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SHOOT-OUT: Kove, B&O, PS Audio, Avondale, Neurochrome, Benchmark, Chord, Denafrips, Royd, Celestion

Mike Hanson

Trying to understand...
I had two friends visiting over the weekend, and one of them is a stupid audiophile like me. :D We compared a bunch of different gear, just to satisfy our curiosity.

We started with some Bluetooth speakers that I had on hand.

bluetooth_speakers.jpg

  • After seeing a few reviews a number of years ago, I bought a Commuter from Kove Audio (top left). It did a pretty good job of sounding "acceptable", for those situations where wanted a bit of music while travelling. My son misplaced it for a while, so I tried to buy another, but this unit is discontinued. (My son eventually found it after I replaced it.)
  • It's replacement was the Kove Commuter 2, which does a neat trick of breaking into two for stereo playback. The stereo presentation is pleasant, but the original Kove has a better sense of presence.
  • I was in Cape Town S.A. last month, and encountered a Bang & Olufsen store near the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront. I listened to a bunch of their stuff, and was particularly impressed at the sound value offered by their Beosound A1 2nd gen. Some (but not all) of their more expensive units sounded better, but this one hit a good price point. It was head and shoulders above both Kove units. I'll be keeping this one close at hand for myself, and my sons can use the others. ;)
Next up was the PS Audio Sprout integrated amplifier (the original, not the Sprout100). I bought this used for a friend, but he decided he didn't want it when he realized that it had an undefeatable bass boost. (It's intended to be used with small speakers.) I kept it myself for my younger son to use as a headphone amp in his bedroom.

My audiophile friend wanted to hear it, so we used a Squeezebox Touch as streamer, and fed it into the Sprout's digital RCA input, driving my Royd RR3 speakers. We were actually quite pleased with the general demeanor. If someone said this was all I could have, I wouldn't be suffering much. Overall performance was balanced, and volume was completely acceptable. It didn't have an extreme amount of detail and grip, but it didn't fall on its face either.

This brought us to the serious comparisons:

shootout.jpg

  • The test track was Steely Dan's "Black Cow" from their album Aja. My friend and I have different musical tastes, but we're both intimately familiar with this track, so it's a good choice for the task at hand.
  • The source for all the tests was the aforementioned Squeezebox Touch, with the Enhanced Digital Output applet installed. Most of the time we used the optical TOSLINK output for convenience, although we did compare it to the coax RCA output to see if we could hear a difference. (We couldn't.)
  • The pre-amp was my recently acquired Benchmark HPA4 Headphone / Line Amplifier, which is phenomenally neutral and very adjustable. We tweaked the individual source volumes, so we could match the output to do toggled A/B tests. (Most of our tests, however, were longer listens of the full track.)
  • I have many configurations of (mostly Avondale) amplifiers, which I've compared earlier. This time we decided to test my top three amps:
    • Avondale NCC220/QUDOS Voyager monos (bottom right). We included this, just so my friend could hear the difference between that and the NCC300. This was fed with RCA inputs.
    • Avondale NCC300 monos (bottom left). My friend has a dual-mono NCC300 that I built for him. His has a simple single supply for each channel, whereas mine has a dual supply using Avondale's NCM1. This amp was fed with RCA inputs.
    • Neurochrome Modulus-686 dual-mono with Power-686 modules (centre). This was fed with balanced inputs.
  • We tested three DACs:
    • Benchmark DAC2 HGC (used in HT mode as a pure DAC without pre-amp volume adjustments).
    • Chord Qutest, which my friend brought along with his iFi iPower SMPS wall wart. We also tested a prototype of a linear supply that I'm building for him.
    • Denafrips Pontus II, which I had originally acquired for my friend, but then decided to keep myself.
  • For speakers:
We started with the amplifiers, fed by the Benchmark DAC2 (the most neutral and clean of all the DACs). The Avondale QUDOS Voyager was first up. It was a big jump up from the earlier PS Audio Sprout, with more of everything good: more presence, better resolution of inner detail, increased grip and slam, etc. Unlike the Sprout, which seemed "good enough", the QUDOS gave us a taste of something better, and whet our appetite for even more. Fortunately, there was more to come!

