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Thumb5's system
#31
Thanks ML! Reviews are a bit thin on the ground -- I found three or four on-line -- but do seem to be very enthusiastic. Not sure how much can be judged from that but it did encourage me to put the Chiaras onto my short list.

Luckily the dealer in the UK (I think there is only one, but may be wrong) is not too far away from me. If you do get a chance to hear the Chiaras or any of the Kaiser floor-standers then I'd recommend doing so.

By the way, having owned Sonus fabers for longer than I can remember, including a pair of Minimas before the Guarneris, it's nice to retain a small connection with Italy, even if it's only in the name!
Roon (Mac Mini), Wilson Benesch Full Circle, Expert 1000 Pro CI, Kaiser Chiara
Warwickshire, UK
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#32
(03-Mar-2016, 19:11)thumb5 Wrote: Thanks ML!  Reviews are a bit thin on the ground -- I found three or four on-line -- but do seem to be very enthusiastic.  Not sure how much can be judged from that but it did encourage me to put the Chiaras onto my short list.

Luckily the dealer in the UK (I think there is only one, but may be wrong) is not too far away from me.  If you do get a chance to hear the Chiaras or any of the Kaiser floor-standers then I'd recommend doing so.

By the way, having owned Sonus fabers for longer than I can remember, including a pair of Minimas before the Guarneris, it's nice to retain a small connection with Italy, even if it's only in the name!

I will try to listen to any Kaiser speaker as soon as I get the chance! I'm quite intrigued, I must say.

Coming from a strong SF background like yours, keeping your next speaker's name within Italian reach is the least you could do!  Tongue

Please, keep us posted with your impressions as your Chiaras start singing!
Aurender X100 >> Totaldac USB cable >> D200 >> SF Olympica II

Italy
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#33
It's a while since I've posted anything here, mainly because nothing has changed.  I've been really enjoying the Chiaras, which work brilliantly over a wide range of music (and volume levels!).

Today's post is because I've got a 440 Pro to listen to for a couple of days to help me make my mind up about whether to upgrade from the 400.  Very exciting!  I've only had an hour or so of proper listening, but so far I'm definitely impressed.  After a bit more listening -- probably tomorrow or Friday -- I'll add some notes with subjective impressions about what I'm hearing.  Watch this space...
Roon (Mac Mini), Wilson Benesch Full Circle, Expert 1000 Pro CI, Kaiser Chiara
Warwickshire, UK
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#34
The 440 Pro has gone back now, so it's time to reflect a bit on how it sounded.

To cut it short: it sounded wonderful, and I'll be upgrading (actually using OAC's new-for-old exchange scheme).

First impressions were of a (much!) bigger sound stage and more bass depth.  At a given volume level it sounds "bigger" than a 400.  Mids and trebles have the same character as the 400 -- precise and detailed but without being the slightest bit fatiguing.  I could convince myself that there's a smidge more "air" and space on the 440 Pro, but I wouldn't swear to it (and in any case that might be due to firmware differences - I'm still using 7.1.3 on the 400).  But to put the differences into a single sentence, the thing I kept coming back to is that the 440 Pro sounds more eager to get involved with the music: by comparison the 400 sounds just that little bit detached.

I've never found the 400 wanting and wasn't expecting to hear such a significant change.  It really surprises me that Devialet have managed to wring so more performance out of the 440 Pro with what -- on paper, at least -- seem to be minor tweaks.  It's more of everything I like about the 400.

One other bonus is that both master and companion were completely silent: no trace of any power supply fizzing.  Let's hope that's due to the revised design and not just a happy fluke.

The only very minor negative I could put my finger on was that the push button on the front of the amps isn't quite as elegant as the original design.
Roon (Mac Mini), Wilson Benesch Full Circle, Expert 1000 Pro CI, Kaiser Chiara
Warwickshire, UK
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#35
(29-Oct-2016, 09:52)thumb5 Wrote: The 440 Pro has gone back now, so it's time to reflect a bit on how it sounded.

To cut it short: it sounded wonderful, and I'll be upgrading (actually using OAC's new-for-old exchange scheme).

First impressions were of a (much!) bigger sound stage and more bass depth.  At a given volume level it sounds "bigger" than a 400.  Mids and trebles have the same character as the 400 -- precise and detailed but without being the slightest bit fatiguing.  I could convince myself that there's a smidge more "air" and space on the 440 Pro, but I wouldn't swear to it (and in any case that might be due to firmware differences - I'm still using 7.1.3 on the 400).  But to put the differences into a single sentence, the thing I kept coming back to is that the 440 Pro sounds more eager to get involved with the music: by comparison the 400 sounds just that little bit detached.

I've never found the 400 wanting and wasn't expecting to hear such a significant change.  It really surprises me that Devialet have managed to wring so more performance out of the 440 Pro with what -- on paper, at least -- seem to be minor tweaks.  It's more of everything I like about the 400.

One other bonus is that both master and companion were completely silent: no trace of any power supply fizzing.  Let's hope that's due to the revised design and not just a happy fluke.

The only very minor negative I could put my finger on was that the push button on the front of the amps isn't quite as elegant as the original design.
Totally agree about the power button. The original was a nice enamel looking object. The new one is very plain silver. Still, If that's all we've got to moan about that's good!
Project Eperience X Pack with Ortofon Rondo Red MC, Oppo BDP 105D, 2 x Sonos Connect, QNAP HS251+ NAS with 2 X 6TB Western Digital Red, Mac 5K 32GB running Lifetime Roon, iPad Pro 12.9" for remote control.  Etalon Ethernet Isolator, Devialet 440 Pro CI, Sonus faber Olympica ll with Isoacoustics Gaia ll feet, Auralic Taurus Mkll headphone amp.Denon AH-D5000, Sennheiser HD600 and HD800 with Cardas cable,  Van Den Hul The First Ultimate and Crystal interconnects, Furutech power cables, GSP Audio Spatia speaker cable.
South Coast England
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#36
The new 440 Pro is scheduled to arrive today...fingers crossed!
Roon (Mac Mini), Wilson Benesch Full Circle, Expert 1000 Pro CI, Kaiser Chiara
Warwickshire, UK
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#37
It's here (and my old 400 has gone)!

