great video, as I am using bluesound note and considering to buy lumin u2 mini, it's very useful info....quick question, you mentioned changing to linear power supply doesn't make different in sound, what DAC, amp and speaker in your reference system?
I haven't swapped the switch mode power supply to a Linear so not sure where you got that idea. My system has changed since, but the gear I used for this review about 10 minutes in. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JlkjPLdRgfs.htmlsi=BKXluyB0JDCM6Qqy&t=601 🍻
That's the Great thing. Oversampling is better done on playback on a Computer. So you can turn it on and off. Or Use HQ Player to get mega up sampling to send to the Dac.
@@MisterChibs I use Foobar 2000 personally and it does a good Job, However HQ player might be a step up that's worth it. I think this Cyan 2 Dac has similar noise suppression and de-coupling of the USB and Digital inputs to keep the Digital as Jitter free as possible. So connecting it directly to a computer isn't a no no that the whole Hi-fi world seems to think. Also it makes it not really worth using or adding cost with an up-sampling chip. Which is another reason this Dac is at the top of my next purchase list.
I have terrible power at home. Every transformer has buzzed (some more than others). I installed the Audiolab DC blocker and no more buzz. Did it limit power? Did it limit dynamics? Not sure. I don’t have a treated room but this DC blocker was the solution to my transformer buzz.
I had a listen to Paul at PS Audio and he said that if you have " DC " the power company will swap the transformer. He was talking typically of about 500 mV to 1 V. Which here I am isn't much at our 260V or even US 115V. From what I remember the US transformer outputs 2 phases and neutral to the house with 240 between phases. We have lot of homes 3 phases and a neutral at 440V between phases. The 3 is optional and handy. As DC cannot go through a transformer I'm starting to think its more of an error in the transformer giving a variation in voltage measured from neutral to the phases. Where I am with mostly over head power to the house, a lighting strike can be devastating to all your electronics, so a trap is essential.
@MisterChibs Should add with an error if we consider both sides of the wave as " equal " then the we would shift the zero point one way to make equal and so that point would now be a volt or so.
I forgot, your hum could also be coming from your TV and related items. If you have cable (internet or TV) you can try a coax noise filter. Disconnect your TV and computer related products from your amp and if there is no hum, your problem is most likely video/computer related. Use a separate outlet for your amp away from the other equipment.
Didn’t mention in the video but one of the steps I tried to trouble shoot initially was unplug a whole bunch of stuff including the TV. It was definitely DC. Thanks for the suggestion though!🍺
Blocking Humms is one thing, getting clean sound improving AC is ideal. But good products are expensive, and, regarding Audiolab, it is "not really affordable" but, as you mentioned, your quality power cables do not even connect. May I recommend you try better power "filters" such as Puritan PSM156 or, if you can get one of the best, Inakustik? I was able to try the Inakustik AC4500 for a week and it just transformed my entire chain...It was not even subtle... and, no Humms
Thanks for the suggestions! I’m open to trying out either of those in future. Not a lot of info on this stuff. Maybe because everyone’s power situation is so deferent. An other reason could be power conditioners and dc blockers aren’t as sexy as speaker / streamer / Amp/ DAC reviews. For now at least I’m happy to get rid of the DC!🍻
@@MisterChibs It would just suck to buy the relatively expensive Audiolab DC Block-6 and find out that by buying a much better product (yes not sexy at all) it would solve all your issues, improve you sound greatly and render this one obsolete
Where have you been??? We miss you! 😀 Hmmmm…I have not experienced any amp hummmmmmmm…here at The Jersey Shore……..but if I do…you taught me to take a 🔥flame-thrower🔥 to that pesky amp! Just added an Iris to my Pontus II… This hobby is FUN when we go up a notch!!! 😀😀😀👍🏼
@@bobb.9917 I’ve been here all along listening to music 😅 Got a new DAC to review but it needed 500 hours of burn in so I made this PSA vid in the interim. Congrats on your new Iris! Make sure to use i2s into the Pontus for another notch up in SQ! 🍻
@@MisterChibs hmmmm I am curious about your new DAC! Me: Roon Server (Qobuz)->Volumio Rivo (LPS)->USB->Iris-> I²S-> Pontus II. Short Audiophile USB & HDMI (I²S), Cables. Noticeable improvements in my system! 😅 It’s FUN when we make the right choices! In the beginning my choices were UGLY! 😂
@@MisterChibsoh…YES…I saw it in your vid…I have my Pontus for two years..I love it. (am firmly invested in the original FPGA Firmware v 1.0)… I am basically very happy with the sound of my system in my room. I was looking for a tweak..possibly an after market Venus…and the I decided on a pre-owned Iris. Cheaper and easier to get to basically the same place. I'm happy with that decision…but as I was researching The Holo Spring 3 KTE kept coming up! I found two direct comparisons of the DAC to my Pontus II (without the Iris). Quick Take: One reviewer said that the Holo was "fuller", and one reviewer said it was "more detailed"…not as full-bodied as my Pontus? WTF. 😊 It looks like a very well built, incredible, "more user friendly" DAC! Lots of them on the used market at this point, too! I am very curious as to what your experience has been! 👍🏼
Absolutely products like this work !!DC Blocks work I make my own, The Cambridge SWITCH MODE POWER SUPPLY typical only needs EMI/RF I also customized for each type in my racks for all my systems. Remember Ceiling Fan controllers can aslo generate hum if not updated and on or near the same breaker group. Also on older Amps will hiss and hum when the filter Capacitors age.
