[kavu]

how much is it in the US (and where can you get it)?

Yes I reckon the pricing is on the high side. But if it does crashes the competition, for example the Cosecant, Twindac+, Zanden etc then I have no problem with the price.  

But then who's going to give it a shot and tell us the result?  

[JDUBS]

how much is it in the US (and where can you get it)?

Its listed on the first page of the thread.

[pardales]

I was curious enough. Beyond that, I have been in the mood to try something really different. I ordered the Attraction DAC and the BYOB amp and will hook them both up to the same battery. I should take delivery of them sometime the first week in June and will report after I have spent some time with them.  

[earlmarc]

Pardales, I am curious about whether or not you had a chance to audition the Attraction Dac. Did you receive it , and if so, what are your impressions?

[GHM]

Yes Pardales has his new babys!  I'm doing my best to secure myself one of these DACs and possibly the amplifier in the future. Hopefully Pardales will let you know what he thinks. He told me he planned to let them cook for a while before giving a review. I can't wait to get mine...the suspense has nearly drove me to smoke . I wanted to have it in time to compare it against the Emperical modded Electrocompaniet ECD-1(terrific dac by the way).
Not sure if that will happen or not. By the way anyone want to buy a slightly used Audio Sector Dac for cheap? Another terrific Dac..upgraditis has struck again   .

So far the owners I've communicated with..say they haven't heard anything like it.

[prokennex]

It would be nice to get some more opinions on the attraction dac from people who have heard it in their systems.

[jon_010101]

However, I DO have a problem with the price of this DAC. Just look at the competition and you can find several excellent NOS DACs with FABULOUS performance (regardles ...

I tend to agree, and am very curious to try one, but for $1k I'd feel more comfortable buying a Lavry or something.  And I'd probably build a serious linear power supply instead ... less chance of eviction... can't imagine what the landlord would think about a lead-acid battery, even a sealed one, sitting anywhere near his hardwood floor.  Already get enough crazy looks thanks to the tube amps, tubes, and test gear .

[pardales]

I have now had Charles's Altmann's Attraction DAC and BYOB amplifier in my system for a little over one week. Here is a short review of my impressions. Just so you know, I am not much into details -- I listen rather wholistically and just look for overall balance and engagment in sound.

My speakers are VR-4JR's. I use Signal Cable Silver Resolution speaker cable and Luminous Audio Synchestra Reference IC's. I have a hard drive based system with a Waveterminal U24 taking the USB signal and converting it into S/PDIF which I connect to the Attraction DAC via a Luminous Audio digital cable.

The Attraction DAC and BYOB amp are both connected to an Optima Red Top battery. Incidentally, I loved walking into an auto parts store as a requirment to get my new system up and running.

The sound: whole, balanced, organic, engaging. One thing this system has done which has never happened before is that it has made my speakers disappear. There is now just a wall of really great sound (lots of depth). The amp has more than enough juice to drive my VR-4JR's to louder levels than I care to listen to (though, i don't listen loud). This system just sounds REALLY pleasing. Oh, and the background is pretty much non-existent. What I mean is, its BLACK. The sound sems to come from nowhere.

Thus far I have only had to charge the battery once, no big deal. I just hook it up before I go to sleep and it is charged by the next  morning -- good for another week or two.

It is worth reading through Charles' website (www.mother-of-tone.com) from begining to end. Fun. Really good music. This is the least expesnive stereo I have had for some years. Now I must get back to the music.

[Gordy]

Hi Pardales,

Thanks for getting back with your impressions!  One thing to keep in mind, lead acid batteries will last far longer (build up less sulfates) if they are always kept at full charge.  Get into the habit of charging up after every use and you'll lessen the possibility of forgetting and running the battery down below the 12v point, not a good thing!

Enjoy!

[pardales]

Gordy: Thanks for the tip. I'm not sure i'll get to it every day, but I will definitely charge it a bit more often. I am still really enjoying the sound of music being made this my system.

p

[Jon L]

Just so you know, I am not much into details -- I listen rather wholistically and just look for overall balance and engagment in sound.

My speakers are VR-4JR's. I have a hard drive based system with a Waveterminal U24 taking the USB signal and converting it i ...

Are you able to compare the DAC to other DAC's?  

I can almost "hear" the sound you're describing, but I think I'm one of those people who REALLY like high resolution, high detail sound, especially explosive microdynamic texturing in treble and midrange..

[pardales]

It is not that there are no details in the sound created by the Attraction DAC. My comment was meant to refer to the fact that my description would not make extensive use of the detailed and specilaized language audiophiles use in describing the sounds they hear. With the Attraction DAC I think you can focus on the forest or the trees -- depending on what you like. You can do this because it is ALL there. There is also a sense of depth and palpability that I have not experienced thus far.

