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Integrated Amps: An Addicts Guide.


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Sorry I took so long there @rusty48 but I've got to it eventually.

The DAC board makes several changes to the amps sound and they are very distinct.  

The first is that the volume now goes down to -90, with the YBA cd player attached it bottomed out at -70.  Lower noise floor?  Or card output higher than line level?  Maybe both.

 

The second is that there is definitely more detail on display than via the YBA, that dual chip DAC board is superior to the YBA in FTF too.  I wasn't sure it would be worth the $1600 asking price but I must say I'm pretty happy with it.  I'll have to put it up against the Halcro and see how it fares there, that should be interesting.

 

Also, and this may be the most interesting thing, it changes the laid back nature of the amp.  It is still smooth and laid back but only about 30% as laid back as it was when being fed via the YBA.  It has a more focused and engaging presentation too (not that it needed it).  The music is still not in your face but it is only half as far away as it once was.

 

I suspect it will win my three way comparison with the addition of the DAC card, but then that would put it's RRP pretty close to twice the price of the Luxman so that result would be expected.

 

It's an excellent DAC rusty, I don't know how well it fits in with the rest of your system but you could easily do much worse.

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Nice write up mate, I'm not surprised the Accuphase is the pick of the trio.

I have a E-470 with the dac40 option card, as good as the dac40 is I prefer the Klein dac II for USB from my server.

I use the dac40 for tv sound via optical and coax from my dune hd media player, sounds bloody amazing for 2 channel home cinema!

I have tried many different speakers with my Accuphase amps and they drive even the toughest loads while always retaining a musical accurate sound.

 

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18 hours ago, Conch Blowa said:

Nice write up mate, I'm not surprised the Accuphase is the pick of the trio.

I have a E-470 with the dac40 option card, as good as the dac40 is I prefer the Klein dac II for USB from my server.

I use the dac40 for tv sound via optical and coax from my dune hd media player, sounds bloody amazing for 2 channel home cinema!

I have tried many different speakers with my Accuphase amps and they drive even the toughest loads while always retaining a musical accurate sound.

 

I read that Accuphase changed to MOSFETs with the E460, any idea if the house sound changed then or if they managed to keep it the same?

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2 hours ago, Steam said:

@Cafad well if you have and like the DAC 40 then surely you now NEED to get the AD-20 phono board for completeness. :P  

Actually... Galactic's amp came with an AD-20 phono board already in slot 1.  So the E460 is now as complete as it could possibly be.  One of these days I'll have to take it over to Dans so we can try out the phono functionality, until then I'll concentrate on the DAC and amp stuff.

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20 hours ago, Cafad said:

Actually... Galactic's amp came with an AD-20 phono board already in slot 1.  So the E460 is now as complete as it could possibly be.  One of these days I'll have to take it over to Dans so we can try out the phono functionality, until then I'll concentrate on the DAC and amp stuff.

Funny you mention that I got my LP12 here yesterday.. but we need to get a bit more set-up and a few bibs and bobs to get it running properly

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No pressure from this direction.  

The Accuphase is actually taking a trip to Brissy tomorrow in order to have it's great big gaping mouth closed so it will be MIA from my listening room for a week or two anyway.  To make up for that I will be getting my Sansui DR back, plus the step down transformer so I can use my Sansui NRA as well, on Monday.  I had to take the step down tranny to Andy so he could test run the DR.

 

This is a big part of the hold up on the whole Sansui/Accuphase/Luxman issue.  Of course, both the Sansuis and the Luxman have rather good phono stages as well... so maybe there is a bit of pressure from this direction.  

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have an opinion to update.

Some time ago I had my third attempt at making the YBA Passion IA350 sound good to me.  I was unsuccessful. :(  Since I have difficulty giving up in this regard I decided to try again.  I was once again baffled by the Passion Integrated.  It has this overly treble-y performance.  It isn't really bright, or hard, or forward as such but if feels like it is enough of each to give me listening fatigue after about 2 or 3 songs, no matter what I do.  I have tried half a dozen speaker cables, more than half a dozen interconnects, and two other DACs in addition to the one it contains and I can't make it work.