Next was the Avondale NCC300, which was almost as much better than the QUDOS Voyager as the Voyager was compared to the Sprout. The sense of palpable bass was lovely, the details were more evident, and the rhythm was energizing. Toe tapping ensued! ;)

Then we moved on to the Neurochrome Modulus-686. This is a completely different beast, with its own set of pros and cons. First off, it's exceedingly clean, with astonishingly deep and well controlled bass, smooth natural highs, and a sense that it had unlimited power. Those were the pros. The main con, however, was in the rhythm department. Compared to the Avondale amp, percussion seemed rather anemic. The sense of fun energy was notably lessened. More on this later, though.

Note that neither of the amps was better than the other in all ways. We both wished we could find something that was a composite of the best features of each.

Next came the DACs. Of all the DACs, the Benchmark was the most tonally accurate, with instruments and voices sounding like they really should. However, it's quite clinical in its presentation. If you want a true representation of the sound, you'll love this DAC, but if you want it to be "beautiful and fun", then you may not be satisfied. (I happily used this DAC for many years, and have only recently gone to the dark side.)

After that was my friend's Chord Qutest, using the iFi iPower supply. This DAC sounded "nicer", even though we couldn't hear as much detail. Some might say it was more analog, in the same way as vinyl can be preferred over CD, because it sounds nice and warm but less resolving. My friend preferred this over the Benchmark, but I didn't want to give up the extra detail and nuance.

Then we went on to the Denafrips Pontus II. This was a step in the same direction as the Qutest, except that it went further. Everything sounded much more fun enjoyable, and it managed to keep most of the detail. There were still things that the Benchmark did better (especially well articulated bass), but overall both of us preferred the Denafrips. (My friend kept commenting how he wanted a DAC with the best qualities of each.)

I'll inject an aside here, as synergy plays a big part. My office had Benchmark DAC2 (doing both DAC+pre), Avondale NCC300, and Ergo IX speakers. When I tried the Denafrips, it was overwhelming. I eventually realized it's because the Denafrips is "fun and energetic", the NCC300 is "rhythmically bouncy", and the Ergo IX is "forward and engaging". It's just too much of a muchness!
  • I switched the NCC300 to the Modulus-686, eliminating one of those over-exuberant components, and the result was quite enjoyable.
  • Similarly, the Denafrips with the Modulus-686 and Royd RR3 seemed too polite, leaving us wanting more fun. We switched from Modulus-686 to NCC300, and everything was enjoyable again.
The moral of the story seems to be that the best systems had two-out-of-three energetic components.

The next step was to compare my DIY linear supply on the Chord Qutest versus the iFi iPower SMPS. The iPower is supposedly a pretty good SMPS, and the Qutest has additional filtering on board. Therefore, I doubted it would make much of a difference, if any. To our surprise, my LPS actually elevated the Qutest to make it almost exactly as good as the Pontus II. We even did quick A/B comparisons at this point, and had a hard time discerning anything different.

Then we tried the 5V/1A supply of the Allo Shanti (a commercial 5V power supply). It was a very slight bit better, but nothing to write home about. For reference, my DIY supply is worth half what the Shanti is.

Finally, we replaced the Royd RR3 with the Celestion SL6. These were audiophile darlings back in the early 1980s. I was planning to buy a pair back then, but couldn't afford the CAD$600 price tag at 16yo. They popped up on Canuck Audio Mart in the spring, and my curiosity got the better of me. They sounded better than I had remembered the first time I auditioned them, but the RR3 is definitely a superior speaker. The SL6 is a bit bright, probably due to its metal dome tweeter. The bass is fairly deep and nicely controlled, though, and the overall balance is acceptable. It's definitely a good value.

So there you have it. Lots of fun, and lots learned!
 
