So Elberoth on WBF forum (and computer audiophile), who owns Magico S5s, has both MSB 202 and Vitus monos for amps, also owned the uber expensive Trinity dac, which many prefer to Vivaldi, and recently bought the Lampi Big 7 with DSD only. He also has excellent room treatment, loads of diffusers which look beautiful http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?17009-Lampizator-Big-7
He told me that he had recently not been listening much to the Trinity, because while it did all the checkboxes (details, bass, etc) right, Lampi was more fun to listen to. When I compared both of them, for me it was a no contest. Lampi was better on all music. We played both native DSD and PCM upsampled as DSD through HQPlayer. Not only was it more musical, on orchestral I found it was clearly doing the hifi stuff better as well. It was much faster and had better slam on Mussorgsky's Gnomus (from Pictures). Bach's choral cantata was better. The only thing is on a couple of songs Trinity seemed more focus while the valves of the Lampi sounded wavy, like valves do.
The decay on lampi was better, probably a result of the fact that the Trinity still has SMPS.
We swapped the Audioquest diamond cable with the Totaldac cable on the Lampi. Audioquest gives a slight brightness, a silver sheen. Totaldac doesn't have that, and it is meatier on the bottom end. Overall I enjoyed the totaldac USB more, and while difference is not significant, given it's new price is only 300 EUR, at that price difference is quite significant.
We also had fun with SMT diffusers and MSB vs Vitus, so overall the trip to Warsaw was very productive and also listened to a ribbon speakers called Zeta Zeros.
He told me that he had recently not been listening much to the Trinity, because while it did all the checkboxes (details, bass, etc) right, Lampi was more fun to listen to. When I compared both of them, for me it was a no contest. Lampi was better on all music. We played both native DSD and PCM upsampled as DSD through HQPlayer. Not only was it more musical, on orchestral I found it was clearly doing the hifi stuff better as well. It was much faster and had better slam on Mussorgsky's Gnomus (from Pictures). Bach's choral cantata was better. The only thing is on a couple of songs Trinity seemed more focus while the valves of the Lampi sounded wavy, like valves do.
The decay on lampi was better, probably a result of the fact that the Trinity still has SMPS.
We swapped the Audioquest diamond cable with the Totaldac cable on the Lampi. Audioquest gives a slight brightness, a silver sheen. Totaldac doesn't have that, and it is meatier on the bottom end. Overall I enjoyed the totaldac USB more, and while difference is not significant, given it's new price is only 300 EUR, at that price difference is quite significant.
We also had fun with SMT diffusers and MSB vs Vitus, so overall the trip to Warsaw was very productive and also listened to a ribbon speakers called Zeta Zeros.