Most recently I hooked up the lower spec line YBA Heritage cd spinner and the Burson Conductor to see which I preferred and, baffling as it may seem, I could not pick the difference between the two.  On almost every other amp I can pick the smoother vocals of the YBA from the sharper instruments of the Burson but not on the Passion.  I tried about 20 times and I could not for the life of me pick any difference at all.  There is just too much treble.

 

So, what could I do?  My usual test disc is out, no fun to listen to at all.  Nothing I do makes it work for rock music, but maybe that's because it isn't meant for rock music (heresy!).  

So, with nothing else to do until my car is returned from the garage, I conducted a search of my greatest hits collection to see what I could find that might work.

Warrant is out.  Def Leppard is not an option.  Black Sabbath, no, just no! I have to look on the right hand side of the case, the side I usually ignore.  And I found some albums that, thankfully, tell me quite a lot about the Passion and what it is meant to do.

IMG_0446.thumb.JPG.81241e2b6ec04179a4aa1acfc541d36b.JPG

 

I went left to right on the above pic.  The quality of Enya encouraged me to move on to:

Sheryl Crow - this was a semi success as Sheryl has some deep bass in several of her songs here and that tends to overpower everything else.  The vocals are great though, Every Day is a Winding Road was the stand out song for me.

Cyndi Lauper - not so hot on the pure pop stuff but very good on Time After Time and True Colors.  Really, really good in fact.

Diana Krall - yes, I have her greatest hits, I've only listened to it once before today but desperate times mean desperate measures.  Diana comes across brilliantly on the Passion, that extra detail that makes it so hard to handle on rock music really brings out the vocals and non-powered instruments.  It emphasizes that "Lounge Air" effect that you sometimes get when a largish area is open and empty behind the instruments on stage.  I was really enjoying Diana on the Passion.

Time to branch out a little more perhaps?

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Billy Joel - OK, Billy is rock and roll but he isn't hard rock by any means and several of his best songs are only really vocals and a few non-powered instruments and that seems to be the theme developing here so... Piano Man is always good but it is excellent via the Passion.  Still Rock and Roll To Me was beyond excellent, I had all ten toes tapping and my head rolling side to side (full disclosure here, this is one of my favourite songs of all time).  We Didn't Start The Fire came across well too, a bit of a surprise as it is more pop rock than the first two tracks but it worked.  An Innocent Man was also excellent and Only The Good Die Young was so good it was almost as much fun as Still R&R To Me, but not quite.

Sandi Thom - Just about Perfect (yes, with a capital "p").  I've liked this debut album of Sandi's ever since it came out and I like even  more than I thought possible via the Passion.

Freddie Mercury - pretty good and considering the album suffers a bit from being not such a great recording (it's very soft and Freddie's vocals don't separate well from the instruments, if they did I would listen to it more than I do)  pretty good is about as good as it gets.  

Wilson Pickett - pretty good, but again with the full disclosure, I only ripped off the plastic on this album collection this morning so I don't really know how he is meant to sound.  I do like the sound, but not as much as Billy, Sandi or Diana.

 

So what I seem to have discovered here is that the Passion IA350 (and likely the whole Passion line) is voiced for non-rock music, or at least music that is more soft rock, blues, lounge style.  Basically anything that doesn't contain amplified instruments.  If you feed it the right music it will reward you with a great sense of rhythm, very accurate vocals (not glossed over or extra breathy, you only get what is there so great singers sound great but average ones are not) and, again, very accurate instrumentals.  You can occasionally get away with a little electric guitar in the background but that is as far as it goes.  

 

So, although it was a very painful process I believe I have finally managed to understand what YBA were trying to do with the Passion range.  I should have made the connection sooner really, I mean what sort of music would older white guys be thinking of when they name an amp "Passion"?  That's my child of the 80's upbringing working against me.  

Integrated Amp number 77 has finally been finished.  A pity I couldn't make use of my usual test disc or scoring method but all's well that ends well.

 

Now, I'm settling in for an afternoon of Billy, Sandi and Diana.  I hope your Monday afternoon is as enjoyable as mine is. 

Edited by Cafad
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Ahem, due to a slight slip in mental acuity the Sansui DR will have to wait until later.  I was really enjoying what I heard but then I went and made what is becoming 'my usual' mistake in that I powered it up at near on max volume and caused it to ever so slightly crackle on the left channel at high-ish volume.  The volume pot also crackles at low-ish volume so I'm afraid at least one of those crackles has to go.  I've discussed volume pots with Pete-mac via PM and forwarded the info on to Andy and I'm going to take the opportunity to have Andy replace the standard binding posts with new ones, not being able to use banana plugs is a a bit of a pain.  Anyway, bit of a hold on the Sansui front but it will be back.  Hell yes it will be back!