I cannot give you direct comparisons to other DAC's as I have no others in my system right now. But here is a list of DAC's I have auditioned in my system in the last 18 months:

Dodosn 218
Dodson 217 MK II D
Audio Aero Primak MK II SE
Benchmark
Apogee Mini USB

Cheers,

[Jon L]

It is not that there are no details in the sound created by the Attraction DAC. My comment was meant to refer to the fact that my description would not make extensive use of the detailed and specilaized language audiophiles use in describing the sounds they hear. With the Attraction DAC I think you can focus on the forest or the trees -- depending on what you like. You can do this because it is ALL there. There is also a sense of depth and palpability that I have not experienced thus far.

I cannot give you direct comparisons to other DAC's as I have no others in my system right now. But here is a list of DAC's I have auditioned in my system in the last 18 months:

Dodosn 218
Dodson 217 MK II D
Audio Aero Primak MK II SE
Benchmark
Apogee Mini USB

Cheers,

Actually, I'm familar with sound of Dodson 218, Benchmark (to be modded later), Apogee.  It WOULD help greatly if you could make some comments of Altman vs these others, if just from memory. 

I haven't heard the Audio Aero Prima Mk II SE, but it IS on my short list, so that would help also. 

[denjo]

I have auditioned the Benchmark (unmodded) and stock Audio Aero Prima, before taking the plunge with the Altmann Attraction - based substantially on Dick Oshler's glowing review in EnjoytheMusic! The Altmann Attraction DAC works wonderfully in my system. The music simply flows with an organic ease and fluidity, and sounds so analog that I sometimes forget if I am still playing from a digital source! Somehow the 12v DC power from the SLA (Thanks Vinnie for modding the RWA battery enclosure!) works wonders to the DAC and the music. My journey to find an excellent source has ended with the Altmann Attraction DAC, and my musical adventure has just begun as I hear new things in every familiar piece. Don't be fooled by its form (looks like an uncompleted DIY Science electronic project to some but a wonderful conversation piece all the same! Hey Charles, I think the looks are just great to my eyes and I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder! ). Don't be put off by the price tag! IMHO, it is worth many times more the asking price! And, Charles is a great and very interesting person to deal with!

[pardales]

Denjos description, and I quote, "The music simply flows with an organic ease and fluidity, and sounds so analog that I sometimes forget if I am still playing from a digital source!" echoes my own impressions of the sound of the Attraction DAC.

[geofstro]

After about two months with my Attraction DAC I've finally got around to posting some initial impressions.

Charles has been quoted earlier in this thread as saying he felt a transport contributes about 7-8% and with his Jisco anti Jitter circuitry 0%. My transports are currently limited to an old Sony DVP-7000 and a Samsung dvd-hd945. I've been making use of these players for transports and engaged the Jisco circuitry on the DAC. With the Jisco circuitry engaged when using the Samsung dvd-hd945, it was pretty clear there was a significant improvement. With the Sony DVP-7000 it didn't seem quite so obvious; but I believe I detected an improvement with the Jisco switched on and have left it that way ever since.

Before I attempt to describe the sound of the Altmann DAC, I'll just mention a couple of practical considerations. The DAC is limited to one Coaxial plus one optional Toslink input. I've found it convenient to attach both the above transports via the Coaxial input by using a Y-Adapter on the input.  The controls are simple metal switches which are easy enough to understand how to operate; but not as convenient as on a more conventional product where the controls would be labeled on the chassis. Operating the switches hasn't been made easier by the fact that I've needed to locate the Dac on the bottom shelf of my rack. I found that attaching the fairly heaving duty digital and analog interconnects I'm using to the DAC, had a tendency to tip it's very light body off balance. After all it's only a circuit board screwed to a piece of spruce board. I found that I could use the curve of the cables themselves to brace the DAC against the shelf above. This is actually better than with some light equipment I've used in the past, which heavy cables have threatened to pull off a rack by dragging the unit down at the back. Some Vibrapods strategically placed under the Altmann DAC also helped in making it stable. So this DAC is a bit hair shirt; but hell, what do you want convenience or MUSIC.

For me the key to understanding what the Altmann DAC does so well is to start with the question of detail retrieval and what is meant by it. Detail is sometimes thought of in a negative light, if a component seems to pander to the trainspotting kind of detail enthusiast. I think it's interesting that the question of detail came up earlier in this thread.

