So....I bought THIS tonight.........

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by The Beave, Dec 7, 2019.

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  1. Nah, I’m keeping the Sonica right where it is—attached to my Oppo HA-1 as part of my headphone system!

    The LKS is sort of an unknown to me. I’ve not read any reviews or seen any measurements, and I don’t think they even have a website. If I were to hop on the “Chi-Fi” bandwagon, I would go for either the Matrix Audio X-Sabre Pro (which seems like the DAC to beat these days) or the Topping D70 or D90.
     
    The Beave likes this.
  2. The Beave

    The Beave My Wife Is My Life! And don’t I forget it! Thread Starter

    Great info Billy! And thanks again for cutting me some slack here.
    Now here’s an update showing how crazy I really am about this.
    I DID order the SONCOZ today on Amazon, I had cancelled the previous orders. But I’m able to take it on my Amazon card with no interest for 18 months, so I’m getting both!
    Santa is smiling down on me this season.
    Going to be a very interesting Christmas for the Beave!
    Thanks Billy!
    Beave
     
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  3. The Beave

    The Beave My Wife Is My Life! And don’t I forget it! Thread Starter

    Wally’s in jail for soliciting a male prostitute.
    I told him Audio was a much safer hobby but he wouldn’t listen to me.
    Beave
     
  4. unclefred

    unclefred Coastie with the Moastie

    Location:
    Oregon Coast
    Dang! I thought he was such a good kid.
     
  5. The Beave

    The Beave My Wife Is My Life! And don’t I forget it! Thread Starter

    Lol! The LKS is an unknown to a lot of us, me included, but I’m a sucker for a deal, but all the others you mention are all good units. Chi-fi comes of age indeed.
    Beave
     
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  6. The Beave

    The Beave My Wife Is My Life! And don’t I forget it! Thread Starter

    That’s what he wants you to think, black sheep of the family. If he was into audio he probably would have stolen all my stuff!
    Beave
     
  7. mongo

    mongo Senior Member

    Wally went to the dark side under the influence of Darth Haskell & Kilo Lumpy
     
  8. The Beave

    The Beave My Wife Is My Life! And don’t I forget it! Thread Starter

    Oh yeah he did! He called earlier and wanted me to bail him out, so I asked him if he knew what a Denafrips r-2r dac was and he was speechless, so I hung up on him!

    Just checked Drop and they extended the drop on the KLS 2 Days since I posted the info on the Hoffman marketplace thread

    Damn it tests out near perfect! But 2 grand is over 1 grand too much for my budget, they should’ve put it on sale for $1399 for Christmas, I just might have taken a shot, but I’ve got two dac’s coming for a little over $1400 and the rush of getting a deal trumps all. NEVER PAY RETAIL! EVER!
    BEAVE
     
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  9. The Beave

    The Beave My Wife Is My Life! And don’t I forget it! Thread Starter

    I have to tell you, Ben, who’s company puts out the Soncoz gear is in real time engaged with the community over at asr.
    Tests showed the ESS hump and he pretty much immediately started working on a modification of the circuit to eliminate the hump, which he was successful at doing in a weeks time!!! Sounds like what OPPO DID right!!
    Impressive as Hell, you just don’t see that often at all!
    I’m still going to get the deck, should ship tomorrow, he only distributed 8, yes 8 worldwide to Amazon so you know I have to have one and play with it until the corrected units ship in February on 2020.
    Plus I want to see if this dreaded, so called hump is actually audible to me.
    Nobody seems to have heard it or can correlate it as anything really AUDIBLY BAD.
    So the beavers on the case BAYBEE,!!!!
    Drinking Lunizul Blanco tonight!
    Raising one to Amir and Ben right now!
    While listening to RATT Out of the Cellar!
    Rock!
    Beave
     
  10. mongo

    mongo Senior Member

    Beave, you're off the rails but I'm loving it.
    Being curious, adventurous and open minded is awesome.
    What would Ward say?

    I'm not saying anyone here is going to do it but don't trash your Oppo-205 just yet, might be relevant to note that the Oppo-205 is still No 3 on ASR's SINAD list.
    Just sayin'
    Drinkin' em straight tonight Beave?
    What would June say? :cool:
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2019
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  11. The Beave

    The Beave My Wife Is My Life! And don’t I forget it! Thread Starter

    Never trashing the 205! It was special to get on their list and score one! I couldn’t part with it until I die!

    Ward actually passed away back in 80 a month from now, always in my heart, like Mom whom I lost back in August 23rd. Also lost brother Mark back in April. Got into a car crash head on a month and a half ago, Lost a lovely co worker who wasn’t even 40 years old and left two teenagers to carry on, that was 3 weeks ago.
    Listen guys, I’m not looking for sympathy, Life is what it is, but I’ve had a pretty pouched year and I know quite a few others who have had the same. Mom hurts the most, beautiful Woman and gone....just gone.
    So, I am looking for some fun, as much that I can muster and it’s working.
    So no sympathy replies please, and if any of you have had their share of Schidt this years, my Catholic prayers are with you and yours,
    And I mean that....

    Oh and never straight, well maybe, backing it with a Natural Light Strawberry Lemonade Beezo!!
    YUM YUM BIG TIME!


    Now, let’s ROCK!!!
    BEAVE
     
  12. mreeter

    mreeter Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kansas City
    I think the non MQA version sells for around $1600. Looking forward to your take on the two DACs you have coming in.
     
