Marvel bro, please let me know when you fix the date/time for audition. Or, I may need to arrange separately with PT. I believe this transport is a must-shoot item for all Vekian DAC owners including me.
Hi everyone,
I believe a LOT of us are running the Zanden Transport with the Vekian DAC. At least I am.
The big question for me is what is the difference between the Zanden/Vekian and the Vekian/Venkian?
Can someone who will be auditioning this please post their comments?
I will go and listen tomorrow night, but like most of the Vekian DAC user, we all have been provisioned for one unit...question is only for you to decide if you have the space to keep 2 transports.
I will land HK at 1300 today. My driver will take me directly to your shop. Hopefully, I will be there at 1430 and depart at 1515 for an meeting in the central area.
Please warm everything up as time is very limited. Please prepare some electronic music for auditioning. I will take my own usual reference recordings.
When there is a major move in a system, you have to forget your sound to date and to do a fresh analysis based on the changed fact.
After all these years, I discover the greatest improvements often lie in going against trends. The sound of the Vekian transport and DAC is ENGROSSING.
The major breakthrough about upsampling and clock link design provides us an extremely solid sound reflecting emotion and fashion more than rationality. I think you all should come and listen to it because reality is always more complex than theory or models we know.
Remind you one thing, all AE clients are the successful audio enthusiasts. Please remember success often leads individuals to fail to notice change or to adapt to it, and so, eventually, to falter. I mention because you have never listen to a CD source sound like Vekian. To cite an example, the sound of piano comes from the string inside the body of the piano. Three significant factors of strings affect the consitiution of a chord, they are:
1. The length
2. The thickness
3. The tension
They have to be "in tune" so that every pair of adjacent notes has an identical frequency ratio.
Some of the top tier digital systems can reveal "1 and 2" or "2 and 3" or "1 and 3" but never "1, 2, 3" until the arrival of the Vekian digital suite. If one can do 1 and 3, the sound is likely to be bright and hard. If one can do 2 and 3, the sound becomes fat and lacks speed at lower register. If one can do 1 and 2, the "elasticity" factor will not be there.
The whole development of each chord is revealed by the Vekian digital system encompassing the most fundamentals of string. Every piano tuner in the real world understand this basic knowledge.
I don't need to mention human voice, Jazz, orchestra or even Heavy metal, punk, Japanese rock. All these are too easy for the system now.
Come and Challenge me. I really enjoy talking to you guys about new experience.
At 1500, I called my secetary and said "Screw the bankers!" I didn't go to meet the asshole at 1515.
I went straight to play Lori Lieberman's "GUN METAL SKY" album. Jlam told him to play from the hunky remote.
After I hit 11, (which is the damn famous track -Killing me softly), I closed my weary red eyes for a moment. Damn it! Lori the human fresh appeared in front of me that poped my eyes open. It couldn't be because this is just a plain red book 16/44 stupid silver disc that I played a thousand times. Is this called resolution? Damn it, I listened to Lori live performance a few times in the US and that's exactly her the human fresh inside the AE showroom. This is not about the CD. I got the FMRs, Spartan and the Troy but damn it damn it damn it, I decided to screw the bankers to find out why.
Was there a ghost or Jlam practicing some black magic? At one point, I told him to go outside for 10 minutes and let me listened alone turning off the funny crystal ball with water running around it.
I took a deep breath and played again. Damn it! It's ghostly. I'm floored. Subsequent playback on Horowitz's piano or Janigro's Cello are beautiful in color and sensible in expressiveness. I have nothing to add.
Jlam, some honest words here - please invite as much as people to experience what you have achieved with this system. I gave you the Lori Lieberman album as a gift. Play for Marvel bro this evening and let's see if he sees the same ghost. I'm glad I screw up the banker. That's a right decision.
Hi Fire4, yes indeed but last few times,you were writing in Chinese and with a Chinese nickname.
I went to listen to the Vekian transport tonight and accidentally 'encounter'ed the 'stuff' which Jeff/Voy/Ray are using. It was connected to the Tidal flagship preamp, Presencio. Now I understand why Jeff and Voy are 'sweeping the floor' in cleaning up their cables... Music was really flat and without life when 'stuff' was not connected.
Back to the Vekian transport, with their proprietary clock link, I can feel more details along the z-axis of the soundstage, not. to mention the 3-d shape of the vocalist, instruments, the details of the rear wall that the original recording was made can also be felt vividly, be it a studio recording of Lori Lieberman's 'Killing me Softly with his song', be it Joan Baez live recording in the Bullring....the depth of the soundstage depicted by the Vekian combo is unsurpassed. I am using Zanden transport + Vekian DAC and to me, it is a very good bcombination to strike a balance between musicality vs dimensionality, coherence vs resolution, liveliness vs transparency....with Vekian transport, I don't need to think babout 'balance' as everything is 'there' !! No compromise, no netting off, no gap and no overlap!
We also compared the HDMI clocklink with a BNC-BNC digital link, although we have limited time and music to draw a clear conclusion, my initial impression is that HDMI has a higher resolution on the soundstage (especially z-axis) while BNC-BNC Argento flagship digital is more pleasing to the ears, I believe it is due to the mid bass...but again not conclusive at this stage.
After tonight's listening, I feel that the technology in making a CD transport/DAC has opened a new era and this is not evolutionary, it is revolutionary. I have to echo Jlam that it plays all kind of music well and so does Tidal !
Whilst I have no doubt that Vekian combo is an ultimate source CD combo...my 'early bird' vote for the 2010 product of the year is 'The Stuff'!