What the Altmann DAC provides you with is as rich a musical tapestry as I can imagine is possible to obtain from each disc played through it. As Pardales pointed out above, you can, if you choose to, analyze the sound, dissect it, as it were, in order to pick out specific elements, musical and amusical. If you don't choose to be an anal-yst, though, what happens is, the music just keeps coming at you complete and you appreciate how the gestalt is made up of this wealth of information. I think that's because the waveform recreated by the Altmann is maintaining the correct perspective of the elements at all times, rather than distort that perspective in such a way that the trainspotter types may be very impressed by the spotlighting of some relatively unimportant detail. As Pardales explained, it's all there though, if you care to pick out such details. You are more likely I think, to just be carried away and involved in the music in the way the artists/composer intended and thereby defeated in your analytical pursuits. What a shame.

When I first got the Altmann I'd moved most of my CD's to my other location/system and just happened to have a few disks lying around. These included some early Stevie Wonder which I'm familiar with since having listened to them a lot on LP during the 70's/80's. That was on a fairly decent system at the time Michell Gyrodec, Audio Research SP8, Quicksilver Monos and various ProAC models as well as Quad's original electrostatics. I don't recall appreciating just how much was going on in these disks until hearing them now through the Altmann, though. On albums such as Fullfillingness First Finale, and Songs in the Key of Life I can really understand how much fun Stevie was having with all these keyboards, etc, at his disposal and how he used them to the fullest to realize his musical visions. I now realize that this music is far more complex than I'd appreciated earlier. With the Altmann you get the gestalt, and can understand the musical statements the artist is making as the music unfolds. This gestalt is an aggregate of all those details which constitute it, of course; but to force yourself to pick out individual details to test the resolving power of your system would seem to go against nature. Individual instruments or groups of instruments are naturally highlighted as a piece evolves in the way the artist intended, and provided your system doesn't distort the musical perspectives in any way the music will make sense as a piece. The music just keeps coming at you similarly to in a live situation, and on complex dense music it is exciting and almost overwhelming, though in a most enjoyable way.

Rather than try to pick out details from a complex piece to determine how well the Altmann is doing at reproducing individual instruments, it is obviously easier to play simpler recordings with fewer instruments and acoustic instruments are easier I believe for judging tonality. Well no surprises here. A guy who names his web-site 'mother-of-tone' is obviously going to place tonal accuracy pretty high up on his list of priorities in his designs. Listening to individual instruments on the Chesky demo disk, for example, clearly shows the Altmann DAC respects the timbre of individual instruments better than other source components I've tried in this system. Instruments just sound right through the Altmann, what more can I say? From our built in memory banks of what individual instruments sound like in real life, we can judge, I believe if the tone of an intrument is correct. Perhaps when I say instruments sound right through the Altmann this may be a judgment relative to other source components in the system. Perhaps other improvements to the system may cause me to revise my opinion and find tonality to be better still. Of course, it would be linguistically erroneous to say tonality is now even more 'right'; but I think this tends to happen with audio. We judge something to be right when it is closer to the truth than we've heard before until something else comes along that sounds closer still. I will be reluctant to blame any tonal inaccuracy that remains in my system on the Altmann, however, since it is clearly that good in this respect.

Getting back to that useful Chesky disc, it is interesting, I think, to note that the announcer translates PRAT into energy. Energy is certainly a word that springs to mind in connection with the Altmann DAC. Tracks that are meant to demonstrate if your system has it, really do swing with the Altmann, in that infectious way that prevents you from keeping still, no matter how hard you try.

I haven't carried out extensive comparison between standard CD's and higher resolution Discs. In listening to some 96/24 that I made myself from LP's which I recorded, I would say the richness and complexity of the music is turned up a notch further, causing CD's to sound slightly simpler in comparison. However this is by no means conclusive as it would be necessary to have a 96/24 and 44.1/16 comparison of exactly the same recording. I haven't had the opportunity of trying 192 khz discs yet either; but I imagine they might go even further in this direction. I did try a couple of CD's I'd enhanced with DVD2ONE audio re-master software and I must say the results were so impressive through the Altmann that I'm now convinced for the first time that enhancing CD's with this software is worthwhile. I don't plan on doing it for my entire collection; but for CD's where I find the recording quality lacking in some way, I will run it through DVD2ONE and with this DAC there do seem to be clear improvements. I've also used it for favorite CD's that sound exceptionally good to see if I can get them to sound even better, and these have also sounded great with the Altmann. Perhaps there is some kind of synergy between this software and the Altmenn DAC. I know Charles favors this software, although I don't know if he advocates using it to enhance CD's. It can also be used to make 96/24 DVD Video discs from existing 96/24 recordings and I also used it this way to make discs of my LP's, in which case it doesn't attempt any enhancing when a file is already at 96/24.