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Thoroughly enjoyable read.

I must put a linear psu on my Qutest. I’ve only ever used the supplied unit. It sounds great and I have never expected the psu to make much difference.

I’ll report back !
 
@Mike Hanson thanks for the write up. I love these sorts of sessions with friends especially when they throw up slightly unexpected results.

Out of interest I had a Qutest and used it first with an SBooster LPS then a Farad Super3 which I thought was better. One day when my friend @TheFlash was visiting I changed the Qutest power supply to a 5v Sean Jacobs DC4 and I think it is fair to say we were both had a slight jaw on the floor moment with how much better the Qutest sounded with the DC4 compared to the Farad Super3.

Now if anyone asks me about a power supply for the Qutest I just say to buy as best as they can afford. I think the DC4 is in the £4K area but I wouldn’t be surprised if it took the Qutest into £5.5k performance territory (just wildly guessing of course!)

Thanks again for the post. I know how long it takes to write up these fun days.
 
Thoroughly enjoyable read.

I must put a linear psu on my Qutest. I’ve only ever used the supplied unit. It sounds great and I have never expected the psu to make much difference.

I’ll report back !
Thanks. When my friend originally got the Qutest, he proactively ordered one of the iFi supplies. We both observed it to be a significant improvement over the stock supply. Changing to a linear supply was an unexpectedly impressive jump further.

Make sure the LPS you get has some type of quiet regulation. This one I built for him has a Triad VPT18-2780 50VA toroid transformer, which has two 9VAC secondaries. I had to dial the voltage back from ~12VDC to 5VDC, so you could probably get away with VPT12-4170, depending on the drop-out of your regulator. It's feeding into an AudioWind A-270 low noise regulator module. I'm putting that (along with an AudioWind A-210 higher current regulator to feed his PiCore streamer) in an aluminum enclosure. I guess by the time I add up those components with the power socket, cables, etc., it's probably a bit more than half the value of an Allo Shanti. Therefore, you may be better off just getting one of those, unless you like building stuff like I do. ;)
 
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@Mike Hanson thanks for the write up. I love these sorts of sessions with friends especially when they throw up slightly unexpected results.

Out of interest I had a Qutest and used it first with an SBooster LPS then a Farad Super3 which I thought was better. One day when my friend @TheFlash was visiting I changed the Qutest power supply to a 5v Sean Jacobs DC4 and I think it is fair to say we were both had a slight jaw on the floor moment with how much better the Qutest sounded with the DC4 compared to the Farad Super3.

Now if anyone asks me about a power supply for the Qutest I just say to buy as best as they can afford. I think the DC4 is in the £4K area but I wouldn’t be surprised if it took the Qutest into £5.5k performance territory (just wildly guessing of course!)

Thanks again for the post. I know how long it takes to write up these fun days.
At that price, I would be more likely to upgrade the DAC first. However, I would be more likely to upgrade my speakers before that. ;)
 
At that price, I would be more likely to upgrade the DAC first. However, I would be more likely to upgrade my speakers before that. ;)

Don’t worry, I put the Farad power supply back in the system afterwards! (Mind you, one day I will tell you about the (several) LPS that I am using to power my Dave ).
 
Thanks. When my friend originally got the Qutest, he proactively ordered one of the iFi supplies. We both observed it to be a significant improvement over the stock supply. Changing to a linear supply was an unexpectedly impressive jump further.

Make sure the LPS you get has some type of quiet regulation. This one I built for him has a Triad VPT18-2780 50VA toroid transformer, which has two 9VAC secondaries. I had to dial the voltage back from ~12VDC to 5VDC, so you could probably get away with VPT12-4170, depending on the drop-out of your regulator. It's feeding into an AudioWind A-270 low noise regulator module. I'm putting that (along with an AudioWind A-210 higher current regulator to feed his PiCore streamer) into an aluminum enclosure. I guess by the time I add up those components with the power socket, cables, etc., it's probably a bit more than half the value of an Allo Shanti. Therefore, you may be better off just getting one of those, unless you like building stuff like I do. ;)

I agree about the Allo Shanti which I also think is a good power supply but rather let down by its captive DC leads. I did remove them from a friend’s Allo Shanti and installed GX16 sockets on the back so he could use DC cables bought from MCRS and that made a noticeable difference.
 