Comments
I believe a LOT of us are running the Zanden Transport with the Vekian DAC. At least I am.
The big question for me is what is the difference between the Zanden/Vekian and the Vekian/Venkian?
Can someone who will be auditioning this please post their comments?
I will go and listen tomorrow night, but like most of the Vekian DAC user, we all have been provisioned for one unit...question is only for you to decide if you have the space to keep 2 transports.
Marvel
I will land HK at 1300 today. My driver will take me directly to your shop. Hopefully, I will be there at 1430 and depart at 1515 for an meeting in the central area.
Please warm everything up as time is very limited. Please prepare some electronic music for auditioning. I will take my own usual reference recordings.
VR
I wish I can join you guys.
When there is a major move in a system, you have to forget your sound to date and to do a fresh analysis based on the changed fact.
After all these years, I discover the greatest improvements often lie in going against trends. The sound of the Vekian transport and DAC is ENGROSSING.
The major breakthrough about upsampling and clock link design provides us an extremely solid sound reflecting emotion and fashion more than rationality. I think you all should come and listen to it because reality is always more complex than theory or models we know.
Remind you one thing, all AE clients are the successful audio enthusiasts. Please remember success often leads individuals to fail to notice change or to adapt to it, and so, eventually, to falter. I mention because you have never listen to a CD source sound like Vekian. To cite an example, the sound of piano comes from the string inside the body of the piano. Three significant factors of strings affect the consitiution of a chord, they are:
1. The length
2. The thickness
3. The tension
They have to be "in tune" so that every pair of adjacent notes has an identical frequency ratio.
Some of the top tier digital systems can reveal "1 and 2" or "2 and 3" or "1 and 3" but never "1, 2, 3" until the arrival of the Vekian digital suite. If one can do 1 and 3, the sound is likely to be bright and hard. If one can do 2 and 3, the sound becomes fat and lacks speed at lower register. If one can do 1 and 2, the "elasticity" factor will not be there.
The whole development of each chord is revealed by the Vekian digital system encompassing the most fundamentals of string. Every piano tuner in the real world understand this basic knowledge.
I don't need to mention human voice, Jazz, orchestra or even Heavy metal, punk, Japanese rock. All these are too easy for the system now.
Come and Challenge me. I really enjoy talking to you guys about new experience.
I went straight to play Lori Lieberman's "GUN METAL SKY" album. Jlam told him to play from the hunky remote.
After I hit 11, (which is the damn famous track -Killing me softly), I closed my weary red eyes for a moment. Damn it! Lori the human fresh appeared in front of me that poped my eyes open. It couldn't be because this is just a plain red book 16/44 stupid silver disc that I played a thousand times. Is this called resolution? Damn it, I listened to Lori live performance a few times in the US and that's exactly her the human fresh inside the AE showroom. This is not about the CD. I got the FMRs, Spartan and the Troy but damn it damn it damn it, I decided to screw the bankers to find out why.
Was there a ghost or Jlam practicing some black magic? At one point, I told him to go outside for 10 minutes and let me listened alone turning off the funny crystal ball with water running around it.
I took a deep breath and played again. Damn it! It's ghostly. I'm floored. Subsequent playback on Horowitz's piano or Janigro's Cello are beautiful in color and sensible in expressiveness. I have nothing to add.
Jlam, some honest words here - please invite as much as people to experience what you have achieved with this system. I gave you the Lori Lieberman album as a gift. Play for Marvel bro this evening and let's see if he sees the same ghost. I'm glad I screw up the banker. That's a right decision.
I went to listen to the Vekian transport tonight and accidentally 'encounter'ed the 'stuff' which Jeff/Voy/Ray are using. It was connected to the Tidal flagship preamp, Presencio. Now I understand why Jeff and Voy are 'sweeping the floor' in cleaning up their cables... Music was really flat and without life when 'stuff' was not connected.
Back to the Vekian transport, with their proprietary clock link, I can feel more details along the z-axis of the soundstage, not. to mention the 3-d shape of the vocalist, instruments, the details of the rear wall that the original recording was made can also be felt vividly, be it a studio recording of Lori Lieberman's 'Killing me Softly with his song', be it Joan Baez live recording in the Bullring....the depth of the soundstage depicted by the Vekian combo is unsurpassed. I am using Zanden transport + Vekian DAC and to me, it is a very good bcombination to strike a balance between musicality vs dimensionality, coherence vs resolution, liveliness vs transparency....with Vekian transport, I don't need to think babout 'balance' as everything is 'there' !! No compromise, no netting off, no gap and no overlap!
We also compared the HDMI clocklink with a BNC-BNC digital link, although we have limited time and music to draw a clear conclusion, my initial impression is that HDMI has a higher resolution on the soundstage (especially z-axis) while BNC-BNC Argento flagship digital is more pleasing to the ears, I believe it is due to the mid bass...but again not conclusive at this stage.
After tonight's listening, I feel that the technology in making a CD transport/DAC has opened a new era and this is not evolutionary, it is revolutionary. I have to echo Jlam that it plays all kind of music well and so does Tidal !
Whilst I have no doubt that Vekian combo is an ultimate source CD combo...my 'early bird' vote for the 2010 product of the year is 'The Stuff'!
Marvel
Please tell me Jlam had not practiced black magic. Did you feel the body fresh of Lori that is simply coming from the room itself?
I was immensed by the musicality yesterday. You seemed to be focus on the z axis of the soundstage. Can you comment your perspective on musicality?
What other recordings did you play?
VR