 

Until then I have decided to give the Bladelius Thor Mk 2 another try, Andy has replaced 2 of its internal fuses so it is running well but it still manages to sound not so great.  It is big and bold and desperately in need of a larger room, about 20 times larger would be a good start I think.  It is not that the Thor is bright or forward or hard as such (though I would say it is just a little of each) it is more that it throws the music at you in a way that is just too overpowering.  Sounds great for a few minutes but then my ears start pleading with me to turn the volume down.

 

So in an effort to control this I started swapping ICs, from Aurealis to Redgum showed very little change.  Then to Little Blue Penguin's offerings which was a slight improvement but still hard to take.  On to Ribbonflex and another slight improvement but again still showing too much of everything in the mids and top end.  On to Furutech Alphas and suddenly things are not too bad, still a little bit top end-y but only about 30% of what I was hearing through the other ICs.  Bit of a bugger when you have to use thousand buck ICs to tame an amp but that seems to be what it took.

Without the Furutech Alphas I think it would take a very laid back, dark or mellow speaker to work well with the Bladelius, or... maybe I shouldn't be trying to combine it with a YBA player (although I believe the YBA Heritage to be a nicely voiced player with slightly warm undertones and not bright at all).  Maybe I need to warm up a Scandinavian cd player.

 

OK, in with the Thule cd100.  The Thule with Redgum ICs is about as good as the YBA with the Furutechs, OK but still not a great idea for long term listening.  It's almost as if the contrast on the Thor is turned up too high, my ears just can't handle the shine on the end of piano notes, and the fade of higher vocals.  

If you find most amps to be dull or dark I can certainly recommend the Bladelius Thor.

 

I tried changing speaker cables as well, very little difference.  Even combining the Thule, Furutech Alpha ICs and Aurealis speaker cable I still find the Thor too top end-y to really enjoy.  It just isn't a good mix with my Lenehan S2Rs, not matter what I do.  I didn't mind it at all on the ML3s and even on Dans ML2 Ltds it came across fairly well but it does not like my S2Rs.  And I'm keeping my S2Rs.

Maybe my progress with the YBA Passion got my hopes up, I think I'll just have to let the Bladelius go.

Here's to hoping that the next amp will be less frustrating and more enjoyable.

 

IMG_0461.thumb.JPG.7aad30bc1ec92b2822f1e06994be6f7c.JPG

Not a great pic but since it is said that without one it may not have happened I thought I'd better throw one in.

 

Edited by Cafad
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I took my Luxman to Brisbane and I came back with one of these.

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It is something of a looker isn't it?

 

Just in case the engraving isn't readable, here's another one.

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It's a little fussy with ancillary equipment, I wouldn't go pairing it with anything bright (it is not a fan of my YBA player, still working on reasons as to why, until I do the Thule has stepped up to the plate), but with just a little effort it is sounding pretty good.  With just a little more who knows what could happen.

 

Edit:

It took some doing, I went through 4 cd players and a stand alone DAC but I have found that my Consonance cd120 works very well with the Modwright.  I'm a bit surprised by this as both the Thule and the Densen are nice and smooth but the Modwright still puts an edge on some of the treble that (while it does wonders for electric guitar) doesn't work with everything.  The Consonance somehow pushes that edge out into the sound stage and warms it up and fills it out, it's still there but it's part of the sound signature rather than a stand out effect.  

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I can still see listening fatigue being an issue with the Modwright but it will take 2 or 3 albums to really hit home and beyond about 2 albums I don't see listening fatigue as that much of an issue.

 

What makes this even more intriguing is that the previous owner was using it with a pair of B&W 800 series bookshelf speakers in a room with a tiled floor and many glass windows so the edge I am hearing could not possibly have been a problem for him or it would have rendered the whole system unlistenable.  I am guessing that his Chord DAC had a lot to do with keeping that hard edge at bay.

Anyway, I'm set up and sorted out now so let the listening begin!  On drums and guitar alone this Modwright is showing a great deal of promise.  

