LampizatOr TranspOrt Review

I would like to repost here my LampizatOr TranspOrt review which had been originaly posted on the forum ,but I decided to move it here after I turned professional :-} Enjoy

LAMPIZATOR TRANSPORT 1st impressions

Intro

Having quite big collection of music files ,both Hi -rez and red-book quality , I was always interested in streamer. Trying different brands and models I was looking for something what will be good enough to play them on appreciate quality level and not braking a bank in the same time .Like most of us with the same feelings and careful watch on the market I tried both most popular platforms – Sonos and Squeezebox. Basic stock models as well as the tweaked ones. I found stock models good enough to replace mid-fi set ups ,which is not bad anyway considering that ,there is quite a wide margin defining this level. And a retail price for these units is not stratospheric too.

On the other hand I auditioned the fat cats in my system too. Units like Linn Klimax or RA Cantata are about most expensive on the streamer market today. Regarding Linn, I never liked their house sound. It is just to lean and dry to my ears, but others may have a different opinion about, of course. Never mind.

Cantata ,with all its abilities and price made Linn not worth to think about . Even if not cheap it is offering much more relaxed sound ,top class DAC to use with ,plus VC acting as a pre for all digital sources – with no ,REALLY NO ! ,and I mean it dump in output quality ,like some of digital VC used to have in the past ,even if they claimed something completely opposite. Still handling price tag which was a bit more that I liked to spend for device like that, I gave up it for another reason.  It just was not ready for full UPNP operation as well like UI was not really finished ,what is unacceptable in a unit for such a money in my opinion. All the rest ,sound ,concept ,design and a quality of finish are top class and truly deserve reputation it achieved. By this time looks like the new model came around with all this issues already sorted .By I did not try it so far ,so can not leave any comment about.

After all this comparisons I found that tweaked cheap unit are the best alternatives at the moment . Among many ,I liked most ModWright modified Transporter ,when the sound Q. for the money is a point. Cullen modified Sonos was a second in raw ,and finally made it possible to play Hi rez files on this platform.

Just to clarify I found both interfaces not so good ,but due to most of us using 3rd part software it does not really matter. Personally I prefer Sonos ,and this is what covering house WL rig. But in my system finally I finished with Logitech based unit. Already mentioned in title LAMPIZATOR TRANSPORT.

As is easy to find out it uses Duet unit as a receiver .All the rest had been designed to work with this PCB by Lukasz Fikus ,aka LampizatOr. As we both know each other since a long time ,and he already ,after his long DIY period decided to turn professional, I was interested to give this unit a try . I gave it a proper listening as I already mentioned in another thread in WW ,and I found that I really like the sound .So he build one for me ,and after extensive listening to this in my own system I decided to keep it .More of that I also liked even more his DAC 4 ,so I sold my front end and put an order for it as well ,temporary resting with cosmic Shanling spinner with a DAC on the board. DAC unit is still not here ,so I can do no comments on it so far ,but soon I will. So far let’s go back to the subject.

As all tech -talk had been done here :

http://lampizator.eu/szop/szopproduc…transport.html ,

there is no point to retype it . For those who never heard /read about just follow the link. As a point is how it sounds rather – let me move to this chapter:-)

sound

Listening to this 1st time in Lukasz rig ,with his latest hit DAC ,what concerned me most was a complete lack of tension in sound . Do not get me wrong, it is not about resolution ,details ,dynamics – micro or macro. It’s rather about an ability to disappear in the way like we thing about if it comes to speakers. In my own system some charm gone .That’s why I wanted to get it back and followed with a DAC order. With my DAC AUDIO GD Ref7  (based on 1704UK chip x 8 ) sound was still very analogue and relaxed .When I compared it with the same creation based on SABRE DAC chip (NFB 7 DAC from the same company ) I found in even more relaxed an enhanced with more solid foundation for the sound and even more flow with vocals and sting passages when listening to chamber music. Same power supply ,output circuit ,etc made this comparison really worth as I was truly listening to the differences coming from both chips ,not polluted by any other factors. These are both excellent DACs for the money in my opinion, easy competing with devices handling even 3 times bigger price tag. However cheaper NFB7 is a clear winner to my ears. It is more holographic ,with more realistic sound stage and a bass control to die for .Simply Sabre chip seems to be more musical and well balanced to me. At least with music of my choice .But I still liked LAMP 4 DAC more . So now it’s a time to swap transports when the DAC statements had been finally established . I used for this listening CULLEN SONOS and LAMPIZATOR. Both with stealth audio Varidig dc in my SET rig with 45 triode on output. All SE as I do not have balanced amps.

