[rustneversleeps]

I don't claim to be a professional evaluator, I am no Sue Kraft, but when one piece of equipment beats another piece, I'd know it. No doubt in my mind that the AVA Super Pas 4i beats my old preamp, and the AVA Fet Valve 550hc beats my old amp.

I currently has a Cambridge Audio Azur 540c, and it sounds pretty good for the money $200, and it beats my AMC 8b (now being used as a transport with the AVA Ultra DAC). I purchased the AMC8b back in 2002, five years prior to the purchase of the Azur for the same price of $200.

I purchase the AVA Ultra DAC with the 6n1p about a month ago, the initial impression of the DAC has been lively, detail, big sound stage, but a bit of lumpy, and tubey, but I haven't been listening to it often enough in a month to say for sure.

Today I have a bit more time to do some more extensive listening of the AVA Ultra DAC. I could not stand the Ultra's tubey and lumpy sound, so I moved my MMG about two inches apart, and the sound was more lively, the lumpy tubey sound had disappeared for the most part, and the sound was more enjoyable than before. I'll leave the set up the way it is for awhile.

My speaker placement was finetuned based on the old system, and it sounded pretty good with my Cambridge Azur. When I hook my Cambridge Azur 540c back in, the AVA Ultra DAC'd better show me the sound is worth $1000.00 more than my Cambridge player.

My point is, the listener should not have to move their speakers in order to show one piece of equipment sounds the same as, or better than the other. When I hook my Cambridge Azur back up, and move my speakers back to the original position and still sound good, then the conclusion would be the AVA Ultra DAC is not worth the extra dollars.

[JerryM]

My point is, the listener should not have to move their speakers in order to show one piece of equipment sounds the same as, or better than the other.

IMHO, you are assuming that all equipment sounds the same; that once a speaker is placed it is there for good.

I had a lot of time with an Omegastar SL, and more time with a Transcendence Eight. Speaker placement clearly enjoyed being changed. This change was based on the width, depth, and height of the sound stage. A move here, a tweak there, and I have taken advantage of audio engineering that I do not understand; but I certainly enjoy.

As for the Ultra DAC, I wish I had one. I, however, am saving for a Transcendence Eight DAC.

Keep tweaking your speakers; forget the old fine-tuning. It's a new day - live on the edge!!! Move 'em around. Find the stage... And then the envelope.

Have fun,

Jerry

[rustneversleeps]

The MMGs are very sensitive to room placement, a inch or two will make a difference from the "sweet spot". My MMGs are currently about 6' apart, I'd like to get them further apart, but due to the layout of the listening room, it's not possible at this time.

I don't assume all equipment sound the same, but in order to make a meaningful comparison, a reference point needs to be established (whether if it's a good or bad reference point), otherwise you would be moving and swapping, then moving everything around and acomplished nothing. The speaker placement is a good starting point, once it's set, it should stay there for the comparison.

What I mean by "lumpy" is overly abundent of bass, and mid bass, which clouded the voice a bit.

My next step is to put my Cambridge Azur back in the system, and I expect it to sound a bit thinner, since I moved the speakers further apart. Then I probably will move the speakers closer, back to where their original positions are, and I expect them to sound good again.

Then I will compare two versions of "good sound". Version one, Cambridge Azur with speaker at 5' 10" apart. Version two, AVA DAC with speakers at 6' apart.

If the "good sound" from the AVA DAC beats the "good sound" from the Cambridge Azur by a wide margin, then AVA DAC wins, even I don't quite agree that the speakers should have to be moved to achieve it.

If two versions of the "good sound" sound very similiar or close, then one should determine if one should pay $1000+ more to get a slightly better sound with the readjustment of the speakers position.

My other point is technology does progress in God's green earth, a CD player from the Best Buy today is not the same CD player from the Best Buy back in 1987. The Quad speaker president once said the reason they outsource their speaker production to China was because the Chinese could provide better workmanship at a lower cost, and they could never get the same good workmanship here in England at that cost.

One can argue that my original speaker placement was wrong to begin with. So what if it was wrong, does it matter if I got "good sound" from a lower cost piece of equipment with the wrong speaker placement?

I may have high expectation from equipment that cost $1000 +, I believe a piece of $1000+ equipment should beat a piece of $200 equipment by a great margin.

Conclusion hasn't been drawn, I am enjoying listening to the AVA DAC, it is a good DAC.