 

Edited by Cafad
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  • 1 month later...

hello cafad, i have a leema pulse lll, wondering if you would be interested in reviewing it, i have read and reread this thread and enjoyed it immensely

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8 hours ago, wen said:

hello cafad, i have a leema pulse lll, wondering if you would be interested in reviewing it, i have read and reread this thread and enjoyed it immensely

I'd love to hear a Leema Pulse 3 Wen.  The Pulse 1 was an excellent amp.  

Thank you very much for the offer.

I'm up north on hols at the moment (I'm in between fishing and crabbing trips today), I'll fire you off a PM when I get back home and we can work out the details.

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  • 1 month later...

Wow, 2 months and nothing to say.  That's a bit slack.  I really should make more of an effort.

 

Coming up soon will be Wens' Leema Pulse 3 (seriously looking forward to that) and then, probably straight after, a bit of audio nostalgia, an NAD 3120.  The upmarket "audiophile" version of the good old NAD 3020.  I'm really looking forward to hearing just what everyone made so much fuss about back when it came out (and, you know, every year since up until now).

 

I'm not sure what will come after that, but I am sure something will show up when the time is right.

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1 hour ago, Gremrock said:

Let me know when you're ready to graduate to separates :P I can lend you my old Bel Canto for review and to kick start the addiction!

I've had separates, I still have some of them, I've even used them on occasion, but they just aren't as sexy as a single integrated unit.

Integration mate, it's the way of the future!

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  • 1 month later...

OK, I've had Wens Leema Pulse 3 for a while now and I haven't gotten around to writing anything about it.  There are several reasons for this, too much work and too little free time play a part, also the death of both my primary and secondary cd spinners made things a bit more difficult still.  Then last night I say down and decided that enough was enough, I would sink my teeth into this Leema (metaphorically speaking of course)  about 10 minutes in my block lost power, so that made things a bit tougher still.  When it came back it dipped several times in the course of 15 minutes so I wasn't game to turn anything audio related on.  Then this morning when I sat down to make up for lost time my neighbour (bless her) decided to cut up some fruit and put it in her bird feeder, this attracted a dozen or so blue mountain parrots who are known for not exactly being quiet.  Her bird feeder is, of course, about 10 feet from my lounge window so I am starting to get the impression that maybe the universe doesn't want me to write a review of the Leema Pulse 3.

 

So I'm going to get down what I can and then extrapolate on that if I can.

IMG_0606.thumb.JPG.35f69949a199e3fce187b58da721fdc4.JPG

One Leema Pulse 3.  It sounds very similar in signature to the original Leema Pulse, this should not be a surprise as it looks to have a very similar circuit/PCB layout internally, and the same power specs, with the one obvious difference being that it includes an internal DAC.  

I was trying to get a handle on just how this internal DAC compared to the one in my YBA cd player when it "went" and my initial impressions were that it was pretty close in capability but I slightly preferred the YBA.  

 

In comparison to the original Leema Pulse the Pulse 3 comes across as not quite as full and not quite as strong in the bass region, the different DACs make this a pretty damn difficult comparison to make so all I can really say is that the Pulse 3 on its internal DAC is not quite as full sounding and not quite as strong in the bass as the Pulse 1 when fed with the YBA.

That having been said the Pulse 3 is a very good integrated amp, it has poise, rhythm and a clear top end but it doesn't quite reach as deep as some others.  This "slightly less strong in the bass region" is really not much of an issue for music, not a great deal of an issue for home theater either for that matter.  Anyone short of a complete head banger is likely to be entirely satisfied with the bass performance.

 

In all other aspects it reminds me very much of the Pulse 1, but it doesn't make me feel as happy when I used it to feed my LS-50s as I remember the Pulse 1 doing.  That slightly less full sound comes across as being less fun to listen to on the little KEFs and that slight lack in the bass region is much more noticeable than it is on the Lenehans.

 

So, the simple version of the review is that the Pulse 3 is a very good amp with additional connectivity over the Pulse 1 but it just isn't quite as much fun to listen to.  Personally I think I would seek out a Pulse 1 over a Pulse 3.

 

Now, here's hoping that I get some time in the next week or two to do some actual, uninterrupted listening.  (fingers crossed!)

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Love that big timber faced amp underneath. Off topic. I was wondering if you tried the leema pulse 3 bypassing the dac and using the original cdp you used with your first leema pulse amp. That would find out whether the dac is the thing creating the perceived difference?