To sum up the Altmann DAC's qualities I will say that no matter how complex the music it conveys the gestalt and the musical meanings become clear. To achieve this it's a given that dynamic swings and contrasts both large and small are reproduced as they should be. This coupled with respect for the rhythmic structure of different types of music is what gives the Altmann its amazing energy. Combine this with exemplary timbral accuracy and there you have it.

When you are strongly attracted to someone you're willing to accept and even grow to love their blemishes and imperfections. In the case of the Altmann none of these appear to show up in the sound, just in a few minor inconveniences of set up and operation. You also desist from trying to analyze them too much. In my case I just haven't been able to resist the Attraction. 

geoff

[Loftprojection]

Nice review but it would be even more interesting if you could directly compare the sound of the Altman to a specific dedicated CD player in the +$1000 range.  Then we could really appreciate the extent of your comments.  Right now it is pretty clear that a $1000 DAC will kick butt very easily when you are used to listen to DVD players but how well does it perform against a dedicated CDP?  Could you tell us if you have in the past listened to specific players in your system and how you feel they compared to the Altman? 

[Paul_Bui]

Thanks Geoff for a nice review.  You made me want to order the unit.

[denjo]

Geoff
Excellent review - you have have so well articulated my own experience with the Altmann Attraction DAC. BTW, what SLA battery and digital cable/s were you using? Not surprisingly for something of such pedigree, I have found it is quite partial to good cables. I am using the Neotech top-of-the-line silver cable and am very pleased with the combination. As for your use of vibropods below the spruce board, I used a similar isolation device (more to give it some blu-tak grip!) but found it softened/muffled the sound somewhat, and decided to let it stand on the wooden feet that Charles had created! I am sure he intended it that way. You should consider writing for one of the good audiophile magazines!

Loftprojection
If it helps, I auditioned the Audio Aero Prima II and the Altmann Attraction DAC was in a different league! Just think of the qualities of an excellent turntable, discount it a bit and you are talking about the Altmann Attraction DAC! I think a better comparison would be to pit it with phonos!!

Denjo

[geofstro]

Thanks for the compliments guys. I realized during writing it that the job of those magazine reviewers is not so easy It is tricky to put into words what you experience when listening.

Loftproject - You make a fair point. Unfortuntately one of the restaints on real reviewers is that they're limited to a certain word count. That also applies here and I had difficulty cutting it down to within the 10000 character count limit. The original was in excess of 15000 characters and it included a comparison with my old CEC TL-2X transport in combination with the Museatex Bidat.  I also have the Sony SCD 777ES which is a SACD/CD player that I've used as a standalone CDP, as well as a transport feeding the Bidat. The Bidat now serves me well in my other system, at a different location and works brilliantly with the Sony SCD 777ES as a transport. In my original pre-edited review, which I wasn't able to post, I stated that in my experience the Bidat is the only DAC that I feel is on a par overall with the Altmann DAC for 44.1 KHZ/16 Bit material. It is limited to a maximum sampling rate of 48khz, though, so there's no possibility of using higher res sources through it without downsampling first.

The Bidat and Altmann are not the same and are being used in different systems. I would love to make a side by side comparison, though that will have to wait until I can afford to have Vinnie make an SLA power supply for the Altmann, because I don't wish to haul the car battery to the place where I have the Bidat. I've only just had the Bidat returned from John Wright after he made the latest upgrades (Blackgate caps, etc). Those updates are starting to warm up now. I also wonder whether powering the Altmann with Vinnies' supply or the Optima Red top car battery would make any difference to the sound. The reason I referred to this review as 'initial impressions' is that I do intend to make more comparisons in the future.

I'm not sure if price is the right criteria for comparison though. In my original review I also compared the Altmann with Vinnies' iMod which I am also very happy with. I can listen to the iMod most of the time and it allows me jukebox style access to a huge library of music. It's only in direct comparison to the Altmann that the iMod shows its limitations. It needs something as good as the Altmann to show those limitations though, and I believe Vinnie when he says it's been compared favourably with CDP's in the $2000 price range.

Denjo,

I'm powering the Altmann with the same Optima Red Top battery that Charles uses. The digital cable I'm using is from Harmonic Tech. I've had a nagging doubt that the sound may be ever so slightly closed in with the Vibrapods compared with standing directly on its wooden feet. I'm going to try to live without them next week. Thanks.

I'd better quit before I exceed that 10000 limit again.

geoff