After a few hours sitting around powered off, waiting for it to acclimatise to room temperature, it's just playing its first music (Riverside's "Where the River Flows" from "Eye of the Soundscape", as it happens) at a tick-over volume.

Sounding jolly good right out of the box and at low volume -- really, really nice. More to come once I've given it a proper listen.

Incidentally both master and companion have firmware 10.0.6 installed.
Roon (Mac Mini), Wilson Benesch Full Circle, Expert 1000 Pro CI, Kaiser Chiara
Warwickshire, UK
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#38
Yes!

My 250 was freezing out of the box, and I probably gave it slightly less time than I should have - but anyway it sounded horrible that first night.

You're in for a bit of a treat this week Smile

>>> 1st Place Award: Devialet, last decades most disappointing technology purchase.  <<<

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#39
Some changes afoot as I'm adding a dedicated Mac Mini to stream music from instead of my MacBook Pro.

The main aims here are:
  • to avoid having to sit in front of a computer to choose and play music
  • to allow for a better-optimised and more stable software environment for playing music
  • to support things like software room correction in future
The Mac Mini will run "headless" with a remote control application for streaming music, and Apple Screen Sharing when I need to do admin-type things.  It's going to sit in the hi-fi rack and will be connected to the system like this:

[Image: Proposed%20audio%20streaming%20configura...rditi5.png]

My music library is stored on an Apple Time Capsule (NAS) which is the main wireless access point, extended by the Airport Express.

I already have the top part set up: in particular, the 440 Pro has a wired Ethernet connection to the Airport Express via the integrated switch in the ZP90.  This seems to be working reliably both with respect to AIR via Ethernet and operation of the Sonos mesh network, including streaming music from my library to the ZP90.  The ZP90 has its wireless interface permanently disabled because it doesn't play nicely with the Airport Express (for reasons unknown).

The new part is adding the Mac Mini with a USB interface to the Devialet, of course.

This configuration gives me plenty of flexibility:
  • I can use AIR via Ethernet to the Devialet from either the Mac Mini or (still) my laptop
  • I can use a direct USB connection from the Mac Mini to the Devialet
  • There’s a strong wi-fi signal to the Devialet courtesy of the Airport Express, if I want to use AIR via wi-fi
The Mac Mini is going to stream music from a local SSD, which will contain a shadow copy of my main music library stored on the Time Capsule NAS.  I'll schedule Destek Folder Sync to do a one-way sync from the NAS to the local SSD every day at some suitably quiet time (like 3:00 am), so for all practical purposes the local SSD will always have the same content as the NAS.

The Mac Mini will be backed up to Amazon S3/Glacier using Haystack Software's Arq.

That configuration has several advantages:
  • there's no wireless traffic (other than control) during music streaming
  • programs (Roon, Audirvana+, iTunes, ...) that "watch" for changes in folder contents generally work better with local file systems
  • I get "free" local and geographically-redundant back-ups of the music from my NAS
At the moment my plan is first of all to make sure AIR over Ethernet works well, since I'm pretty used to how it sounds currently.  Then I can experiment with USB and/or AIR over wi-fi to see whether there are any differences in sound quality and/or reliability.

Not shown on that diagram is that the power to the 440 Pro is from a Vertex AQ Taga, whereas all the rest of the gear is run straight from the mains socket.  There may be some opportunities to improve sound quality (TBD) by keeping all the interfaces to the 440 Pro isolated from the sources.  For example:
  • If the Ethernet connection to the ZP90 proves to affect sound quality, there are two options:
    • disconnect the Devialet's Ethernet interface and use AIR over wi-fi instead
    • insert a back-to-back pair of Ethernet media converters with an optical link
  • The direct USB connection from the Mac Mini to the Devialet could be replaced by a USB-to-AES converter, for example the much-lauded Mutec MC-3+ USB or a Berkeley Alpha USB (more expensive, though arguably prettier)
One thing I haven't yet decided is what software I'm going to use on the Mac Mini.  I'll need something with a remote control application that will run on an iPhone or iPad.

The obvious choices include:
  • iTunes, with iTunes Remote
  • Audirvana+, with A+ Remote
  • Roon Server, with Roon Remote
Audirvana+ has the advantage of integrated support for Qobuz, which could be quite handy.  Having tried it for a couple of weeks, it sounds fine but I have quite a few nit-picks with its usability (and the developer hasn't been overly responsive or helpful when I asked about them).

Roon is next on the list to try, but I'm holding out until 1.3 is released before starting a trial.  Hopefully not long now...
Roon (Mac Mini), Wilson Benesch Full Circle, Expert 1000 Pro CI, Kaiser Chiara
Warwickshire, UK
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#40
Well that setup will give you quite a number of options. If you do decide to try out Roon 1.3 when it is released shortly, it should work well with either your locally attached music or those on the network. Out of curiosity, or perhaps I missed it, why is the Sonos feeding the D440 Pro as well?
Roon ROCK on Intel NUC6i5SYH/Ethernet | VPI Avenger | Devialet 440 Pro CI | Vivid Audio Giya G3 | Auralic Aires Mini | Synology 1812+ NAS
SXSW, US
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