  13. Classicrock

    Classicrock Senior Member

    Location:
    South West, UK.
    If you want more info on someone using the LKS check out Martin T on the TAS forum MartinT: A New Beginning |    The Audio Standard. Beware this guy goes for a lot of snake oil products and has had some mods made by a dubious dealer.
     
  14. mongo

    mongo Senior Member

    Holy crap!
    That Drop deal is killer!
     
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  15. jhm

    jhm Forum Resident

    I jumped on the Drop. Man, this place will be the death of me! At least I'll die with a smile on my face :)!
     
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  16. The Beave

    The Beave My Wife Is My Life! And don’t I forget it! Thread Starter

    Yeah, 45% on a full sized dac that reviews are comparing to $5 & $6000.00 dac’s is rare in that price bracket. There just isn’t a whole lot of discounting going on there.
    And damned if they didn’t make it look like an OPPO!
    AND AND it’s got selectable “pre emphasis” which is super rare in the current market.
    The drop is ending tonight so thanks again to @ADIMOS for turning us on to suck a killer deal!
    Beave
     
  17. mongo

    mongo Senior Member

    jhm, you're looking at this all wrong, you'll be living with a smile on your face!
     
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2019
    jhm likes this.
  18. jhm

    jhm Forum Resident

    You're probably right. I'd be lying if I didn't say some of the "you only live once" talk here didn't sway me a bit. Well, that and I love a good deal, just it @Beave!
     
  19. The Beave

    The Beave My Wife Is My Life! And don’t I forget it! Thread Starter

    So while I’m waiting for the Soncoz to arrive I’ve been playing with an old 1986 CD player that I’ve started a different thread on, but thought I’d just chime in here because it is interesting to compare older gear with new state of the art gear.

    So as you might know, the Soncoz tested like in the top 5 on another site, pretty incredible for an upstart, especially using ESS Sabre 9038 chips, but the step down version from the top of the line “pro”. The specs are pretty insane, except for what is call the ESS hump in imd tests. Whether it’s audible or not nobody seems to know, but it looks pretty bad on paper. Anyways the engineer/designer/owner of the company is actually a member on that site and took notice and immediately went to work on the fix, which he actually came up with within a weeks time! Sounds like OPPO right?

    But that delayed the units from being shipped because a new circuit board has to be fabricated, thus me digging out that old CD player.

    So last night, in my boredom I remembered that I had that CD players older cousin, and that has a different dac in it, a Sanyo dac instead of the Burr Brown PCM 54HP I’ve been listening to.
    So I decided to put that CD player in the system and give it a listen.
    After a few hours listening to some recently listened to cds I came to the conclusion that this player just didn’t have any real fidelity! It sounds ok, but not at all INVOLVING.
    Just kind of meh, so I put the other pos deck back in and tracked, at the same volume level, a track from Yes 90210, one that I just played on the other player.

    And I am not kidding you, the difference was night and day! The soundstage and fidelity just blew out of the speakers! Full bodied sound, definition, clarity, all the thing missing from the other deck. So it is very true, different dac and analog output stages do sound very different sometimes. I now know why for decades I got just bored with cds, it’s because the players I was using sounded like deck 2. And this also speaks very highly of Older Burr Brown r2r Ladder dac’s, INCREDIBLY impressive for the vintage, 1986.

    So now, when I get the Soncoz I will be a/b’ing it to this older CD player and it will be very interesting maybe, to see how they compare.
    It’s als pretty cool on this old deck to watch the cd spin through the window in the front of the tray, very cool!
    Beave
     
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  20. The Beave

    The Beave My Wife Is My Life! And don’t I forget it! Thread Starter

    Ah, in case you guys were wondering about the Beave, and you KNOW I Love the Stones.......here you go, we’re playing at Muckleshoot for New Year’s Eve......

    And yeah, Wally’s here too:



    Oh baby............
    Happy new year all!
    Beave
     
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  21. Tim 2

    Tim 2 MORE MUSIC PLEASE

    Location:
    Alberta Canada
    Next he'll be wearing flip flops.
     
  22. ssmith3046

    ssmith3046 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arizona desert
    It's a good thing you're married because you had the chicks in the audience hot for the Beave.
     
  23. russk

    russk Forum Resident

    Location:
    Syracuse NY
    @The Beave Curious how this DAC is working any problems i.e. quality control issues? In looking for a DAC with balanced outs for my amp I tried the Topping D70 and the right balanced out was dead out of the box. Returned it and the second one I got had a messed up display. Lots of the latest Chinese DACs seem to be nailing the measurement aspect but not doing to well quality control wise.

    Despite the bad luck I am itching to try the Matrix Audio Element i or another cool Chinese DAC with balanced outs.
     
  24. The Beave

    The Beave My Wife Is My Life! And don’t I forget it! Thread Starter

    Hi Russk.

    Haven't gotten it yet.
    There was a technical issue found out on one of the test sites so the owner of the company went to work on a fix and the updated/fixed version should hit the stores late Feb/March.
    So I haven't gotten anything yet.

    The bad luck you had, I've been there.
    I'd really just put it down to the luck of the drawer and NOT let it get you down.
    Now, if you get TWO bad units then I would scrap that item and go for another/different one altogether.

    So good luck, I've heard nothing but good things about the Topping stuff, but again there are duds everywhere.
    Beave
    Start Me Up!
     
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  25. timind

    timind phorum rezident

    I have a Topping D70 which has worked flawlessly for me. Also have a SMSL SU-8 which works perfectly. Bought both of them used so figured they were bug free. I got a notice today Drop has the Topping DX7S for $330, it has balanced outs.
     
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