[Nicholas Bedworth]

Here you go everyone. http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/odyssey2/1.html

Peter van Karssen of Audioarte in NL kindly supplied all the beautiful pictures of the black, new-style Kismet case. He's at www.odysseyaudio.nl.

For those who run digital systems, be sure to check out www.audiophilleo.com.  This is the ultra-low jitter USB to S/PDIF interface discussed in the article. Highly recommended.

Nick

[golfugh]

Nice review Nick

Mark

[TomS]

Nick,

Nice review on the Kismets. 

I think your Audiophilleo link has a spelling error.  Sorry for brief OT, but that's a very interesting device I am not familiar with.  Any reviews upcoming on that hopefully compared to other 24/192 USB solutions like Wavelink, Hiface EVO, Offramp4 (when available), etc?  Feel free to PM me if you want to keep a clean thread.

Tom

[Nicholas Bedworth]

@tom
 
Thanks for the compliments and heads-up on the link. It looked OK in the post, but it was somehow broken. I re-entered it and now it seems to be working properly... www.audiophilleo.com.
 
This device is really a digital bitstream processor that, sure, handles USB, but also has a precision digital attenuator, balance control, phase reversal, etc., so it's basically the digital version of a preamplifier. Plugs directly into the DAC, no cable required, and it made a huge difference in how the Kismets sounded.
 
Review on the Audiphilleo1 is presently being typed up :O.

[saisunil]

brilliant review ...

[Eduardo AAVM]

Lots of information, lots of pitcures, lost of common sense considerations, a very good review !

 

[Nicholas Bedworth]

Thanks to all of you for the positive comments. It was a big project. Now, we will be trying a couple of new DACs in the next few weeks, such as the Bel Canto and Berkeley. We're thinking that the Kismets may be slightly limited in the soundstaging area by the DAC, so it's possible that a little more performance may yet remain to be extracted.

[Nicholas Bedworth]

@Eduardo... it just occurred to me that stacking the components the way they are shown in your picture might not be the best in terms of noise pickup. Have you tried them spread out? Might work even better.

[satfrat]

@Eduardo... it just occurred to me that stacking the components the way they are shown in your picture might not be the best in terms of noise pickup. Have you tried them spread out? Might work even better.

You might consider trying the Eastern Electric tube Dac which I found to have an enhanced 3D sound stage presence.
 
A very informative review btw. 
 
Cheers,
Robin

[fiogray]

No Blue-Moon award?

[Nicholas Bedworth]

@fiogray, the awards are probably decided by higher levels of authority
 
@robin, thanks of the recommendation about Eastern Electric.
 
@everyone, upgrading to the WBT nextgen 0705ag with the silver conductor inside it was very beneficial, even compared to the standard WBTs that Klaus uses. Live and learn.