@@thinkIndependent2024 That’s cool you made your own DC blocker!! I’ve learned a lot about this problem. Ever since I moved here Iv’e been able to isolate every weakly shielded power supply. Power bars, the power brick from a lazyboy. Sometimes I get humming in my recordings if my camera is connected to the mains. Such an eff’n PITA! 🍻
@@rppwwn8321 Because of its high contrast, you’d be surprised how legible it is from a distance. Much better than any 6 - 8 inch lcd. Regardless, I keep mine off because there’s an 85” displaying with Roon. 🍻
DC can’t be the only reason amps hum. I had a top of the range Sony AV amp that started humming very loudly. My present Denon AV amp doesn’t hum at all, nor does my stereo amp. Some amps are poorly made.
@@aussie8114 perhaps not the only reason but it was DC in my case. I have a feeling that the H390 being larger and better made was the reason it didn’t buzz as loud as the H190. If you still have that Sony AV amp, it would be interesting to test with one of these.
@@MisterChibs No it went to the recycling centre. I’ve had Marantz, Onkyo, Sony, and Denon. Sony was the only one that developed a very loud hum from the transformer. The Marantz and Onkyo simply died on me. The Denon has been excellent.
DC is just one of many possibilities loose wires on any outlets can also cause noise, other equipment on the same leg or just components inside the Amp. But with the previous equipment problems you may want to confirm your electrical is solid, but that would need a skilled technician .
Great videos I’ve watched a few of your videos because I’m 2 months into breaking in my new Cornwall 4’s. I have light static / hiss coming out of the cornwalls. One dealer who tried to talk me out of the cornwalls mentioned hiss is typical from the cw’s? So I’m thinking of buying the puratin 156 power purifyer based on all rave reviews on RU-vid to see how it will help? How are you liking your cornwalls? What subs are you using and do they integrate well with the cw’s? I have a large home theatre style sub with LFE only and it does not integrate well with the cw’s, likely due to the high efficiency of the klipsch Keep up the good content!
@@JamesJones-qs7rr thanks James! if I put my ear right up to the CW’s, it’s normal to hear some hiss. Never from where I sit though. Cornwalls are amazing (obviously 😂) and I’m scratching my head on why a dealer would try and talk you out of them. What was his reason? As far as subs, I use a pair of SVS SB2000 Pros. What I like about those is I can dial in settings from where I sit. Getting them to where I feel happy took a while and sometimes changes without me having to get up (which is so underrated)🍻
Thanks for the reply I’m in Vancouver area and more than one dealer of klipsch heritage tried to talk me into their sonus faber or b&W. Based on RU-vid reviews like yours I took a chance on the cornwalls and got a great deal from the Burlington, Ontario dealer. I’m impressed by the dynamics they have, but still waiting for the 400 plus hour breakin others speak of. On my shortlist of next gear to try is AGD amp, gallion tube amp, and luxman or accuphase. Currently Using a McIntosh Pre and Rotel 2 channel amp and sounds pretty good. Biggest challenge in this hobby is convincing the wife. Even my kids take pokes at me. Everyone hates the look of the cornwalls in my house. 😂 Keep up your content, it’s good stuff!