I have a Modulus 86 which was made considerably better with a dual mono linear power supply. I guess the same would be true with the 686.
 
@Mike Hanson thanks for the write up. I love these sorts of sessions with friends especially when they throw up slightly unexpected results.

Out of interest I had a Qutest and used it first with an SBooster LPS then a Farad Super3 which I thought was better. One day when my friend @TheFlash was visiting I changed the Qutest power supply to a 5v Sean Jacobs DC4 and I think it is fair to say we were both had a slight jaw on the floor moment with how much better the Qutest sounded with the DC4 compared to the Farad Super3.

Now if anyone asks me about a power supply for the Qutest I just say to buy as best as they can afford. I think the DC4 is in the £4K area but I wouldn’t be surprised if it took the Qutest into £5.5k performance territory (just wildly guessing of course!)

Thanks again for the post. I know how long it takes to write up these fun days.
yes got a dc3 on my pre amp with big improvements .worth every penny
 
Interesting write up. I too love it when people write these reviews :)

One of the things I have found when trying to squeeze the best out digital sources (excuse the pun for squeezebox users) is optimising the streaming source. I too used to use squeezebox, then followed by a first generation Innuos server (which was basically just a PC running linux), then onto an Allo Digi Signature and finally an iFi Zen Stream which is by far the best digital source I have found to date. My bug bear is digital hash and taking this out of the picture takes the 'digital' sound to something much closer to vinyl/analogue in my opinion.

Power supplies make a massive difference in this quest and at the moment I have my iFi streamer powered by both outputs on a Shanti wired in series to give a 10V out. The iFi requires 9-15v to power it. For my DAC I use the internal DAC and volume management of a Naim Atom which in combination with the iFi produces a very nice detailed sound which I feed using the line outs directly into Avondale amplification. Note whilst the streamer in the Naim is pretty good (in fact it is quite variable depending on the time of day/quality of my mains which varies a lot here in Australia) the difference using the Ifi with a very low noise power supply is quite noticeable. Less grit, more detail, better decay, better imaging etc etc. I want to try the latest iFi power supply offering which claim a much lower noise threshold than the standard iFi power bricks. See how that compares to the Shanti. I actually think the best designed switched power supplies are the test way to go over linear supplies as linear supplies can't alway filter out mains noise, depending what type of mains noise comes down the wire. Switched supplies effectively rebuild the output so can ignore what's on the line. When I get round to buying an iFi supply (I'm talking about the iPower X not the standard one) I'll write a post letting how it compares to the Shanti.

As the to the foot tapping experience and 'rhythmic' presentation I'll share an interesting story. Back in late 2019 before the world went crazy locking everybody away because of some strange new virus, I was in London and was thinking of spending some crazy money on some new hifi (at that time I wasn't into hifi DIY and self builds). I had read some glowing reviews on a new French company, Devialet, with their new all in one active speakers, the Phantom Gold. Back then they were £5K a pair, probably more now, and were quite odd looking things (more reminiscent of a vacuum cleaner than a piece of audio equiment) . They had the ability to create ear and window shattering sound levels and just required just a mains lead per speaker. Looks aside they were a very compact solution which was a definite appeal!

So off I trotted to a local showroom to have a listen. Expecting great things the dealer kindly left me alone in the demo room and armed with my phone and Spotify play lists I started to play my favourite tracks. Now here's the interesting thing, if I start by describing how these things actually sounded. Firstly the imaging was spot on, in fact better than I have ever heard from a stereo system. Everything was in its place, there was absolutely no blurring within the sound stage. The mids were clear with absolutely no hardness, the top end sparkled as it should. And the bass, these babies went low, turn up the volume the flowing and you could feel the kick drums, everything in its place. Devialet reckon these things can go cleanly beyond 108dB and I can well believe it, using Class D for the low and mid range, I think the amps are rated over 1KW!