[ricmon]

It sounds like you are getting a lot more of every thing from the Ultra DAC.  I suggest that you give more time to listening to it and to more precisely figure out what it's doing differently.  This may require you to do what you already figured out.  That is play with speaker placement because as noted early your new DAC seems to be exposing some limitation in other parts of your system (that includes your listening room). 

cheers

[gjs_cds]

Call me stupid, but wouldn't it just make sense to do an AB comparison w/ a pair of good headphones?

(After all, a previous post makes a great point.  If the FR isn't exactly the same between DAC A and B, then speaker placement will become an issue.  Especially with ribbons or electrostatics.  This is hardly a "fault" with the DAC, or any component for that matter.  It's just the nature of the beast.)

[avahifi]

As our users realize, the Ultra DAC does indeed reach more powerfully and cleanly into deep bass than most CD sources do. Thus it may well disturb a room and or speaker resonance that was not as audible with a less accurate unit (especially if the speakers had inadvertently been placed in a room node to eek out the most base from an anemic source unit).  The cure of course, especially with very room sensitive speakers such as Magnepans, is to more those speakers a few inches to get rid of the resonance and then just enjoy the overall musicality improvements from top to bottom.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

[cdorval1]

When I bought the Ultra DAC last year, I was amazed at the amount of bass--especially deep bass--coming out of many of my CDs.  Just like you, up to that point I had been a happy camper with a very good CD player (Meridian 588) and a pair of Salk HT3s. 

Also like you, when I hooked up the Ultra DAC there was some boominess.  Because of space constraints, I have to run the rear-ported HT3s about a foot from the rear wall, which often causes some bass problems, though I had not had them before.  I experimented with a couple of simple wall treatments before pretty much solving the problem with a very slight change in placement and toe-in.

Now I'm an ecstatic camper.

Craig

[rustneversleeps]

After another day of extensive listening, I think I am ready to conclude my comparision between the AVA Ultra DAC and the ordinary Cambridge Azur 540c. I am happy to say that I haven't lost faith in Frank.

I only switched between CD player and the AVA Ultra DAC two or three times to minimize the power on and off of the rest of the equipment.

I put the Cambridge CD player back in the system, and moved the speakers back to the original position to restore the original "good sound". Well, the "good sound" was back, but I noticed the sound stage seemed compressed and narrower than the AVA Ultra DAC. So I moved the MMG speakers back to the position as with the AVA DAC. After I restored the sound stage to the same width as with the AVA DAC, and everything was equal, I continued my listening.

The Cambridge player is a good DAC, fast, detail across the audio range (but less bass than the AVA DAC, after all I had to move the MMG further apart to tame the bass). I also noticed in the Mile Davis CD "kind of blue" track one, after the bass and cymbal intro, when Davis saxophone kicked in, it sounded a bit harsh, with a sort of hard edge to it, though not ear piercing like other cheap CD players. The bass note were not as detail as the AVA DACs, neither were the piano note. Like I said, everything is there, but you have to listen harder to find it.

For the AVA DAC, after I moved the speakers further apart, the bass note became more detail and lively instead of muddy and boomy as I said before. I could hear more detail of the individual instruments, they stand out more, and has better overall presentation.

I am not going to discuss whether one should pay $1000 more for the AVA DAC for it's better sound, it's pointless here.  But I think the industry has perfected the skill of producing  low cost CD players, the $200 Cambridge CD player is a good player, but you get what you pay for.

All I can say is, even for a cheapskate like myself, I don't regret buying the AVA Ultra DAC at it's price, and I've found full enjoyment out of it. Actually I am kind of proud to have it, because I know some of you don't have it yet.

[strat95]

I had a similar experience after purchasing Van Alstine equipment.  I thought my speakers were in the best position based on where they had always been.  That was far from the truth.  Things sounded more boomy but it was just that a deeper bass was coming through that was not there before.  I learned more by asking others and was told that my speaker positions were probably the culprit so I decided to experiment to try and find the best location.  Not an easy task.  I spent hours moving the speakers wider apart, further from the back wall , toed in, toed out, and umpteen combinations of all the above.  In the end I could not remember which positions had a relative better sound.   I gave up the experiment and decided to search online.  I found the following link and it was extremely helpful. 

http://www.cardas.com/content.php?area=insights&content_id=26&pagestring=Room+Setup

I placed the speakers where the basic formulae told me to and to my surprise, the sound was better than any other position I had tried on my own.  It was not immediately apparent because my ears had become attuned to the past sound character.  But just as in your case, when I put the speakers back where they were, I quickly realized the sound was far worse.