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1 hour ago, niss_man said:

Love that big timber faced amp underneath. Off topic. I was wondering if you tried the leema pulse 3 bypassing the dac and using the original cdp you used with your first leema pulse amp. That would find out whether the dac is the thing creating the perceived difference?

I did, but I didn't get a great deal of time to do it in and I didn't get a second chance since the YBA started misbehaving before I could confirm anything.  Hence my fairly vague statements above.

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  • 5 weeks later...

 

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I’m going to cheat a little on the review of the Leema Pulse 3 and compare it directly to the review I wrote on the original Leema Pulse.  It isn’t really fair since the 3 has a built in DAC but I’ll try to cover the differences I feel are present due to both the different DAC and slightly different amp.  I have come to the conclusion that the 3 is a very similar amp to the original but it doesn’t have quite the same sense of scale as the original, it also sounds a little thinner, or less full I should say as the original Pulse sounded big and full and was a lot of fun because of it.

The built in DAC is quite good but it has been voiced to give a bit more in the area of detail and so, in my opinion at least, it loses some of the originals excellent performance in the mid range.  I would probably expect the 3 (via the in built DAC) to match or beat the original with slower music, girl with guitar type stuff because it would have more nuance in the top end but with mid to hard rock the original would win the battle.

 

My original Pulse review is written in black, with additional comments, comparisons and details on the performance of the 3 in the less often used blue, just for the heck of it.

 

Highs: Really nice Xylophone, there is a sort of 'fluid poise' to the sound that is mesmerizing as if you are listening to sweet ripples on a pond it manages to be just a little bit more than your average sensory experience, piano is almost as good as the xylophone but not quite.  Trumpets are nice and raspy but not as hard as they really should be, this means they don't sound quite right but they do sound easier on the ears, sort of a plus and a minus.  Triangle is all sparkle and no twinkle, but not hard sparkle.  8.25

More detail on display via the inbuilt DAC, can come across a little harder than I remember the original being but I get the feeling it will carry more nuance in the top end than the original too.  Triangles sound like ringing a long string of little silver bells which I like very much, swap over to the YBA cd player and things get a bit softer, easier on the ears long term but not quite as special.  Unfortunately there is a little less of the “fluid poise” of the original on display so the 8.25 rating stays.

 

Mids: Love those woodwinds, they carry something extra with that eerie resonant sound of theirs, the sort of sound you would accept without question that thousands of rats would indeed follow it to their deaths.  The acoustic guitar just hangs in the air in a magical fashion, in fact almost all strings are just deliciously addictive, I could listen to these mids all day.  They do loose a little of the magic if you take the volume too far up however, of course that can be easily fixed.  8.75

Still nice, no doubt about it, but the focus of the performance has shifted up the frequency range a little closer to the treble.  Without the DAC I’ll give it an 8.5.  Via the internal DAC, some of the magic of the original is lost I’m afraid, it drops to an 8.25.

 

Bass: Solid and expansive and full without being in your face, plays very well with the mids and highs, has a very light level of leading edge, it concentrates more on the middle and end of each note to give it that full mid section and fluid fade.  8.25

Now, the “bass light” effect.  The amp dials down the bass a bit in order to focus on the top end, it isn’t always obvious unless you dial up a seriously bass heavy track.  It also means that the 3 sometimes sounds more like a 60wpc amp while the original often sounded more like a 100wpc amp.  The bass that is present is very well behaved, polite even, but I will say that it does disappoint some when watching TV shows.

 

Vocals:  F: 8.0  Very good, nice and expressive but just not in the same league as the instrumentals.

             M: 7.5  Good, certainly good enough but not up there with the instrumental quality.

 Male vocals are still fine, unchanged at 7.5 but I just don’t feel that the girls are portrayed as well as they were on the original, it could drop as low as a 7.75 on occasion via the built in DAC.  Still an 8.0 via the YBA.

 

Soundstaging:  This is a bit curious as the soundstage is very relaxed and stereo effects are as well, they don't sound distinct and there is no way anyone would use words such as "razor sharp separation".  Words that would apply would be relaxed, fluid, slightly recessed and ghostly.  This is a very easy sound stage to listen to, but a very difficult one to describe.  I'm giving it an 8.0 because it works really well despite being so damn difficult to explain.