@@JamesJones-qs7rr thanks man! I demoed a nice pare of Sonus Faber. Build quality was better and they sounded great but the Cornwalls were what I connected with on a whole other level. Make sure you’re able to demo the amp before you buy. Pretty much anything can drive them but CW’s respond really well and differently with good electronics. 🍺
Guelph Hydro…that looks interesting… I guess you put your finger on it ..if you can hear it …it’s too much! Great video as usual.👍 Btw,are you doing Audiofest in October?
Every amp had noise? The electrical grid in your part of town must be really dirty. I dont I’ve heard any hum/buzz from amp ive had in my room. Im on Toronto hydro as well 😊
I can't afford the Cornwall 4, but I found an 80-year-old guy that was selling his Cornwall 2 that he bought new in 1976. Best $500 I ever spent (they were $1600 new).
Am in my Roon trial. I subscribe to Tidal and Qobuz (also Spotify). What is the best way, within Roon app, to select a type of music and have Roon pick the songs from there (sourcing from service automatically, in the highest quality version per song)? I find myself picking individual albums or songs myself in Roon. I must be overlooking something obvious.
iOS devices do not have “exclusive mode” for DACs. This means that system sounds (clicks, alarms, etc.) can be tossed into the stream going to the DAC. No problem if your music is at lower sampling rates, but if you are running higher rates and then the system tosses in a low-rate system sound, you get a blast of white noise. So it is worthwhile to turn off system sounds and go into Do Not Disturb mode. Cables can also cause trouble (as can the iPhone’s own lightning connector which might benefit from a swab or two of DeOxit) but try Do Not Disturb mode first.
The Denafrips Venus 2 ($3079) isn’t even 3 times the price of the Holo Audio Cyan 2 ($1198). Where did you get the “almost 4 times the price” from? 🤷🏻♂️ ✌️
I did the pseudo math months ago while making this video. Not sure what's going on with Vinshine Audio but they're only selling used Denafrips dAC's now. I guess It's possible I forgot to convert from SGD. Anyhow thanks for watching and the nitpick. Got my wheels spinning and haven't had my coffee yet so 👍☕
@@MisterChibs Yea I noticed things have changed a lot in how they sell them, since the last time I looked. I got that price from Denafrips own site. Which I don’t remember seeing previously. So it seems that Denafrips may have decided to end their partnership, and sell them on their own. Or something like that anyway. If that’s the case. It would be a shame. As Alvin at Vinshine is a great guy. It also makes me curious about what the situation is with getting service for their products. ✌️
@@amb3cog Denafrips may have actually lowered their prices too. Alvin and his team were indeed great to deal with. I’m going to email him and see what’s going on.
@@MisterChibs I'm not sure about the prices being lowered. I don't think they did, but it's possible. I would love to know what's going on myself. If you do email them. Please LMK what they say. ✌️
Covered in my SU-6 review. I normally use that DDC in my main setup but everything I said applies with the Gan-1 in the chain. Thanks for watching! 🍻 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LyCpjFSkzrU.htmlsi=-FRczy7zA2rSgd7O
Nice video.. I use the fortes….with leben cs 600x…. I had a hegel 190 a Atoll IN 400 se and a nad 23…..take the tubes always and they never go away… the leben with klipsch is a match in heaven. Looking for the Cornwalls to…..Gr robert
Great video but so much talking and no real music although you are live in your studio so we can listen with our own ears . So many reviews of Hegel amplifiers but very little music videos so we can really listen and make some basic opinion.
I’m hesitant to judge sound quality in YT vids because so many variables affect what you end up hearing. Nothing beats demoing in your own space or even at a store. Appreciate the suggestion though.🍻
Ended up going with Hart Audio cables, great cables lots of customization and you can do strange configurations that are tough to find. Plus definitely good price.
I power my Metas with a Crown XLS1502 (300W @ 8ohm) with a Cambridge Audio DACMagic Plus as my headphone amp / preamp, streaming from my PC. The DACMagic Plus outputs to the Crown by XLR. Also have the KEF 12" sub. It's pretty great with plenty of resolution, clarity, and oomf. I think you need more power than the 80W max from the Powernode to "effortlessly" drive the LS50 metas, but it depends a lot on the particular amp. Also I use HD800 as my daily driver headphones and you will never obtain the same clarity or soundstage with speakers as the HD800 or HD800S without getting into many many thousands of dollars for amps and speaker combos and spending a lot of time with speaker placement and room staging. Also consider that room dimensions, room staging, speaker placement, crossover settings,... these things can make or break your setup. Controversially, the wire gauge could also make a bit of a difference, aim for 12awg.