But, and you knew there was a but coming, amongst all this very clean, detailed and bass driven sound I didn't listen to one track start to finish. I kept flicking, track to track, in other words with all this hifi excellence in front of me the overall sound didn't engage me. Yes you would focus on individual aspects of the presentation and say 'thats good' or 'thats impressive' but 30 seconds into the track I'd lost interest and wanted to move onto something else. I kept thinking my humble system at home, at the time a Nait 5i, Innuos streamer/Arcam DAC and some old B&W speakers made better music! Call it PRaT, rhythmic timing, the 'note', the 'tune', it was just missing from the Devialets. Hi-fi yes, very in fact, music well no!

Mike I get the feeling you have a similar experience with those modulus amps you built, maybe?
 
After that was my friend's Chord Qutest, using the iFi iPower supply.

Good post, thanks. The DAC comparison got my attention as the Denafrips Pontus 2 and Chord Qutest used to be in my radar about a year ago before I settled with something else. In my limited experience, I find DACs which can take a full-sized mains cable to be essential particularly with the Chord. For this reason I avoid DACs such as Hugo and Qutest. The reference Chord QBD76 DAC which I own sounds different when used with different mains cables.

The moral of the story seems to be that the best systems had two-out-of-three energetic components.
Concurred. System matching is of utmost importance. The key to good sound is to achieve a good balance by mixing and matching.
 
Thoroughly enjoyable read.

I must put a linear psu on my Qutest. I’ve only ever used the supplied unit. It sounds great and I have never expected the psu to make much difference.

I’ll report back !
I use a long dog audio supply on mine from mcru, notably better than the smps
 
Thanks. When my friend originally got the Qutest, he proactively ordered one of the iFi supplies. We both observed it to be a significant improvement over the stock supply. Changing to a linear supply was an unexpectedly impressive jump further.

Make sure the LPS you get has some type of quiet regulation. This one I built for him has a Triad VPT18-2780 50VA toroid transformer, which has two 9VAC secondaries. I had to dial the voltage back from ~12VDC to 5VDC, so you could probably get away with VPT12-4170, depending on the drop-out of your regulator. It's feeding into an AudioWind A-270 low noise regulator module. I'm putting that (along with an AudioWind A-210 higher current regulator to feed his PiCore streamer) in an aluminum enclosure. I guess by the time I add up those components with the power socket, cables, etc., it's probably a bit more than half the value of an Allo Shanti. Therefore, you may be better off just getting one of those, unless you like building stuff like I do. ;)

I have found the Audiowind A-270 to be the best regulator module I've tried for powering 5V digital sources.

If you want to make it better, use an EI-core transformer and centre-tapped rectification (using 2 of the diodes on the A-270 board).
e.g. https://uk.farnell.com/myrra/45062/transformer-30va-115-230v-2x-9v/dp/1777965?st=myrra 30va 9v
 
Interesting write up. I too love it when people write these reviews :)

One of the things I have found when trying to squeeze the best out digital sources (excuse the pun for squeezebox users) is optimising the streaming source. I too used to use squeezebox, then followed by a first generation Innuos server (which was basically just a PC running linux), then onto an Allo Digi Signature and finally an iFi Zen Stream which is by far the best digital source I have found to date. My bug bear is digital hash and taking this out of the picture takes the 'digital' sound to something much closer to vinyl/analogue in my opinion.
I'm running the Allo USBridge Signature with their DigiOne Signature hat and the Shanti power supply. I did a direct comparison against the Squeezebox Touch. It was slightly less hashy, but it was a very small difference. I could have stuck with the SB Touch, except I wanted to use it elsewhere, so I keep the Allo stuff in my main system. I considered using the Allo setup for this big test we just did, but there was no easy way to run a network cable up to where we had everything setup, so I just used the very capable SB Touch and its WiFi support.

