Exodus in the house (literally)

TheChairGuy · « **on:** 9 Jul 2004, 07:03 pm »

Kevin sent mine out Wednesday and the UPS tracking info told me Delivery Estimate of July 13. Well, it's here, sakes alive! - just dropped the door.

It's handsome in that classic audiophile less-is-more look...protruding allen screws and all.

The Cardas speaker posts are not 5 ways, the only posts I've used I think, and are all metal...no chew marks on these guys in the future. Not very useful with bare wire, for you bare wire guys, best with speades and bananas.

Sturdy Cardas RCA's...nice.

I forgot that it was fully balanced; two smart looking (yet unused) XLR
inputs are there, too.

A nice touch is Kevin's inclusion of the nicest looking powercord that you will get for your $1200 purchase....a Bob Crump Asylum Power Cord. Not sure if it's 4 or 6' (not taken out of package), but it's a $77 value assembled...thrown (well, gently placed) in. Wow, nice touch Kevin

He coulda' thrown in some $3 Taiwanese cheapie, ya' know

Now I have one more toy to play with

Not sure if this is standard, better ask Kevin before ordering predicated on this fact.

I have it on now, some Jean-Pierre Rampal stuff. An awful recording and I'm actually enjoying it a little. I hear a bit of the sonic signiture that I heard in the little JVC receiver...it's that digital thang, you know.

Only 200+ hours to go....whoohoo.

StevenACNJ · « **Reply #1 on:** 9 Jul 2004, 07:30 pm »

Exodus vs JVC right out of the box sound (I read most of your posts on the cheepie JVC digital receiver)

Exodus has to sound much better then the JVC - no?

TheChairGuy · « **Reply #2 on:** 9 Jul 2004, 07:43 pm »

Steven,

I'm listening to Diana Krall and it's no contest in the power department. Very full and bloomy in here. Nuances come later. Nothing objectionable right outta' da' box..I'm surprised as digiamps take a long time to break in??? Kevin COULD'T have had time to break all these in...I'd think.

Also, I was able to hook up the massive 6ga. PS Audio Statement power cord to the Exodus and the DAC is hooked up to the very excellent IRD Purist Preamp. It's a much 'cleaner', and more expensive, hookup from DAC to amplification stage right now.

It's already nice, not phasey or soft at all. Sparkling highs, not aggravating at the start. Prodigious bass..I can't believe the Vandy 1c's are pushing out air like that.

Not fair, really to compare with the overachieving JVC......but, yeah, things have improved right outta' the box with the noted equipment differences above.

zybar · « **Reply #3 on:** 9 Jul 2004, 07:49 pm »

You are scaring me a bit...

If it doesn't sound significantly better than the JVC out of the box, how will it possibly sound better than my Rowland 201's?

Guess I will have to wait till the 14th to find out as UPS has just rescheduled my delivery (must be Ying to ChairGuy's Yang

).

George

TheChairGuy · « **Reply #4 on:** 9 Jul 2004, 08:49 pm »

George, fear not...

The Exodus is, overall, better than the JVC...right outta' the box, as I noted above. I just wanted to point out the somewhat unfair comparo as I'm using a 'grande' power cord with it and I was never able to play the Sony 7700 with the digital thru-puts on the JVC...so it went thru the cheap preamplification sections within the JVC.

It has gobs more power, more delineation around voices and instruments, waaay more bass and the highs are pretty good already (but, I'm 41, probably wasn't born with anything more than average hearing, and have traveled a lot in planes for 15 years..only the last 2 with ear plugs).

Right outta' the box, I'd have this has the 'presence' of the better amps I've heard (YBA, Acoustic Reality, Krell, Edge ar a few heard at shows and showrooms)....but you are, no doubt, way more familiar with good gear than I in your own listening room. This is my first very good amp, this is one among many for you I'd think.

Fear not - it's goooood.

You'll be a better determinant than I as to HOW good it is.

zybar · « **Reply #5 on:** 9 Jul 2004, 08:54 pm »

Cool!!

Believe me, I want it to work.

If it sounds equal or better than my 201's, I will gladly sell them and keep the pair of Exodus amps and a bunch of my hard earned money.

The second I get the amps they will go into the system to cook. With the delay on the delivery, they will only get about 2-3 days max playing time before a bunch of AC members come over for a gathering. I was hoping they would have more time to cook, but at least people will be able to get an idea of what they can do.

Keep us posted on how they improve over the coming days.

George

TheChairGuy · « **Reply #6 on:** 9 Jul 2004, 09:02 pm »

George,

I thought you got one Exodus with 4 channels of amplification...did you end up with two 2 channel Exodus'?

After 2 hours or so, they are now getting a little phasey and indistinct in the midrange. This has been my experience with all audio equipment...except for speakers as they tend to suck right at the get-go and (hopefully) improve with hours on them.

Time will tell

lonewolfny42 · « **Reply #7 on:** 10 Jul 2004, 06:20 am »

I wonder if any other members are getting the Exodus amps now besides ChairGuy and zybar ? Anyone else ??

zybar · « **Reply #8 on:** 10 Jul 2004, 11:48 am »

Quote from: TheChairGuy

George,

I thought you got one Exodus with 4 channels of amplification...did you end up with two 2 channel Exodus'?

After 2 hours or so, they are now getting a little phasey and indistinct in the midrange. This has been my experience with all audio equipment...except for speakers as they tend to suck right at the get-go and (hopefully) improve with hours on them.

Time will tell

Two stereo amps. My speaker cables are short and I can't use a single stereo amp.

George

TheChairGuy · « **Reply #9 on:** 12 Jul 2004, 05:08 pm »

George, Wolfy, JoshK and anyone else at George's for July 17 bash....

DON'T review the Exodus after only three days break-in. Yeech. Black Gates and Class D outputs are nasty the first (fill in the blanks) hours.

I got 48 hours on it as of yesterday PM. I'm only too glad to be on a business trip thru Wednesday so I don't have to listen to it for another few break-in days.

I'm sure it's not indicative of it's ultimate performance when break in ends, but it was nasty yesterday.

Unless all you care about is bass performance (that it has a-plenty)...you have been forewarned.

TCG

StevenACNJ · « **Reply #10 on:** 12 Jul 2004, 05:25 pm »

Quote from: TheChairGuy

George, Wolfy, JoshK and anyone else at George's for July 17 bash....

DON'T review the Exodus after only three days break-in. Yeech. Black Gates and Class D outputs are nasty the first (fill in the blanks) hours.

I got 48 hours on it as of yesterday PM. I'm only too glad to be on a business trip thru Wednesday so I don't have to listen to it for another few break-in days.

I'm sure it's not indicative of it's ultimate performance when break in ends, but it was nasty yesterday.

...

I just read this on the LC Audio Website:

"Note: Black gate VK caps are no longer used in ZAPpulse 2.2SE. They have been replaced with Vishay series RLI136 100uF/100V. These caps add a slight warmt to the sound profile of ZAPpulse 2.2SE, as they are active from 205 Hz, compared to the Black Gate's 423 Hz."

TheChairGuy · « **Reply #11 on:** 12 Jul 2004, 05:49 pm »

Hey Steven,

Interesting...I didn't crack this thing open to see, but I think Kevin's pics on the website show BlackGates. So, I don't know which is in there.

Kevin, care to enlighten us on this?

However, it's not a pretty sound yet, indeed.

Kevin P · « **Reply #12 on:** 12 Jul 2004, 05:50 pm »

The shipping version of the Exodus amps has the Blackgates. I was told last week that the LC Audio modules will be transitioned over to the Vishay. The reason I was given was supply issues with the Blackgates.

Since I don't yet have a version with the Vishay caps I don't yet have any input on how this is going to effect things from a subjective standpoint.

TheChairGuy · « **Reply #13 on:** 12 Jul 2004, 06:13 pm »

Ugly BlackGate sound is a fact for a couple hundred hours...sure glad to know this is the reason for the ugly sound right now.

As with other BlackGatted equipment I've had and heard, it just blooms sometime down the road.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.....

zybar · « **Reply #14 on:** 12 Jul 2004, 07:22 pm »

Quote from: TheChairGuy

George, Wolfy, JoshK and anyone else at George's for July 17 bash....

DON'T review the Exodus after only three days break-in. Yeech. Black Gates and Class D outputs are nasty the first (fill in the blanks) hours.

I got 48 hours on it as of yesterday PM. I'm only too glad to be on a business trip thru Wednesday so I don't have to listen to it for another few break-in days.

I'm sure it's not indicative of it's ultimate performance when break in ends, but it was nasty yesterday.

...

Thanks for the warning.

I wasn't expecting too much until some miles get on them.

George

StevenACNJ · « **Reply #15 on:** 13 Jul 2004, 07:16 pm »

Any updates?

zybar · « **Reply #16 on:** 15 Jul 2004, 02:14 am »

Ok, although UPS tried their best to stop them, the amps finally arrived.

Kevin, you might want to think of going with a little sturdier boxes. Mine were ripped at the seams and had some holes. Luckily the foam inserts saved the day and there is nary a nick or scratch!

Below are some quick pics I took of my units. They are well made and pretty basic as the pics show.

For right now, they are plugged in and powered up. Starting in the morning, I will feed them a signal and start the burn in process. I will keep everybody posted as things go along.

George

bambadoo · « **Reply #17 on:** 15 Jul 2004, 06:44 am »

Will be very interesting to see how it performs. Especially mated with the bentaudio NOH. The Exodus has only 15 k input impedance, and some people say that this may be a problem with passive preamps. Earlier versions of the zappulse modules had 2.3 k input impedance. No valves or passive preamps there.

BTW. How do you like your EC dac? I live in Norway (loads of EC equipment here) and I have tested it a couple of times.

Best Regards

zybar · « **Reply #18 on:** 15 Jul 2004, 11:19 am »

Quote from: bambadoo

Will be very interesting to see how it performs. Especially mated with the bentaudio NOH. The Exodus has only 15 k input impedance, and some people say that this may be a problem with passive preamps. Earlier versions of the zappulse modules had 2.3 k input impedance. No valves or passive preamps there. BTW. How do you like your EC dac? I live in Norway (loads of EC equipment here) and I have tested it a couple of times.

Best Regards

I talked to Kevin and John Chapman about this pairing and both felt that I would be fine.

As for the ECD-1...it is a very good dac and competitive with others dacs costing much more. It's weakness is absolute definition in the higher frequencies.

George

Marbles · « **Reply #19 on:** 15 Jul 2004, 01:21 pm »

I have NOH problems with my Bent and my 10Kohms input impedence amps.

My DAC does output more than 2V though, so I'm sure this helps.

The transformers don't act like resistive passive pre-amps and have an easier time driving tough loads.