Started with Cullen playing various tracks .As I am listening mostly to the classical music and jazz ,I have chosen from my NAS library some tracks I am listening to more often and they may in my opinion help easy to judge equipment sonic abilities build a play list for this comparison and started to listen to .Sweet and easy w/o swapping discs involved I completely fallen to the music. Cullen is a good unit and I COULD NOT FIND ANYTHING TO BIT IT FOR UP TO £700 budget for streamer and including £ 3000 cd players as well .But TranspOrt is sth playing completely different class, even if its heart is still chippo duet receiver. It is actually a good news.

With some viola da gamba samples from Baroque recordings ,chamber music (mostly Vivaldi and Corelli ), choral parts of BACH’s oratories (my favourites under Gardiner and Minkovsky) and different female bel canto voices (Bartolli,Genaux,Kirby,etc) – I found LampiztOr to be astonishing performer. It was able to build fantastic connection to the music and just moved everything what Cullen used to do for me a few levels up. The sound opened up to the levels I never experienced before with any player or streamer I owned or used on loan. Completely crazy at it was Red Book rips seemed to take a biggest advantage of this in the case of becoming more airy and enhanced ,with overall resolution set up completely independent from a source and so natural like a wind flow. Hi rez files got further boost but the difference with them was not that massive like with CDs. However still noticeable straight on.

To make it more easy to imagine it was like CDs via Lamp sounded almost that good as Hi-rez via Sonos. With some jazz cut off I got overwhelming results. The more simple recording was the stronger difference appealed .On direct recordings made w/o post prod manipulations ,just with a couple of properly set up mics the result was almost scary .Sound from the sax came from a pin point precise location with a dynamic matching being there only. No compression at all . One could easy follow all the movements of instrument’s bell ,same as a singer head distances from microphones .Close breath came from in such a natural way like from somebody sitting just opposite the same table .Piano location on the stage was clear and obvious ,and an angle to the mics sketched perfectly. I could keep going with it much longer ,really as an almost every track I put on was a discovery. However there is no point .

Finally I did one crazy comparison using discs against rips. With the same music ,with Shannling CDT-300 employed as a transport I got 100% improvement from rip over a disk on the same DAC via same cable.

I did it before with Cullen Sonos too ,and results were nothing like that. It took over a spinner just on Hi-rez files – no surprise here I believe. Hardly equalled some discs ,only these which were not too complex ,mostly jazz – never classical tracks, by the way spinner is for sale too ,just after the WW show – can be even collected there .

Just to point it here I did the same with RA Cantata ,using its on board dac against my beloved SF IRIS spinner{not mine any longer 🙁  and He wiped Cantata’s on board transport slot unit with no mercy ,and no by small margin too.

Guys ,this is a first time I experienced that the streamer played the music better than HQ transport unit and I am honest with this declaration . Some might find my different posts on varied forums related to this subject and a fact is I was always glorifying transport over stream. Simply there was no unit streaming good enough around these days to my ears ~ but things had  changed and I am pleased to announce it.

How it sounds against a vinyl ,some may like to ask .Answer is I do not know ,have no vinyl at the moment .But I love vinyl a lot and that combo is that close to it as I ever heard ,and we talking here about 13 hundreds $ DAC only .Hope to say you more soon when my matching DAC unit will arrive.