I would recommend you try the setup in the link above.  But I should warn you, unless you have a dedicated listening room, the setup my not be conducive to practical use of the room.

I would be curious to know what you find.

Have fun,

TV

[rustneversleeps]

I don't have a dedicated sound room.

My listening area has no right wall, a hallway at the right to the bedrooms (very similar to Frank's, maybe a bit larger and has no acoustic ceiling tiles).

I just do the best I can to get the best sound. My speaker placement are very limited since it may interfere with other parts of the room like picture window, and walk-out patio door. I am sure I am not operating my system to it's full potential, but so are most of the audio freaks who have average home.

[strat95]

Nevertheless, if you are able to, work out speaker placement based on the simple formulae provided by Cardas and see what result you get.

My room is not a dedicated room either.  It is the living room/dining room area.  The room is a about 12 feet X 24 feet.  Using the formulae it ends up I have to move the speakers about 64 inches from the back wall and about 36 inches from the side walls, which means they are in the middle of the room.  But the improvement is noticeable, both in frequency and in imaging.  My room is also rather lively (drywall and hardwood floors, no carpet, with plenty of furniture/curtains), not the best but I have learned to live with it for now.

TV

[Zheeeem]

I don't claim to be a professional evaluator, I am no Sue Kraft, but when one piece of equipment beats another piece, I'd know it. No doubt in my mind that the AVA Super Pas 4i beats my old preamp, and the AVA Fet Valve 550hc beats my old amp.

I currently has a Cambridge Audio Azur 540c, and it sounds pretty good for the money $200, and it beats my AMC 8b (now being used as a transport with the AVA Ultra DAC). I purchased the AMC8b back in 2002, five years prior to the purchase of the Azur for the same price of $200.

I purchase the AVA Ultra DAC with the 6n1p about a month ago, the initial impression of the DAC has been lively, detail, big sound stage, but a bit of lumpy, and tubey, but I haven't been listening to it often enough in a month to say for sure.

Today I have a bit more time to do some more extensive listening of the AVA Ultra DAC. I could not stand the Ultra's tubey and lumpy sound, so I moved my MMG about two inches apart, and the sound was more lively, the lumpy tubey sound had disappeared for the most part, and the sound was more enjoyable than before. I'll leave the set up the way it is for awhile.

My speaker placement was finetuned based on the old system, and it sounded pretty good with my Cambridge Azur. When I hook my Cambridge Azur 540c back in, the AVA Ultra DAC'd better show me the sound is worth $1000.00 more than my Cambridge player.

My point is, the listener should not have to move their speakers in order to show one piece of equipment sounds the same as, or better than the other. When I hook my Cambridge Azur back up, and move my speakers back to the original position and still sound good, then the conclusion would be the AVA Ultra DAC is not worth the extra dollars.

I'm confused.  You have an excellent DAC, preamp and power amp.  And you're using MMGs?  MMGs are doubtless one of the best $600/pair speakers around, but they honestly are not in the same league as the rest of your gear.  In addition to having all the other problems endemic to maggies, they also have precious little bass below 50 Hz.

I had a pair of MMGs for about a year (with an ultra dac, T-7 pre and a 350hc amp) and, while I was initially preased with their liveliness and musicality, over time I found a raggedness and inability to play large, coupled with poor bass, that made me happy to part with them.  (I tried a sub for a while, and I must say that the MMGs really don't integrate as well as other maggies.)  Some of that - such as the raggedness - seems to be similar to what you are posting about.

Anyhow, when I upgraded speakers I became even happier with my Van Alstine stuff.

[weirdo]

Ditto,  if you can't detect a noticeable difference between the Cambridge 540 and a fine DAC hooked up to a servicable transport, then it is possible your speakers may not be capable of presenting those kind of diffences to you in an obvious way.  I am not slamming the 540. It is a capable , quiet,  over-performing budget CD player but from what I am reading, and from my own experience with AVA gear, I  think the AVA DAC should out perform it in detail and soundstage. Give a long listen before final conclusions though. Many people would love to have your dilemma.  Have you tried using the Cambridge as the transport for a bit of A/B?