Little more polite, little less distinct, still very good but it feels less individual.  I won’t drop the 8.0 because it is still very good but I will say that it feels less special than the original.

 

Overall Performance Integration:

Nice and fast but not machine gun fast, more fast and rhythmic, has a happy feel to it, great instrumentals with a big sense of scale and good vocals too, but mostly great instrumentals!

Less sense of scale present, feels like a smaller amp than the original.  Still nicely rhythmic but in a lighter way. 

 

Ability to Emote: 

Can get quite trancy with pop songs, it takes that glare effect that a lot of pop songs have and uses it to enhance the atmospheric effect of the music, works well on pop and rock.  Also great with woodwinds and anything "eerie" 8.0.

The trancy effect is still there but it comes across in a slightly harder fashion.

 

Electric Guitar Test:

8.0, not really edgy or raw (which is what I am usually looking for here), I suspect it is too well composed for that, but it does have this energetic vibration that it uses to good effect.  Not quite as impact-ful on the showy lead guitar (again, which is what I am usually looking for here) but so damn awesome on the "wandering electric guitar" that it just feels decadent.  Again it's difficult to explain, have a listen to Joe Satriani's Oriental Melody three or four times and I think you'll start to get what I am trying to say.

The smaller sense of scale doesn’t affect Guitar but it does limit the impact of drums, I’m going to drop this to a 7.9, it isn’t far behind the original but I liked the original better.

 

80's Rock Test:

This was completely unexpected, that energy mentioned above in the Electric Guitar section pushes its rendition of 80's rock up into the stratosphere.  Hell Yeah!  I'm following this write up with a few greatest hits albums, Poison, Motley Crue, some 80's Alice Cooper and Kiss, anything even vaguely 80's-ish.  8.75

Again, slightly smaller scale performance on display, can generally be compensated for by increasing the volume but it isn’t quite the same, 8.5.

 

The Leema Pulse 3 is a very good amp and the built in DAC offers a very convenient increase in connectivity but IMO it isn’t quite as good as the original.  If you use an external DAC/source it will come close to the performance of the original but it won’t quite get there.  Since the original was a truly excellent amp that isn’t as much of an issue as it could be, but it is worthy of mention none the less.

 

And once again I find myself wondering just how good a Tucana must sound.  Leema make some nice gear.

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IMG_0620.thumb.JPG.1034648d72cb336bf0022ff4cda7f6ef.JPG

 

Next up a Rega Elex-R on loan.

 

Preliminary listening tells me that, while the Elex-R is on the brighter side of neutral (as has been mentioned a few times on the forums) it is much more than just a "brightish" amp. 

For a start it isn't really that bright, in metaphorical terms it isn't an LED level of bright, certainly not a maglight level of brightness either, more on a par with one of the older dolphin torches that give you a fairly bright light but it isn't really blinding as it is equal parts yellow and white light.  And it uses this brightness to, again with the metaphor, shine a light on the area around the upper mids.

It isn't really that bright as such, the Moon I1, Dussun V6 and NAD 390DD could certainly be called just as bright or brighter (and the Moon and Dussun are more forward too) so let's not go ruling the Elex out as a bright amp without being certain that we have the level of said brightness fully understood.

 

       
image.png.619e64bc6e648bde7f606f328b6878f3.png    
     

 

OK, not sure if the copy and paste from excel worked as well as I wanted it to, you may have to click on the little pic above to be able to see it but that is where the Rega Elex-R focuses it's not-so-brightness.  This is obviously the region where female vocals and many stringed instruments reside because this level of brightness focus really brings out the sonic flavour in this area.

One thing I will certainly say straight up is that the Elex-R does not sound very much like the Brio-R at all, the Brio is warm and cuddly and has a fairly strong bass performance while the Elex is not.  The Elex is clean and resonant mid range with a softer flavour to the bass and the only warmth on display is the way it makes you feel.  The Elex-R has a really nice rhythm to it too, makes me think of a slightly slower, slightly smoother NAKSA-80, it's very musical.

 

OK, enough of the prelim stuff, time to get to work.  

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finally got around to doing all the typing.

