, so when people talk to me about image precision, I imagine an object being very well focused with well defined boundary (or sharp boundary).

In the world of audio, my understanding is that when we add tubes, we tend to 'diffuse' the image a little, reducing the sharpness of the object which can make the object sound bigger, more liquid (i.e. more gentle transition from one boundary to another), less edginess, more holographic, but the trade-off is that each object is no longer as well-defined as before.

I am not trying to debate glossary, I am just trying to imagine and understand what exactly you're hearing based on your description.

In any case, your review was a well-written and straight-to-the-point.

Take care
Viper

Imaging - The measure of a system's ability to float stable and specific phantom images, reproducing the original sizes and locations of the instruments across the soundstage.

Warm, fluid, smooth....yes. Dark....NO.
When I said that Isabella is on the worm side, I meant: effortless, 3-dimensional, very emotional, smooth but not syrupy sound. My guess is that its qualities lay in the choice of capacitors, which are(if I am not mistaken) oil-filled Jensens.

Also, due to very low floor-noise and absolute lock of degrading effect of the polluted power lines (grid garbage), more subtle information and details are able to get true without being saturated and automatically vanish from the original recording.

Again,
warm doesn't necessarily means lock of detail or transparency......in this case, it is just a small amount of warmness which might be beneficial and in some cases - preferred.

In the world of audio, my understanding is that when we add tubes, we tend to 'diffuse' the image a little, reducing the sharpness of the object which can make the object sound bigger, more liquid (i.e. more gentle transition from one boundary to another), less edginess, more holographic, but the trade-off is that each object is no longer as well-defined as before.

Well, yes and no.
In my opinion tubes actually add to realism of the reproduction rather then distorts it or take anything away from musical enjoyment.
I guess that big part of successful setup lays in synergy, careful component choices as well as tubes, wires and of course - room acoustics.

For some, sharpness or surreal detail might be interpreted as coloration or edginess and it might cost fatigue for others.

Tubes like caps influence the sound and its characteristics. We used Mullards as well as JJ.
Where JJ sounded more balanced and more "detailed" at frequency's extremes. Matter of taste and preferences.
When we switched back to my Consonance Cybers 800 (we originally have used Vinnie's Sig.30.2 amp [30wpc] for evaluation) things kick up a notch. Better dynamics, speed and bottom end improved substantially. Simply speaking, Vandys like more power then Sig.30.2 can provide and in my opinion are more transparent in general.
You have to pick your poison and what suits you best....and your system.

Mariusz

Hi Mariusz,

I just posted my impressions of Isabella here:http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1214702443&read&3&4&

I wish I can write as good as you :)

Thanks for posting your impressions,

Jeff

Thank you Jeff and congratulations for getting great preamp like Isabella and nice write-up about your impressions and experiences.
Keep up a good work.

Mariusz

Update - replaced Dodd Audio preamp with Isabella/dac pream as well as upgraded my Omega Sig 30 integrated to Sig.30.2 amp.

Here are some pics from another NY meeting and RWA gear accompanied by WLM La Scala monitor from Austria.

My Isabella/dac, Sig.30.2 amp and Vinnie's WLM La Scala monitors

another shot

close up

guess who Mrjstark is?

Cheers
Mariusz