I had MMG's and loved them. I upgraded significantly however with Gallo Reference 3's and they are extremely sensitive to source and amplifier quality, but in a good way. It is with these speakers that AVA gear reaches full stride in my house.  The best sound I got from the MMG's was when they were located a substantial distance from corners and walls, making their optimum placement impractical for me.  

[rustneversleeps]

First of all, I'd like to explain why I bought the MMGs, About twenty years ago, my buddy in the service had a pair of SMGs, and an Adcom 535 amp (late 80's), I was very impressed by his system's open image when playing music, I never was a bass freak, so I bought a pair of MMGs about six years ago. The MMGs have adequate bass for my taste, but they can't play deep bass, I did try to use a Sub, but like Zheeem said, the MMGs didn't integrate with Sub very well, there was a hole at the crossover point.

Last night, after the wife and kids went to bed, I really did some late night listening with the AVA Ultra DAC and the Cambridge 540c. I calibrated the MMG placement with 1/16" increment while playing music through the AVA Ultra DAC, then did the same with the Cambridge 540c, moving the MMG so very slightly while trying to find the most ideal position for both CD DACs.

And guess what, the AVA Ultra DAC wins. I could not duplicate the AVA Ultra DAC sound, no matter how I moved the speakers with the Cambridge 540c playing. The AVA DAC has more open, detail, true and precise sound to it. The Cambridge sounded congested, and a bit hard, and with a somewhat narrower image.

I've also learned from this experiment that even by moving the MMGs as little as 1/16", it makes some difference in sound. I don't have the kind of space that would allow me to place the MMG way away from the wall, only maybe 2 1/2 feet.

While I was playing the Eric Clapton Unplugged CD, track 4: Tears in Heaven through the AVA Ultra DAC, I could actually hear that older bald headed percussion guy with glasses, making the "clicking sound" in the background, which I had never heard with any other CD players that I've owned.

What more can I say, I was crawling around the floor last night, measuring  the distance between speakers and their positions, while enjoying some well engineered no frill equipment, that's what HiFi's all about.

PS. I have not tried using the Cambridge 540c as a transport, maybe I'll try that when I have more time.

[rustneversleeps]

I compared two CD transports, the AMC8b CD player digital out, and the Cambridge Azur 540c CD player digital out. After listened and compared for awhile, I concluded that they made no sonic difference. If I had to say there was, there were so little that I could hardly notice it. I prefer the Cambridge due to personal prejudice, it's newer in my equipment inventory.

I don't have a mega buck CD transport, but lately it seems the mega buck CD transports have disappeared from the audio market, you know Wadia and all those, some are belt driven. It could mean that people finally have learn that fancy CD transports are bullshit.

I used the Cambridge 540c as a transport, then connected the Cambridge 540c's audio out to the Super Pas4i's spare input jacks, and connected the Ultra DAC's output to the preamp CD input jack, so I could compare both analog outputs without power the rest of the equipment on and off all the time.

The conclusion still is the Cambridge sounded detail, and good soundstage for the money. The AVA Ultra DAC had more inner detail, wider sound stage, more precise vocal, cleaner and more bass, and most of all, it has soul.

Cambridge 540c is an excellent player for $200, the upgrade version cost about $400. It makes me wonder if the Cambridge 540c would be a stiff competition for the AVA solid state Omega Star DAC. For $400, how can you lose?

[rustneversleeps]

And there is a new T-8 DAC too.

This kind of sound comparison takes time, I noticed the difference between two players that I had compared after listening to four familiar tracks about three or four times on each player. The difference didn't jump out at me right away.

Now I am wondering what are the difference between all three AVA DAC sonically, and how should evaluation be made. There has to be some major differences, keep in mind that the Ultra DAC costs almost twice as much as the OmegaStar DAC, and the T-8 DAC is somewhere in between.

[gjs_cds]

I don't have a mega buck CD transport, but lately it seems the mega buck CD transports have disappeared from the audio market, you know Wadia and all those, some are belt driven. It could mean that people finally have learn that fancy CD transports are ***

I've recently come to the conclusion that the D in the DAC really isn't as important as the A.  Vendor propaganda tries to sell the latest and greatest digital technology, even when the data safely concludes that people cannot decisively tell the difference between redbook and higher resolution formats, regardless of the resolution of the hi-fi system. 