I couldn't use the iFi Zen Stream, because it doesn't support the Logitech Media Server that I'm using for all of my players in the house. The Allo gear is running PiCorePlayer, which simulates a Squeezebox.

Power supplies make a massive difference in this quest and at the moment I have my iFi streamer powered by both outputs on a Shanti wired in series to give a 10V out. The iFi requires 9-15v to power it. For my DAC I use the internal DAC and volume management of a Naim Atom which in combination with the iFi produces a very nice detailed sound which I feed using the line outs directly into Avondale amplification. Note whilst the streamer in the Naim is pretty good (in fact it is quite variable depending on the time of day/quality of my mains which varies a lot here in Australia) the difference using the Ifi with a very low noise power supply is quite noticeable. Less grit, more detail, better decay, better imaging etc etc. I want to try the latest iFi power supply offering which claim a much lower noise threshold than the standard iFi power bricks. See how that compares to the Shanti. I actually think the best designed switched power supplies are the test way to go over linear supplies as linear supplies can't alway filter out mains noise, depending what type of mains noise comes down the wire. Switched supplies effectively rebuild the output so can ignore what's on the line. When I get round to buying an iFi supply (I'm talking about the iPower X not the standard one) I'll write a post letting how it compares to the Shanti.
Yeah, I'm curious to hear about that. I do agree that a properly designed SMPS is perfectly fine for audio purposes. All the Benchmark gear uses SMPS, and they're the cleanest sounding gear that I have.

As the to the foot tapping experience and 'rhythmic' presentation I'll share an interesting story. Back in late 2019 before the world went crazy locking everybody away because of some strange new virus, I was in London and was thinking of spending some crazy money on some new hifi (at that time I wasn't into hifi DIY and self builds). I had read some glowing reviews on a new French company, Devialet, with their new all in one active speakers, the Phantom Gold. Back then they were £5K a pair, probably more now, and were quite odd looking things (more reminiscent of a vacuum cleaner than a piece of audio equiment) . They had the ability to create ear and window shattering sound levels and just required just a mains lead per speaker. Looks aside they were a very compact solution which was a definite appeal!

So off I trotted to a local showroom to have a listen. Expecting great things the dealer kindly left me alone in the demo room and armed with my phone and Spotify play lists I started to play my favourite tracks. Now here's the interesting thing, if I start by describing how these things actually sounded. Firstly the imaging was spot on, in fact better than I have ever heard from a stereo system. Everything was in its place, there was absolutely no blurring within the sound stage. The mids were clear with absolutely no hardness, the top end sparkled as it should. And the bass, these babies went low, turn up the volume the flowing and you could feel the kick drums, everything in its place. Devialet reckon these things can go cleanly beyond 108dB and I can well believe it, using Class D for the low and mid range, I think the amps are rated over 1KW!

But, and you knew there was a but coming, amongst all this very clean, detailed and bass driven sound I didn't listen to one track start to finish. I kept flicking, track to track, in other words with all this hifi excellence in front of me the overall sound didn't engage me. Yes you would focus on individual aspects of the presentation and say 'thats good' or 'thats impressive' but 30 seconds into the track I'd lost interest and wanted to move onto something else. I kept thinking my humble system at home, at the time a Nait 5i, Innuos streamer/Arcam DAC and some old B&W speakers made better music! Call it PRaT, rhythmic timing, the 'note', the 'tune', it was just missing from the Devialets. Hi-fi yes, very in fact, music well no!

Mike I get the feeling you have a similar experience with those modulus amps you built, maybe?
Yes, compared to the Avondale amps, the Modulus-686 just isn't as engaging. However, when it comes to accuracy, control and power, the Modulus-686 is mighty impressive. I was quite happy with it in my main system, with the Denafrips Pontus II DAC and Ergo IX speakers.
 
I have found the Audiowind A-270 to be the best regulator module I've tried for powering 5V digital sources.

