So one of my buddies (I_G on the forum) landed up buying Ivmans Vivere DAC and today he brought it over to my place together with his Bryston NRB power amp that he bought from Mervin a while back
He doesnt have his system setup since he is on the lookout for a new home and hence he will only finally set it up once he moves, but we were curious to see how his system would be coming together, so we tried all his stuff in many differing configurations in my setup, and while the conclusions cant really be definitive since when he finalizes his own setup the room and speakers will be different, but we did get some fair ideas of how his system is shaping up .... and for me i could identify some of the weak spots in my own system
initially we just tried replacing the DAC into my system which originally is a Microserver feeding a digital signal via USB into a uDSD DAC which then sends the analog output to the CD analog input of my Integra DTR50.3 AVR which then feeds the Cambridge Audio Aero 6 speakers ... and for the first round of listening we just replaced the uDSD with the Vivere. It was easy to hear how much different it all sounded in this instance ie the more expensive DAC made a substantial difference especially to the soundstaging and imaging capabilities of the setup .... the sound also became far more fuller and it basically just sounded more mature and grown up each individual instrument also seemed to grow in size and stature ie it created a better sense of lifesize scale and the spaces between the speakers now just seemed to fill up and the one difference was that it just seemed to drop total bass levels a bit ie if i was to get a DAC like this i would definitely need to pick up my sub levels a bit but it would really be all i need to actually bring my system on par with most other mid level systems that i heard which are fairly more expensive than mine
then we removed the cabling from the AVR and tried feeding the analog signal from the DAC directly to the power amp .... given that the AVR is rated to output 135 watts per channel and the Bryston is rated at 250 watts per channel i expected a bit of a difference and thats what we now got .... we did not need any other pre-amp since the Vivere has a 32 bit digital volume control built into it but with the Bryston we were able to turn volume levels up to "permanent hearing damage" levels without distortion or audible clipping .... and the speakers managed it fine though we did drop levels down for serious listening ... once again the amp did sound fairly better than the AVR but the DAC had already made a large difference and the changes in the amp were at a lower rate of improvement so while it did improve and audibly so the thing is i felt that i could still easily live with the output from my AVR with the added advantage of the bass management and being able to use the subwoofer (my sub makes much better bass .... cleaner clearer and much more detailed low bass than my speakers do while laying full range)
so the final configuration we tried was using my AVR as a pre-amp and this changed the soundstage a bit ie it made it smaller scale and there was a change in the tonal balance as well but using the sub made the speakers sound tonally better than just using the speakers full range with the power amp .... conclusions after changing the amp was that if i was to get a high capacity power amp and a decent DAC then my system could easilly sound as good as some of the lower calibre high end systems that i have heard .... and yes the power amp connected to the AVR did sound better than the AVR alone but not hugely so ie i could easily live without that difference
so now for Kershin (I_G) he needs to decide if he wants to get a pre-amp just to control a subwoofer mainly, and which subwoofer/s he can get which will sound more-or-less like mine (mine isnt going anywhere) so he needs to find something similar .... my suggestion is a pair of either Goldenear Technology Forcefield 3 (8" drivers) or a pair of sunfire 8" (models to be determined) .... the subwoofers are because he agrees with me that at the level of speakers that we are playing within definitely cant do low bass as well as a decent small diameter subwoofer can (and to get the full range speakers that will is going to cost way too much especially if you want a natural and balanced sound)
for me i found that i can make some good improvements to my system by getting a DAC in the same league as a Vivere - not much else needs to change to get my stereo sound to improve to a level high enough to actually call an improvement .... changing the amp or adding power amps is only going to land up being fine tuning but to get my system to perform the way i want it to i mainly need to change the DAC ie the biggest limiting factor in my stereo performance is the DAC (i initially though it was the speakers but my speakers seem to scale pretty well with improved amps and DACs so i really do not need to change the speakers just yet so in order to climb up the scale i just need a good DAC and then MAYBE thereafter a decent power amp with loads of power (definitely in that order with the power amp being the lesser requirement )
was a great productive fun afternoon .... but right now though i have to start putting those pennies into the piggy bank till i find a pre-owned DAC at the same level as that Vivere at a similar price :thumbs:
