Figured i'd add this current observation here, as it sort of relates to my thread i created way back at the beginning...
Axiom Transformer: I still really like this piece and the DAC too. I did a very quick comparison over a weekend, although not A/B, of the Axiom DAC to a Schiit Modi and preferred the Axiom. The Schiit Modi is good but the Axiom DAC semed more " clear " and the treble sounded better / smoother, especially at high volume than the Modi. Although i will admit I have a major bias to the Axiom DAC as that is what i've been listening to exclusively. But there is a tangible difference in the sound. I wan't thinking it would be a diference at all really. But I digress, my main post is below, read on...
So I directly connected the Axiom Transformer to the "main in" power on my HK 505, thus bypassing the HK internal pre amp. The HK is on loan from my brother as we are doing some experimentation with his treble response of his speakers described in another thread elsewhere...
Anyway, with the Transformer set up as a direct pre amp and feeding just the power section of the HK inegrated (it's a dual mono setup) it sounds incredible to me. It's actually quite shocking how good it is. For the first time, with ease, i get a soundstage that goes properly beyond the outside of the speakers by a real amount with a majority of recordings. It's astonishing! The seperation is way better, the image is clean and things have more space. I've never experienced that before with that amount of space of each individual instrument. The depth was also increased and easy to achieve with most songs i listened too. The off axis perforance is also improved! My head does not need to stay locked into position. I can move around, not a ton of movement, but the image allows more movement before disappearing! Truly a revelation, these dam speakers are amazing!
I purposefully selected recordings i know to be good quality. I should add, the source was Spotify running via the Spotify Connect feature from my phone. The transformer was getting the Spotify feed from wi-fi not over airplay. I remained astonished. This begs the next obvious question, how much better would this sound with better amplifers? Or an even better pre amp? The less proverbial "clutter" in the signal chain the better I think. I've always read that and know that but never been able to try it.
So, this may be normal for some of you, but i was truly amazed at this simple step of how the chain of signal is setup / distributed made so much difference. Seperating the pre-amp and amp really does matter, in my case anyway. Not sure im going to be able to go back to my Yamaha when i give back the HK to my brother.
I think this is a testament to the quality of the Axiom Transformer used a dedicated pre amp.
One caveat, with the Transformer I have had a few times that the user interface was not responding and the volume control become non intuitive. This only happened when in the app directly and has never been an issue when controlling from within the Spotify Connect via my phone. This could be disastorous when using as a direct preamp. Normally i've got it fed into the receiver into one of the regular single ended inputs and can use the volume knob on the reciever to " limit " the amount of output or fine tune the " gain ", so to speak.
Another point is the gain structure was different too when using Transformer as a Pre amp directly. I use the " single step " setting and have the attenuation set to " natural" vs the " linear " option. So when using my phone to single step my volume up i reached about 75-80% of the available gain before stopping. I could have gone higher and will try that later today but I feel like the gain wasn't allowing me to access all the power of the amplifier.....is this possible if the gain / (voltage?) structure isn't the same or close enough of the pre amp and amp? I hope that makes some sense to y'all.
Bottom line, it was a fun and exciting experiment and resulted in a marked improvement in my system. Even the bass, that as of late has been emotionally lacking impact with in my new large space, was improved and the overall sense and feel of the whole range was improved and brought out a bit more of the impact ive been missing. It's still not enough for the giant room im in but it was remarkable. I should give it a try in my bedroom and see how it sounds before returning the HK to my brother.
I wish i could instantly A/B this in real time to prove it. I swear im sober and actually heard these things, it was not placebo. Looking forward to my next listening session this evening!