If you want to make it better, use an EI-core transformer and centre-tapped rectification (using 2 of the diodes on the A-270 board).
e.g. https://uk.farnell.com/myrra/45062/transformer-30va-115-230v-2x-9v/dp/1777965?st=myrra 30va 9v
Thanks for the suggestion. The supply that I've built for my friend powers both his Qutest (drawing 1A) and his Pi3+hat (needing another 3A), so that little transformer wouldn't handle it.
 
That's odd, my 30VA transformer + A-270 runs a Pi3+ HAT and none of the bits get to more than 40degC.

Might be worth measuring the current demand ;).
 
I had two friends visiting over the weekend, and one of them is a stupid audiophile like me. :D We compared a bunch of different gear, just to satisfy our curiosity.

We started with some Bluetooth speakers that I had on hand.

bluetooth_speakers.jpg

  • After seeing a few reviews a number of years ago, I bought a Commuter from Kove Audio (top left). It did a pretty good job of sounding "acceptable", for those situations where wanted a bit of music while travelling. My son misplaced it for a while, so I tried to buy another, but this unit is discontinued. (My son eventually found it after I replaced it.)
  • It's replacement was the Kove Commuter 2, which does a neat trick of breaking into two for stereo playback. The stereo presentation is pleasant, but the original Kove has a better sense of presence.
  • I was in Cape Town S.A. last month, and encountered a Bang & Olufsen store near the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront. I listened to a bunch of their stuff, and was particularly impressed at the sound value offered by their Beosound A1 2nd gen. Some (but not all) of their more expensive units sounded better, but this one hit a good price point. It was head and shoulders above both Kove units. I'll be keeping this one close at hand for myself, and my sons can use the others. ;)
Next up was the PS Audio Sprout integrated amplifier (the original, not the Sprout100). I bought this used for a friend, but he decided he didn't want it when he realized that it had an undefeatable bass boost. (It's intended to be used with small speakers.) I kept it myself for my younger son to use as a headphone amp in his bedroom.

My audiophile friend wanted to hear it, so we used a Squeezebox Touch as streamer, and fed it into the Sprout's digital RCA input, driving my Royd RR3 speakers. We were actually quite pleased with the general demeanor. If someone said this was all I could have, I wouldn't be suffering much. Overall performance was balanced, and volume was completely acceptable. It didn't have an extreme amount of detail and grip, but it didn't fall on its face either.

This brought us to the serious comparisons:

shootout.jpg

  • The test track was Steely Dan's "Black Cow" from their album Aja. My friend and I have different musical tastes, but we're both intimately familiar with this track, so it's a good choice for the task at hand.
  • The source for all the tests was the aforementioned Squeezebox Touch, with the Enhanced Digital Output applet installed. Most of the time we used the optical TOSLINK output for convenience, although we did compare it to the coax RCA output to see if we could hear a difference. (We couldn't.)
  • The pre-amp was my recently acquired Benchmark HPA4 Headphone / Line Amplifier, which is phenomenally neutral and very adjustable. We tweaked the individual source volumes, so we could match the output to do toggled A/B tests. (Most of our tests, however, were longer listens of the full track.)
  • I have many configurations of (mostly Avondale) amplifiers, which I've compared earlier. This time we decided to test my top three amps:
    • Avondale NCC220/QUDOS Voyager monos (bottom right). We included this, just so my friend could hear the difference between that and the NCC300. This was fed with RCA inputs.
    • Avondale NCC300 monos (bottom left). My friend has a dual-mono NCC300 that I built for him. His has a simple single supply for each channel, whereas mine has a dual supply using Avondale's NCM1. This amp was fed with RCA inputs.
    • Neurochrome Modulus-686 dual-mono with Power-686 modules (centre). This was fed with balanced inputs.
  • We tested three DACs:
    • Benchmark DAC2 HGC (used in HT mode as a pure DAC without pre-amp volume adjustments).
    • Chord Qutest, which my friend brought along with his iFi iPower SMPS wall wart. We also tested a prototype of a linear supply that I'm building for him.
    • Denafrips Pontus II, which I had originally acquired for my friend, but then decided to keep myself.
  • For speakers:
We started with the amplifiers, fed by the Benchmark DAC2 (the most neutral and clean of all the DACs). The Avondale QUDOS Voyager was first up. It was a big jump up from the earlier PS Audio Sprout, with more of everything good: more presence, better resolution of inner detail, increased grip and slam, etc. Unlike the Sprout, which seemed "good enough", the QUDOS gave us a taste of something better, and whet our appetite for even more. Fortunately, there was more to come!

