Yeah that’s to far away drive of 500km. Really curious how the Starkrimson’s will be reviewed/enjoyed by the audience.
Here is the Playlist for next Soundcheck…
Open Qobuz
19. Volumio Soundcheck, Hamburg on TIDAL
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2tWGDVLQhh4Fbab5HlqIov?si=dfd11d0f08654b01
enjoy
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Very nice selection, not familiar with a few of them will have to listen later.
Dear lovers of great volumio systems.
Yesterday we came together for a new soundcheck. After a short introduction to Volumio and the soundcheck procedure, we listened to the 7 I2S DAC devices on the well-known Cambridge audio amplifier. First of all, we realised that the devices can only be distinguished in fine details. We found Innomaker and protdacgi slightly unclean. And the Protodacgi sometimes crackled. We found the PecanPi+ and the Evo Sabre board to be the best. In second place were the R2R DAC and the PecanPi.
We were now curious to see how the best devices would perform with the other amplifiers.
On the FM300A replica, the devices sounded much more open and transparent. We really enjoyed the sound!
Then we listened to the devices on the Starkrimson monoblocks. The amplifier sounds balanced, with some bass emphasis. However, it is not as enjoyable as the FM300A and also has less fine resolution than the Cambridge Audio amplifier. We should realise that one board is not necessarily the best choice for all amplifiers. Our favourite combination is the PecanPi+ with the Cambridge Audio amplifier! Also we would recommend combining the FM300A with the Evo Sabre, R2R or PecanPi DAC. The PecanPi seems to be the best match for the Starkrimson.
It should be clear that different results can be achieved in a different room or with different loudspeakers.
In my experience, the most important links in the chain are: source, amplifier, speakers and room. Power supplies, cables and RPI version play smaller roles.
I would especially like to thank Orchardaudio for their great and long time support! Thank you Leo for your courageous support!
Even though I prefer to stick with the Cambridge Audio for sound checks, it was a great pleasure to listen to this wonderful designed pair of amplifiers from Orchardaudio.
I should point out at that the PecanPi is currently on offer at Orchardaudio.
I can already announce that I am planning the next sound check for the end of the year. I’ve just got a Soekris dam 1021 board. Another I2S R2R Dac board.
I would like to compare this with the other top tier boards (PecanPi+, PecanPi, EvoSabre, R2R DAC).
Have a nice day!
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Did you use RCA to XLR adapter with the amps? That is not ideal, but I understand that not all source devices have XLR outputs.
Looks like it was a good turn out.
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I was smart enough to say that we would only include the best devices in the amplifier comparison. These were both Pecanpi and the Evo Sabre (r2r only to the rca amp), which I connected manually via XLR to the Starkrimson XLR input. Also the participants didn’t want to listen to all the devices with three amplifiers either.
The atmosphere was very pleasant.
It’s subjective but I have found that many customs use tube preamps with my amps because they are too neutral for them otherwise, especially when combined with my DACs which are also neutral.
I certainly understand not wanting to listen to all the devices across 3 amps, that would take quite a lot of time.
Yes, that makes sense to me. The MP-701 tube preamplifier, for example, is very popular at the moment. The FM300A sounds very analogue. That may save me the preamplifier.
However, you gave me the idea of borrowing the MP-701 from a friend to connect it to the Starkrimson. 
yeah, next Soundcheck…
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To be clear. it is certainly subjective, but we did not find the Starkrimson nor the Pecan DACs neutral.
For example, we found the bass emphasis from the amplifier with the bass emphasis from the PecanPi+ DAC to be too much overall. On compact loudspeakers for example it can sound quite different again. For us it looks that the Starkrimson will perform better with the PecanPi than PecanPi+…We also find the so-called velvet sound characteristic - not neutral. Some like it, others don’t.
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I have a hard-core customer base with tube preamps.
Very nice leo. One of your german customers will lend me his tube preamp at the end of march.
