[rollo]

Had a similar experience with a Sonic Impact Super-T. With the Promitheus, a much weightier, fuller sound. Imaging too is more distinct...wonder why this occurs?

 

TomekZ,
              The Tripath amps sound like SETs. That is one reason. The second is that the impedance of the output trannies of the TVC like the input impedance of the Tripath amps. The music just flows effortlessly. A wonderfull synergy is occurring here.
              Have found that amps with very low input sensitivity sound better than with high input sensitivity.

   rollo

[gooberdude]

Hey Robert 1325,

Today i'll be receiving a pair of Silver Iris'...can't wait. 

you MUST get a TVC!   kidding, but the combo with the Trends was sick, sick, sick....  Every so often used TVC's are popping up here & at A'gon.



hey Rollo,

i'm going to buy 2 of these as monoblocks & disable their volume control. or at least play around with the best configuration.  With the TVC volume open 100% & my subs connected via IC's from the TVC, the subs were the happiest they've been.  SO tight & fast...   


Guys, is there a new model or type of these $100 T-amps that I should look at???   All i know about is the Trends and the Sonic Impact amps.  obviously i'm leaning towards the Trends amps...

If i could gripe about anything, it'd be that the soundstage was less deep than with the Muse 100 SS amp we compared it to.  However, the Trends needs a warm-up period like any other amp, and about an hour into the session things really did get interesting.   No clue if I could do a T-amp full-time, but it certainly deserves more than a cursory look in my book, given the performance.   Any lack of deep bass from the Trends was more than compensated for by the subs.  Considering my subs cost $350 in total, this was a true budget set-up, left me breathless.   And the Trends may not lack deep bass, but in comparison the Muse 100 is a bassy monster.   

Initially i had both volume knobs (Trends & TVC) at about 50% each.  within a few minutes it became apparent that the transparency & 3-D wildness just popped out with the TVC at full volume - maybe due to a lack of resistance in the signal?     Another great attribute is with this config we could switch between 4 difft sources via the TVC...   

My Thiels are going on the auction block very, very soon...

[acd483]

Ahh...I've been waiting for this DAC for months! When can we order Nicholas?

Matt and I had an amazing sonic experience last night. My ADS 710/2 speakers had beautiful
synergy with Matt's equipment and my Trends TA-10.1 performed admirably with the TVC. The soundstage
on the Muse had significantly more depth, while the Trends revealed details that I had never
heard on the cuts we were playing. I look forward to experimenting more with that little amp. There is a
special edition model with all the tweaks performed already for ~$300.

For everyone's info we listened to Sade, Alison Krauss and Tom Waits. The production on each album was impeccable.
The Tom Waits cuts, especially "Innocent When You Dream" produced the most intoxicating soundstaging
I've heard. I believe I used the word "surreal."

[rollo]

Gooberdude,
                     New speakers you say. Hyperions? V S VR4s? You are gonna need 90 DB or better to make the trends really shine. Good luck.

 rollo

[Russell Dawkins]

Hey Matt,

    If you think the Trends Amp sounded good. Try bi-amping with one per channel. If you have separate binding posts for bass and mid/hi you can try vertical bi-amp as well. The killer is [4] 2 per side. They are inexpensive enough.
    rollo

Hi Rollo - are you saying 2 per side bridged? I contacted a Trends importer based on this post and their reply was that the TA-10 could not be bridged. Could you explain what you have in mind by "[4] 2 per side". Thanks.

[Paul_Bui]

anyone here using altmann attraction DAC together with promitheus? do they like each other?

They love each other.

[rollo]

anyone here using altmann attraction DAC together with promitheus? do they like each other?

They love each other.

 

  So when is the wedding. I hope I'm invited. Wonder what the offspring will look like. Little blond TVC's.

    rollo

[gooberdude]

Hey Rollo,

i'm going OB & bought a pair of the Hawthorne Silver Iris drivers & x-overs...96 db efficient and they only need a few watts.    I'm not going to run out & buy a T-amp just yet...but it will be a consideration here shortly.    

After listening to the Ronins & Tim Babbs gigantic Cornwalls + hearing Nick Chua opine about his OB speakers I had to make a change.  The SI's (hopefully) will combine my taste for the sound large drivers put out, and this OB thang.


Anthony, thanks for correcting me...i stated your A/D/S speaks were 210...they are 710/2 & worth every penny you paid for them.  amazing imaging.     Kinda funny that my system is so tweaked & tuned and ready for action, yet the only thing holding it back was speakers.    If I had your speakers i'd never leave the house!     Buy Nick's DAC soon...


matt

[rollo]

Hey Matt,

    If you think the Trends Amp sounded good. Try bi-amping with one per channel. If you have separate binding posts for bass and mid/hi you can try vertical bi-amp as well. The killer is [4] 2 per side. They are inexpensive enough.
    rollo

Hi Rollo - are you saying 2 per side bridged? I contacted a Trends importer based on this post and their reply was that the TA-10 could not be bridged. Could you explain what you have in mind by "[4] 2 per side". Thanks.