He doesnt have his system setup since he is on the lookout for a new home and hence he will only finally set it up once he moves, but we were curious to see how his system would be coming together, so we tried all his stuff in many differing configurations in my setup, and while the conclusions cant really be definitive since when he finalizes his own setup the room and speakers will be different, but we did get some fair ideas of how his system is shaping up .... and for me i could identify some of the weak spots in my own system
initially we just tried replacing the DAC into my system which originally is a Microserver feeding a digital signal via USB into a uDSD DAC which then sends the analog output to the CD analog input of my Integra DTR50.3 AVR which then feeds the Cambridge Audio Aero 6 speakers ... and for the first round of listening we just replaced the uDSD with the Vivere. It was easy to hear how much different it all sounded in this instance ie the more expensive DAC made a substantial difference especially to the soundstaging and imaging capabilities of the setup .... the sound also became far more fuller and it basically just sounded more mature and grown up each individual instrument also seemed to grow in size and stature ie it created a better sense of lifesize scale and the spaces between the speakers now just seemed to fill up and the one difference was that it just seemed to drop total bass levels a bit ie if i was to get a DAC like this i would definitely need to pick up my sub levels a bit but it would really be all i need to actually bring my system on par with most other mid level systems that i heard which are fairly more expensive than mine
then we removed the cabling from the AVR and tried feeding the analog signal from the DAC directly to the power amp .... given that the AVR is rated to output 135 watts per channel and the Bryston is rated at 250 watts per channel i expected a bit of a difference and thats what we now got .... we did not need any other pre-amp since the Vivere has a 32 bit digital volume control built into it but with the Bryston we were able to turn volume levels up to "permanent hearing damage" levels without distortion or audible clipping .... and the speakers managed it fine though we did drop levels down for serious listening ... once again the amp did sound fairly better than the AVR but the DAC had already made a large difference and the changes in the amp were at a lower rate of improvement so while it did improve and audibly so the thing is i felt that i could still easily live with the output from my AVR with the added advantage of the bass management and being able to use the subwoofer (my sub makes much better bass .... cleaner clearer and much more detailed low bass than my speakers do while laying full range)
so the final configuration we tried was using my AVR as a pre-amp and this changed the soundstage a bit ie it made it smaller scale and there was a change in the tonal balance as well but using the sub made the speakers sound tonally better than just using the speakers full range with the power amp .... conclusions after changing the amp was that if i was to get a high capacity power amp and a decent DAC then my system could easilly sound as good as some of the lower calibre high end systems that i have heard .... and yes the power amp connected to the AVR did sound better than the AVR alone but not hugely so ie i could easily live without that difference
so now for Kershin (I_G) he needs to decide if he wants to get a pre-amp just to control a subwoofer mainly, and which subwoofer/s he can get which will sound more-or-less like mine (mine isnt going anywhere) so he needs to find something similar .... my suggestion is a pair of either Goldenear Technology Forcefield 3 (8" drivers) or a pair of sunfire 8" (models to be determined) .... the subwoofers are because he agrees with me that at the level of speakers that we are playing within definitely cant do low bass as well as a decent small diameter subwoofer can (and to get the full range speakers that will is going to cost way too much especially if you want a natural and balanced sound)
for me i found that i can make some good improvements to my system by getting a DAC in the same league as a Vivere - not much else needs to change to get my stereo sound to improve to a level high enough to actually call an improvement .... changing the amp or adding power amps is only going to land up being fine tuning but to get my system to perform the way i want it to i mainly need to change the DAC ie the biggest limiting factor in my stereo performance is the DAC (i initially though it was the speakers but my speakers seem to scale pretty well with improved amps and DACs so i really do not need to change the speakers just yet so in order to climb up the scale i just need a good DAC and then MAYBE thereafter a decent power amp with loads of power (definitely in that order with the power amp being the lesser requirement )
was a great productive fun afternoon .... but right now though i have to start putting those pennies into the piggy bank till i find a pre-owned DAC at the same level as that Vivere at a similar price :thumbs:
