[Gopher]

As this thread is completely off the rails, maybe we should close it.

I tend to agree with this sentiment. 

Lets get it on track or create a new thread please. 

[wisnon]

Yeah, cuz "chasm" is not hyperbole??   You heard the Hugo ONCE, Norman!  ONCE!  In someone else's system!  You've never had it in your own system, for one. 

It "simply cannot"??  Huh?  Who made you Lord of this thing??  Your one instance with Hugo makes your comments...let me think...wait for it...an opinion!  Not empirical dogma.  Just sayin.  And my almost 12 months with Hugo (and a myriad of other dacs) makes my comments simply an opinion too.. 

Naive people will read anything into anything (such as "it blows the other thing away" or "listen, take my word for it").   Intelligent people will figure out that opinions are rampant.  We need to let these groups figure it out.   

Demo these units, in your own system, for a period of time.  Synergy is key, and often counter-intuitive on paper.  That is my one strong piece of advice!

Funny how synergy only affected the Hugo! LoL

Ted, I have demoed enough mega-buck dacs to know what is high end sound!
It was obvious.

BTW, none of us are Lord and Masters and You have not demoed the MSB plat and the Big7 yourself, so you really dont have a good idea of the comparison I am getting it for THIS group of components. …and Does AL strike you as the kinda guy who has ONE system when he has 7 Dacs, 6 amps (counting the Hugo and the HeadDac and the iDSD),  4 or more headphones? AFAIK, he also has 2 reference speakers in storage and some behemoth power amps to drive them. We went thru all the speakers and at least 3 amps in rotation for 7 hours…in a marathon session. This was not a casual meet up….its was (joyful) WORK.

Randy, you dont need "a long time" in your own system to determine massacre (a hyperbole by definition - CHASM is not, BTW)...by definition Massacre you hear immediately! That is the only way you can hear it. Nuances aand preferences are teased out over time as you say and that you do for similar operforming devices.

If someone weer to say that the Hugo sounds about the same as an Audioquest Dragonfly, what woul YOU say? LoL I have no qualms to say the hugo would massacre a Dragonfly and it SHOuld with that price difference. Ted and Barrows said the B7 and the MSB should be exxpected to blow away the Hugo with the price difference and BOM (and they do) so I dont understand the subsequent umbrage to my observation! If you heard them in the same system for even 5 minutes, I am 100% certain that you would come to the same conclusion. Night and day thing..

I do not pretend to be a reviewer and I dont do poetry, so for me to make such a bold statement you should understand that it was pellucidly clear.

[Gopher]

Obviously I agree that LampizatOr products are quite special or I wouldn't take time away from my family and law practice to promote/distribute them.   

I simply believe the direction this thread is going is not productive as the server hasn't even been mentioned since the sixth post.   

[Tomy2Tone]

Wait, this thread is about a server???? 

Looked at the euro site and it looks like quite the piece! Is there anything Lukaz doesn't plan on building? Wonder if he ever thought of making his own cables, in particular a usb cable.

[wisnon]

Wait, this thread is about a server???? 

Looked at the euro site and it looks like quite the piece! Is there anything Lukaz doesn't plan on building? Wonder if he ever thought of making his own cables, in particular a usb cable.

He did do powercords and cables before and they were very good, but not sure he had any special competitive advantage there.

[SearchOfSub]

SoS,

We listened many ways and as I said, AL continues to own all these Dacs a year later and has not changed his mind. I am sure he is reading this thread in amusement.

Also, unlike most people...he did not make the comparisons at shows, nor did he get in each one at different time with little or no overlap...HE HAS OWNED THEN ALL for over a year and has been able to compare them all against each other directly and over a loooong period of time. To me the Dstream edged the Hugo, but they were close. Keep in mind that AL has lost of DS firmware to roll, so is not like most who just use the latest official release.

I do appreciate that others can and do have a difference of opinion, so wont fight you between Hogo and DS, but there was a huge CHASM between those 2 and the Lampi/MSB which BOTH had the high end sound.

Again I say, that the HUGO and DS are fine products, but I have to stop the overreach in its tracks. Its was not close and I am not one to nitpick small nuances.

Only thing AL key repeating over and over at Headfi was that Hugo didn't do DSD well as his other dacs. He did agree Hugo did PCM just about better or good as his $10,000.00 DACs. His only problem with Hugo was DSD.  I partly agree with him with DSD on Hugo, I myself enjoyed listening to PCM more so than DSD on Hugo. PCM just sounded better than DSD. (same track etc) Most of AL ' collections are DSD and he was obsessed with DSD at the time from what I remember...

[wisnon]

SoS, I talk with AL often and sometimes several times a day as we chat about merits of tube rolling and other tweaks (not recently though). The only $10K Dac AL has is the Lampi B7 and there is no way he thinks the Hugo is in the same time zone in either DSD or PCM. Al has a $35K MSB, which we both consider close to the lampi and a $4K DStream and the Hugo. He also has tons of PCM...I wager he has more PCM that DSD, though he does have a lot of DSD too.

If you heard them both in the same system and A/B-ed them, you would get it immediatley. i am not trying to be unkind, but its more than obvious when you do the direct comparison. It may come across that I hate the Hugo, but I dont. I also expect the DAVE will be a serious contender to all...just look at the engineering and component quality. That too will crush the Hugo. You,more than most KNOW that I own a Qute, so i am not anti-Chord.

If you wish, I can contact him and have him clarify his position here for you...

Anyway, let's bring the focus back to the new Server. If I hear anything else on that I will update here. My Pal in Holland is still thrilled.

[barrows]

Gopher: maybe the DAC discussion can be moved to a new thread?  I like the DAC discussion generally myself, but agree it does not belong here, but there is good information being shared, and I would like to see it continue.

One thing I would ask though, everyone include system details when expressing comparisons.  At least what the source, amp/preamp, and speakers are.  With any DAC source  (like the topic of this thread, the server) is extremely important, as is how the source is connected (SPDIF/USB/I2S/Ethernet, etc).

Maybe I missed it, is Lukasz's Server specifically USB?  One thing I would like to see is adding an I2S (LVDS) to one of these B7 Lamps and serving them up from the Sonore Signature Rendu, that would be interesting!  Sonore has I2S input boards we could provide for this.

[wisnon]

Barrows, I tried for months and could not make that happen.

Jesus had no spare demos to send and Lukasz was too busy to do much back and forthing.

It seems PCM is no issue, as Jesus uses the PSA HDMI connector standard. DSD is another matter and the the LVDS does not have enough lines to do chipless.

I gave up trying to make it happen, especially as the Regen steps up USB to such and extent for many to make the matter a non-issue. Only so much an interested outsider can do.

I like your thinking though....

[barrows]

Barrows, I tried for months and could not make that happen.

Jesus had no spare demos to send and Lukasz was too busy to do much back and forthing.

It seems PCM is no issue, as Jesus uses the PSA HDMI connector standard. DSD is another matter and the the LVDS does not have enough lines to do chipless.

I gave up trying to make it happen, especially as the Regen steps up USB to such and extent for many to make the matter a non-issue. Only so much an interested outsider can do.

I like your thinking though....

Why would there be a problem for DSD?  We run native DSD over LVDS all the time:Data L (+/-), Data R(+/-), Bit Clock(+/-), and Master Clock(+/-).  It works into Buffalo DACs and no problem into the PS DS DAC.
Yup, no SSRs for loan available, as they are in short supply, but wiring up a board which gives standard I2S out, same as one would get from the Amenero should be easy as pie to Lamp.

[wisnon]

No idea why, but there seems to be an issue. Jesu as the same of the UK Vad guy who uses stepped resistors and he said that standard i2s would not work for his DSD playback either...

In any case, I wont waste another 2nd on this...I tried for long enough and have moved on, personally.