 

   Use one input and one output from each amp for each channel. One amp for woofers and one for top end. We will know if this works out as 2 more are on the way. I do know that one amp per side is very impressive. We will try 2 and see what occurs.

rollo

[jaspal kallar]

The DAC features

Our own nickel pulse transformer (this separates the ground thus resulting in a quieter music) to couple the digital output of your cdp into our DAC similar to AN DAC3 models and above

Dedicated pre and post regulator (for each chip) to bring down the noise floor

Specially wound Balanced power transformer to power DAC, this is the same winding topology as our balanced power supply. This further brings down the noise floor. The power transformer is wound on a M6
core

Dedicated windings on the power transformer for the digital power supply and the analog power supply.

This is NOT shared to prevent the transfer of digital noise to your precious analog power supply.

The power transformer is fitted with MULTIPLE electrostatic shields to prevent the spreading of the noise cause by digital circuits. This electrostatic shields shunt noise to ground thus keeping the power supply clean

Asynchrous reclocking to 100Mhz. Clock module is place below the PCB to prevent spraying the board with noise. The clock module is located at the bottom left end of the PCB

Selectable gain structure of 1.25volts out, 2.2volts out and 4 volts output. This allows user to optimize their gain structure.

On the output, output transformers is used to couple the analog voltage from the DAC to the outside world. This way the DAC is impedance match to your down line equipment. This output transformer is wound on a M6 core

Was curious about the dimensions of this DAC and if there would be some tube(s) in the design?

    - jaspal.

[robert1325]

Hey Robert 1325,

Today i'll be receiving a pair of Silver Iris'...can't wait. 

you MUST get a TVC!   kidding, but the combo with the Trends was sick, sick, sick....  Every so often used TVC's are popping up here & at A'gon.

Well enjoy them!  they sound great with a lot of music and go very very loud 

In the next weeks I'm going to experiment with the trends,    PIO caps other volume pot ,  Battery PS or good SMPS ( try both) ,
Greg Ball's SKpre as a buffer output stage for my bolder modded squeezebox....

If all this is not enough I could always get a TVC,  some bass augmentation wouldn't be a bad thing either   

[acd483]

It appears that the DAC is SS...what I can't tell are the types of connection...USB, Toslink, what?

And because it's SS I'll need to buy the active tube from Nicholas too. JEEZ!

[anubisgrau]

OK, good news is that my TVC (ref version) is finally with me.

the guy who brought it for me from vienna where it was delivered (because of problems with a direct delivery to where i live) also brought his TVC baby that is actually a monster built around Bent-sourced S&B copper trannies and very expensive parts.

there was the third TVC on hand too - the DIY TVC i was raving about here a few weeks ago.

as a reference we were using my current active preamp - EAR 864, not a bad product at all.

the source was avondale modded arcam alpha 5 (a kind of a tweaked classic, 1541->NOS, swing-arm transport etc).

first we listened EAR 864 to get a flavour of a good active valve preamp with output trannies - it sounded very fluid, very organic, with excellent timbre and organic tone. very involving with a good fun factor. it seems that there is a good bass extension and a bit of a roll off in the highest freqs but overal it had a good presentation of music in a holistic way.

then we made a mistake and we connected our DIY TVC based on big ferrite double-C cores.

it made EAR sounding almost broken, that's how superior it was. it had the most tremendous and deepest bass i've ever heard from any preamp and such a noble, organic, real feeling to the music. whatever we tried, it just sounded right and real. forgot to mention, this device was run in using one of the burn-in CDs, don't know if this work at all but it is good to know that as otherwise it had not more than 20 hours on it (as its owner doesn't have a system at the moment).

than we put the very impressive-looking S&B based TVC. it sounded very competent but different to the previous one. it had a tad more transparency thanks to superiour parts used elsewhere (the DIY TVC uses $1 connectors and a plain copper wire, while S&B is fully in silver, WBTs, neutriks etc). it wasn't fully my cup of tea as i could hear a trace of artifice in comparison with the previous one, but the opinions were mixed.