 

Rega Elex-R

 

As an addition to my comments in the post above I did notice that the Elex-R sounded significantly different, in both brightness and musicality, via different cd players.  I tried my Halcro with it and it wasn’t a great listen, the Sansui 917xr was more listenable but still a bit on the brightish side, my consonance cd120 was better than both the Halcro and the Sansui but it still wasn’t anything special as such.  However the YBA and the Rega work together very well and since the YBA is my standard testing cd spinner then the Rega review will benefit from that.  Just keep in mind that if you try an Elex-R and find it too bright for you then swapping out your source may well change things significantly.

 

As is usual I was performing all my listening with my YBA Heritage cd spinner, connected to the Rega via Aurealis R1 ICs.  Power was supplied via Redgums Audio Pipeline speaker cables to my trusty Lenehan/ETI S2R stand mounts.

 

Highs:

Subtle, delicate, intricate, layered, luscious, eerie, lots of poise, lightly nuanced.  It has almost as much PRAT present in the top end as some amps do in the mid range.  Trumpets are sweet (not something you can often say about an amp), triangles sound a little smaller than usual but they are very easy on the ears.  I’m not certain how accurate the sound up here is but I can say that it is very enjoyable to listen to, piano is probably more sweet than accurate but really, what is wrong with that?  8.25

 

Mids: 

woodwind resonance is first rate, nice poise and weight on every stringed instrument I can think of, much of the mid range really feels to be mixed in with the top end so many of the comments made above also apply here just slightly less so.  8.00

 

Bass: 

Yes it’s here but it isn’t the focus of the Elex-R.  The upper and mid bass is rather good but the lower is more threatened than it is delivered.  If you are after a Home Theatre level of bass then you will need to look elsewhere.   Small drums sound fine, bigger drums sound not-quite-so-big, acoustic bass (cello, double bass) is very nice but not quite as “bassy” as I am used to.

The bass is delivered with a soft and wide feel to it, it is present but it is actively trying to stay out of the way of the mid-range and the top end.  7.75 for the upper and mid bass due to the fact that the quality of the bass is excellent, 6.5 for the lower.

 

Vocals:

Female:  Very nice but they feel like they are a bit limited somehow, as if the amp is doing its best but it isn’t quite as good as it could be.  I can’t shake the feeling that this is an area where the Elicit will greatly improve upon the Elex.  They are nice to listen to, don’t get me wrong but they only seem to resonate up to a point and I really feel they should be able to go just that bit further.  8.0

Male:  7.8.  Certainly good but not really outstanding.  They come across with a little more nuance to them than I am used to so I can respect the Elex for that but having said that the extra nuance doesn’t really enhance the listening experience as much as I feel it should.  Again I suspect the Elicit will do better here.

 

Soundstaging:

Wide but soft and relaxed, it really doesn’t draw attention to itself very much as it seems to prefer to sound musical rather than 3 dimensional and that is fair enough.  It doesn’t really lack a 3D soundstage but in order to hear it you really have to be listening for it.  I’m not going to rate this as it doesn’t really add or subtract from the listening experience it just seems to be a result of the decision to focus on musicality rather than accuracy.

 

Overall performance Integration.

Light on its feet with a pleasantly, lightly addictive, rhythmic draw factor.  On lighter music (pretty much anything softer than hard rock) it can certainly get the toes tapping.

 

Ability to Emote:   

On slow music, 8.75.  On dark or eerie music (especially involving woodwind instruments) it is excellent at portraying a deep, dark presence (English moors at midnight kind of eerie/spooky).  It certainly knows how to spell atmosphere.  Less so on faster paced music with powered instruments but that is to be expected.

 

Electric Guitar Test:

8.0  Better than expected.  It doesn’t have the wild energy or raw feel but it does convey a nice bite along with the string decay. 

 

80’s Rock Test:

7.75  Electric guitar is actually a strong point here, all those little imperfections in 70s and 80s rock that really make the music for those of us who lived through the decades in question are very well conveyed, if it could find its wild side it would do better but then it wouldn’t have that sweet top end. 

 

And that is the Rega Elex-R write up.  I quite enjoyed my time with the Elex-R but I will admit to being a bit hesitant at the start since my YBA was off visiting a tech for the first few weeks.  This was when I was trying all those other cd spinners and finding that bright-ish Rega sound.   Luckily for me (and for the Elex-R I suppose) the YBA pairs with it so well you would swear that they were made for each other.

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