Thanks for such a thoughtful response. The lack of power from the Powernode (ironic naming 🤣) was indeed the culprit. Check out the Hegel H190 video that came after this one. Pretty great trip I’ve been on since and still going. I’ve got the HD800s too and still use them all the time. Managed to get better soundstage in each of my speaker setups including the LS50 Metas. As for wire gage, I recently switched to 7AWG which is probably overkill but they’re made soooo nicely! 🍻
I've decided to pair a high end Aqua formula dac that can be upgraded if tech changes later...Pairing it with a Lumin U2 Mini w/ seperate linear power supply, it doesn't have a dac...also I can stream Tidal straight from the Tidal app... I think should give me the best streaming available❓comments welcomed 😁
I've seen people saying this on forums and it makes no sense. How can someone remember small differences in sound quality from a half hour ago? To actually test this, you would need 2 mojo's, 2 of the same headphones and have one running for a half hour and go back and forth. To me, Mojo 2 sounds good from power up. 🍻
I've got a mojo2, also some R2R dongle DACs, by the sounds of it the cyan2 doesn't appear to be worth spending the money on for a minor improvement. Good review, I've yet to find someone doing a direct comparison with the denafrips ares II 12th.
That minor improvement has left me wanting now that it’s shipped back to Kitsune😅 Price is closer to Ares but still not apples to apples as they’re doing things differently. Thanks for watching! 🍻
Maybe I missed it, but how is the low volume performance? I mean low to mid volumes. I sometimes think the H190 sounds better at say, 48 and up on the volume dial. - Sometimes that’s too loud for the occasion. I have B&W 705s with a sub, so the h190 does fine and is matched well I think. Still, I wish I could tweak the equalization to match things better at low volumes and to fit the room. I know, Hegel……. Would the h390 do better at low to mid volumes?
In my system with my speakers / room / etc, low volume listening is great on H390. No urge to adjust eq. Is it better than H190? I think, yes but only for the same reasons I feel sq has improved after the jump. Hope that helps! 🍻
Following this line of reasoning, each amplifier is dual mono. It has two signal paths separated from the input from the sound source. The power supply system is not dual mono. This is a marketing interpretation.
One symmetrical transformer. Why is it promoted as dual mono? creative chaos inside... It's not dual mono. (two identical monoblocks in one housing. the term used is inappropriate for the solutions used....
Thanks for sharing the experience. I have a Powernode and was about to buy LS50 Metas. Guess I'll buy the Focal Aria Evo X. Will you make a video when you find a new all in one amp/streamer?
Get educated about physics before you criticize it adding weight and mass to anything will reduce micro and macro vibrations which will benefit circuits,granted you have to have a high resolving system in most cases to hear a difference which most people do not have and can’t afford, so many scepters like yourself
Great review, I appreciate you taking the extra time to go over the quirks with the input switching, though they won't stop me from eventually buying my own. The WiiM pro would be great for cutting the optical input with this DAC, especially if you have the remote. Sadly, the optical passthrough input on the WiiM pro and pro+ has two major flaws that those unfamiliar should be aware of. 1. The audio will occasionally skip/stutter every ~5 minutes, though this depends on your TV or other input device, and seems to be due to poor reclocking of the signal in the WiiM. Changing the output bit depth to 16 makes it happen less frequently, but you'll still hear it every time it occurs. 2. The right and left channels may get switched, and you might not notice it immediately. This can easily be fixed by cycling the inputs or putting the WiiM on standby with the remote, but can occur seemingly at any time, and at random. WiiM acknowledged both of these issues on their forum way back in 2023, even saying that both could be resolved with a firmware update. Sadly they have yet to fix either of these flaws, and with their new models on the horizon I wouldn't be surprised if they never bother to. Edit: The issues only occur when using the optical passthrough. Everything is fine with streaming over chromecast, wifi, or bluetooth.
Thanks! Luckily, I have never experienced stutter running optical on my Wiim Pro. That’s the type of thing that would drive me nuts so I understand your frustration. As far as channels getting switched, I haven’t noticed this behaviour either but will test to make sure. If you end up buying the Cyan 2, I would recommend using USB directly from a computer if you can. Its USB is galvanically isolated and the best input imo. This will be an improvement over the Wiim Pro, especially in your case! 🍻
@@MisterChibs Just realized my wording may be misleading. The two flaws are strictly related to the optical passthrough input. Neither issue occurs when just streaming over chromecast, wifi, or bluetooth to the WiiM.