i was really afraid to put the promitheus on after these 2 beasts, especially that it's being used for the first time (zero run-in time). but, it held its own very proud - it unmistakenly showed the virtues and qualities of TVC such as a huge frequency extension and overall control. due to lack of hours, it obviously sounded a bit stiff and unrelaxed, it definitely lacked air and more precise imagery, but it was really surprisiing performance considering i was a bit disappointed with a performance of another promitheus i tried earlier last month. but when i openned the lid, i realized that this is definitely a very different version. not only that i have a ref version connectors and grayhill switch (that is by the way very solid in comparison with the stock one that is too fragile for my taste), but it seems that trannies are different - they look bigger and have a copper coat the other one didn't have.

so to cut it short - promitheus has a great potential and now i will put it aside for next 2 weeks to run it in for 300 hours before adding more impressions.

so this was a very useful evening as it proved several things. first the superiority of passive TVC as a concept was obvious. second, my intuition that S&B trannies are not the latest word in the TVC world was proved with a performance of rather simple DIY TVC prototype that sounded at least not inferior to the S&B one (for me and 2 other guys it was clearly better by a big margin for playing music, not hi-fi). third, i am happy that some of my worries about the promitheus were blown-up and that it is actually an excellent product even regardless of the price it is usually being connected with.


let's see how it will develop so i will write more after 2 weeks.

nick, my sincere congratulations on the excellent development of your product!

gordan

[rollo]

anubisgru,
                Very well done and informative. Bring em on bring em all on. This is fun. I am curious after 400Hrs on Promitheus and DIY version how they will compare.

  rollo

[PromitheusAudio]

Nicholas this DAC is looking fantastic. Will those DAC output transformers interact or interfere with the transformers in the TVC?

Newbuyer
THanks we took almost 4 months just tweaking it. Lots of hear and chang to get the best sound from it.

THe dac output trans is fundamental on of the most improtant things here. It really interacts well with anything but work even far better with the TVC. As i was tuning with TVC.

[PromitheusAudio]

well all i can say is the configuration looks fantastic and definitely it will be a bargain for the price.
nick pls take some time to actually tune the DAC and get the absolute maximum from the design you implemented.
i am writing this because  i found too many devices with a good design and layout at the end being flawed cause their designer followed rather a route of an engineer not a route of a listener. i think that charles altmann and what he is doing in terms of tweaking and tuning his products should be seen as a role model, taking a certain principle to absolute limits. in this matter i was a little critical of promitheus, i thought there is even a greater potential into it, but as the TVC was developing over the time, i am sure that the later version are much ahead of the earliers.
looking forward to hear the DAC - when do you expect you will start taking orders for the DAC?

Yes you are right, i am an engineer and a lecturer in electronics but when i am desiging stuff, i refuse to believe in scope and just frequency response. Actually we tune by year an design by emotion.  I feel this is very improtant as music is not something you can measure. Actually if yours ears are very good you can actually tell more than a scope can.

Actually the main reason why we took so long to realise this is because we were tweaking this for 4 months. Trying to get the best you can after a good design

I will be taking orders for the DAC after the easter week.

[PromitheusAudio]

I'm very interested in hearing comments about this DAC. Many months ago, before I owned the TVC, I tested a Theta DAC (used in conjuction with my Rotel CD player). The result: No difference at all. In fact, the Rotel might have actually sounded better without the DAC. I'm assuming that's because the on-board DAC in the Rotel was superior to the Theta DAC (which was a 1990s model)? I don't know. I'm assuming, too, that there would be no problem using the Promitheus DAC with the Rotel? That would simply mean I'd be using the Rotel as the transporter, correct?

Actually i got word from one of customers that only after owning a TVC could it tell a difference between a separate DAC and the cdp. Previously he mention there was not much difference in sound.

Yes there should not be any problems with the Rotel. I have used it the DAC with a 2 dvd players, philips 960cdm1, wadia and now my current transport CEC TL1

[PromitheusAudio]

Had a similar experience with a Sonic Impact Super-T. With the Promitheus, a much weightier, fuller sound. Imaging too is more distinct...wonder why this occurs?

Perhaps impedance matching, they perhaps just like each other

[PromitheusAudio]

Ahh...I've been waiting for this DAC for months! When can we order Nicholas?

Matt and I had an amazing sonic experience last night. My ADS 710/2 speakers had beautiful
synergy with Matt's equipment and my Trends TA-10.1 performed admirably with the TVC. The soundstage
on the Muse had significantly more depth, while the Trends revealed details that I had never
heard on the cuts we were playing. I look forward to experimenting more with that little amp. There is a
special edition model with all the tweaks performed already for ~$300.

For everyone's info we listened to Sade, Alison Krauss and Tom Waits. The production on each album was impeccable.
The Tom Waits cuts, especially "Innocent When You Dream" produced the most intoxicating soundstaging
I've heard. I believe I used the word "surreal."

THe DAC can be order after easter.

[GHM]

Hey Nick .Nice DAC! How about a USB port for the PC audio guys like myself?

Thanks