I’ve been playing around with fosi devices recently. There’s a lot of hype about it on the net.
I bought the Fosi ZD3 DAC and two Fosi V3 amplifiers and also tried them out with different OPAMPS. LME49720HA, NE5532PA, OPA2134PA, ORACLE II 02, Sparko S3602, Supersonic V2 to be exact. As a Class D amplifier, it sounds surprisingly neutral, even somewhat analog. Accuracy and soundstage are really impressive. However, I was still missing some foundation at the bottom and some overall listening pleasure. You can certainly optimize the sound impression even further with room correction.
All in all, a good amplifier for getting into hifi.
For my Volumio DAC sound checks, I’ll stick with my Class AB amplifiers for the time being.
I think I might invite to another Volumio soundcheck at the end of March.
Hi! I’ve been doing the same, except with a ZA3 amp instead for the full ZD3+ZA3 stack. Very happy with them. I’m using the ZA3’s XLR inputs with the ZD3 + Volumio, and the RCA with a phono pre + turntable. Great bit of kit!
Are you using 2 V3 Mono’s or regular V3’s? And did you find any significant differences between the op-amps?
I’m curious as to what the Monos can do with larger, harder to drive speakers in comparison to a class AB amp or avr.
Hi TubularBells
fine that you are happy with your fosi combo.
i tested the ZD3 with a volumio RPI via USB. The XLR output sounds a bit better and wider than with RCA to me but there was a little crack at changing tracks on the volumio ui. On RCA the changing of tracks where without these cracks.
i tried the ZD3 with the other opamps but i came back to the factory default LME49720HA.
improvement with other opamp where only slightly better. changing opamp in amp, improvements where clearly better. i have two V3 stereo with 48V5A. i like having a volume control because most i2s dacboards does not have a volume knob.
With my switching box i can easy switch from one amp to another. For me Supersonic V2 was best (wide, clear, detailed, organic) followed by the OPA2134PA (also somewhat warm) . The sparko was 20% wider and clearer than factory one, but feels somehow poor compared to the 2 best to me.
I have 2 4ohm floor loudspeaker (2x bass each). t think no problem for the V3 stereo. My 2x150W AB amp is in bass more present, warm and still controlled.
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Thanks for the quick reply.
The V3 Stereo and ZA3 are almost the same - only difference is the XLR input and the ability to use in mono mode with a switch. I’m using it with the stock NE5532 (same as the V3), and haven’t gotten around to tinker with it yet.
I agree on the volume knob, which I needed for the turntable, and also enjoy the fact that the ZD3 has a remote as well for all things digital. I’m not getting the little cracks when changing tracks though - but I have heard them a couple of times when switching from a format like DSD to FLAC or WAV, for example.
Allegedly, these TPA3255 amps have a conservative 70-80 watts per channel output at 8 ohms nominal resistance with a 48v 5v ps. But, like you, I feel my 50w class AB amp moves bass better on a pair of 8 ohm floor speakers with 2x 6.5in woofers, 1x mid, and tweeter. I guess I’ll have to blind test, just to be sure.
I also like having a remote control, very much.
In the end I succumbed to the temptation to buy this device because it promised so many advantages. good dac, good bluetooth input and remote control. A great volumio system for little money. The disadvantage of the Volumio with RPI bluetooth is that the sound doesn’t play fast enough. It is not possible to play a movie on the notebook and listen to it synchronously on the system if you are not on apple. it is easy with the ZD3.
Good to know that we feelt the same with the bass.
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Check out Tool’s Chocolate Chip Trip from the Fear Inoculum album as a drum test track. It highlights exactly this.
nice track. Add sudan archives - oatmeal to your blind test.
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Two fantastic tracks I recently discovered:
https://open.qobuz.com/track/5382709
and
https://open.qobuz.com/track/130093490
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Here are some very good tracks that were requested during the Florida audio show:
My whole playlist is here:
https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/3288137
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