And I think Frank gets that...  The reason his DACs are what they are, I expect, are due to his attention to the analog portion of the DAC.  Plotting bits onto a sine wave may be the easy part.  Transporting that analog signal out to one's hears may be the difficult part of the equation.

[strat95]

I don't have a mega buck CD transport, but lately it seems the mega buck CD transports have disappeared from the audio market, you know Wadia and all those, some are belt driven. It could mean that people finally have learn that fancy CD transports are bullshit.

Are bullshit, or have lately become bullshit thanks to improvements in DACs.  But you're a little early on calling the consensus - check out Audio Central to find many people still committed to the idea of jitter as one of digital's (specifically, SPDIF digital's) insuperable shortcomings.  Transports are all about jitter control, but it's by no means clear that such a thing, while it undoubtedly exists, is actually audible (in a controlled test that is).

Cambridge 540c is an excellent player for $200, the upgrade version cost about $400. It makes wonder if the Cambridge 540c would be a stiff competition for the AVA solid state Omega Star DAC. For $400, how can you lose?

Based on everything I've read I rather doubt one could hear the differences between the Ultra DAC and the OmegaStar DAC unless room conditions and speakers were very favorable to picking out musical subtleties.  They use the same conversion process but have different analog stages.  I would suspect their ability to throw a wide soundstage to be practically identical and therefore easily distinguishable from the Cambridge unit.  IOW, I think the OmegaStar sounds like a screaming buy while the Ultra is for those who "have to have the best" but would probably be more than satisfied with the other.

Hi Brian,

I would like to comment on your last point of this post.  To give a bit of background, I was introduced to the AVA products through a co-worker/friend (thank God for that - he helped me go down a better path).  I purchase the Fet Valve 350 amp, the Fet Valve EC preamp and the Omegastar DAC.  I upgraded the amp and preamp but they are not at the Ultra stage, so I have some catching up to do.  My friend has the Solid State amp (I believe the 440HC), the same preamp but older than mine and he has the Fet Valve DAC.  A few years back, after getting my preamp upgraded, I was surprised at how much better things sounded here at home (I am using B&W Matrix Loudspeakers.  My friend owns the B&W Matrix 801 S2 with Van Alstine crossover upgrade.

Upon telling him how much better the preamp made everything sound, he was curious to see how it would sound in his system.  So I grabbed my amp, preamp, DAC, CD player acting as a transport, and head to his place to evaluate.

We started with what would be considered the worst of all the components (although he has a nice TEAC dedicated transport that was in the system from the start).  We were impressed with the sound.  We would substitute a new component until we had all of the best components all playing in the end.  Each time something about the sound improved.  At the final stage, having all the best components playing together, we both looked at each other with a huge smile on our faces.  We were definitely wowed.

As a quick test we substituted his Fet Valve DAC with my Omega Star DAC... (we were consistently listening to the same track by the way) and the soundstage collapsed somewhat and the sound was grainy in comparison.  We also substituted his TEAC transport with my CD player as a transport (Marantz CD6000 OSE) and found the soundstage to have changed slightly and the sound was a bit more grainy (we didn't understand why at the time but I read about the time clock on some CD players being inferior, with some sites providing an upgrade).

So to get back to the point you made about
"Based on everything I've read I rather doubt one could hear the differences between the Ultra DAC and the OmegaStar DAC unless room conditions and speakers were very favorable to picking out musical subtleties.  They use the same conversion process but have different analog stages."

The difference between Van Alstine DACs is EASILY discernible.  If you can't hear the difference it is because the rest of your system is probably limiting the results.  In my own setup, after receiving upgrades from Van Alstine, I was pressed to hear any differences.  I can probably attribute that to my speakers/room... again something in my system is keeping the full potential of the components coming out...the weakest link so to speak.  Even in my friend's room, switching DACs when all of the worst components were being used, the difference was more subtle than when switching DACs when all of the best components were being used.

TV 

[Wayner]

I'm going to Frank's next Sunday and will give the DAC and new Differential equipment a test spin. I will bring a few of my reference CD's for a good listening session. It is alway a treat to visit Frank and see what's cookin'. There always is something going on.

Wayner  aa

[gjs_cds]

I'm going to Frank's next Sunday and will give the DAC and new Differential equipment a test spin. I will bring a few of my reference CD's for a good listening session. It is alway a treat to visit Frank and see what's cookin'. There always is something going on.

Wayner  aa

Hey Wayner--can you give the new tube DAC (read: not ultra) a listen too?