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Lautus USB Review (Part 2) |
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thewebster62
New Member Joined: 02 Feb 2018 Location: France Status: Offline Points: 20 |
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Posted: 24 Feb 2018 at 11:45am |
Hi again
Following on from my initial review this 2nd part now deals with how the cable matches up against playback from CD. Same equipment as before but in addition my ageing Rotel RCD965BX cd player used as a transport connected to a Rega Dac-R via a Chord Prodac Vee3 coaxial digital cable. I decided to use a couple of my favourite cd's; Gaucho by Steely Dan and as a contrast 100th Window by Massive Attack. A-B testing was easy as it involved nothing more than changing inputs by remote on the Rega Dac but I have to say that I found constantly flicking from one to the other very fatiguing and as a consequence inconclusive. As an alternative I picked a track off each album and listened to both in their entirety via flac and then cd. This was less fatiguing but still I wasn't really convinced of the methodology. Only one thing for it and that was to go back to basics which involved ignoring the lautus cable for a couple of days and listening exclusively to the two chosen cd's via the Rotel/Rega a few times. With that task duly completed I switched back to the lautus input, selected the two albums in question from my music folder and sat back to listen................... Definitely no 'WOW what's happened' moment this time around. The music sounded great just as it had through the cd player, immaculately clean detailed presentation and foot tappingly good. I honestly can't tell you which I preferred, but what I can say is that if someone were to switch the inputs without my knowledge I'm doubtful that I'd notice, which is exactly the result I'd dared to hope for. Lautus USB cable - The gift that keeps on giving. Unintentionally I've left the best to last and I'll explain why. Such has been my enjoyment over the last few days it had somewhat slipped my mind that I have a small collection of 24 bit hi res files which I haven't played for some time due to my dissatisfaction with the sound quality through the old usb cable; amongst them (not surprisingly) Gaucho by Steely Dan. Without further ado I settled down to listen and was absolutely blown away. When you've owned an album for over 30 years and played it literally hundreds of times it's very apparent when something changes; unbelievably detailed and rich sounding with a separation between instruments that I'd never heard before. This improved quality was equally apparent on the album Spirit of Eden by Talk Talk. Anyone familiar with the first track (The Rainbow) will know that there is a stunning passage of harmonica towards the end of the song and through the lautus it sounded like it was about to burst out of the speaker; wonderful stuff! So to summarise; the Lautus has pretty much levelled up the sound quality between 16/44 flac files and cd's in my system. In addition its performance with hi res files is nothing short of superb and I feel this is where the cable really flexes its muscles and shows fully what it's capable of. Sorry if I've gone on a bit but as you may have gathered I'm not a techie but 'I know what I like' (promising lyric!) - all boxes ticked and then some! |
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A promising lyric indeed! Thanks for reminding me to play one of the all time great albums - “Selling England by the Pound”
Cheers!
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Chris Firth
Moderator Group Joined: 16 May 2013 Location: Rossendale, UK Status: Offline Points: 1533 |
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That's interesting! Guess what I'm playing currently - I'll give a clue, there's flutes and drummers and marching sounds...... |
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thewebster62
New Member Joined: 02 Feb 2018 Location: France Status: Offline Points: 20 |
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Along the Forest Road, there's hundreds of cars - luxury cars.............
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