Next was the Avondale NCC300, which was almost as much better than the QUDOS Voyager as the Voyager was compared to the Sprout. The sense of palpable bass was lovely, the details were more evident, and the rhythm was energizing. Toe tapping ensued! ;)

Then we moved on to the Neurochrome Modulus-686. This is a completely different beast, with its own set of pros and cons. First off, it's exceedingly clean, with astonishingly deep and well controlled bass, smooth natural highs, and a sense that it had unlimited power. Those were the pros. The main con, however, was in the rhythm department. Compared to the Avondale amp, percussion seemed rather anemic. The sense of fun energy was notably lessened. More on this later, though.

Note that neither of the amps was better than the other in all ways. We both wished we could find something that was a composite of the best features of each.

Next came the DACs. Of all the DACs, the Benchmark was the most tonally accurate, with instruments and voices sounding like they really should. However, it's quite clinical in its presentation. If you want a true representation of the sound, you'll love this DAC, but if you want it to be "beautiful and fun", then you may not be satisfied. (I happily used this DAC for many years, and have only recently gone to the dark side.)

After that was my friend's Chord Qutest, using the iFi iPower supply. This DAC sounded "nicer", even though we couldn't hear as much detail. Some might say it was more analog, in the same way as vinyl can be preferred over CD, because it sounds nice and warm but less resolving. My friend preferred this over the Benchmark, but I didn't want to give up the extra detail and nuance.

Then we went on to the Denafrips Pontus II. This was a step in the same direction as the Qutest, except that it went further. Everything sounded much more fun enjoyable, and it managed to keep most of the detail. There were still things that the Benchmark did better (especially well articulated bass), but overall both of us preferred the Denafrips. (My friend kept commenting how he wanted a DAC with the best qualities of each.)

I'll inject an aside here, as synergy plays a big part. My office had Benchmark DAC2 (doing both DAC+pre), Avondale NCC300, and Ergo IX speakers. When I tried the Denafrips, it was overwhelming. I eventually realized it's because the Denafrips is "fun and energetic", the NCC300 is "rhythmically bouncy", and the Ergo IX is "forward and engaging". It's just too much of a muchness!
  • I switched the NCC300 to the Modulus-686, eliminating one of those over-exuberant components, and the result was quite enjoyable.
  • Similarly, the Denafrips with the Modulus-686 and Royd RR3 seemed too polite, leaving us wanting more fun. We switched from Modulus-686 to NCC300, and everything was enjoyable again.
The moral of the story seems to be that the best systems had two-out-of-three energetic components.

The next step was to compare my DIY linear supply on the Chord Qutest versus the iFi iPower SMPS. The iPower is supposedly a pretty good SMPS, and the Qutest has additional filtering on board. Therefore, I doubted it would make much of a difference, if any. To our surprise, my LPS actually elevated the Qutest to make it almost exactly as good as the Pontus II. We even did quick A/B comparisons at this point, and had a hard time discerning anything different.

Then we tried the 5V/1A supply of the Allo Shanti (a commercial 5V power supply). It was a very slight bit better, but nothing to write home about. For reference, my DIY supply is worth half what the Shanti is.

Finally, we replaced the Royd RR3 with the Celestion SL6. These were audiophile darlings back in the early 1980s. I was planning to buy a pair back then, but couldn't afford the CAD$600 price tag at 16yo. They popped up on Canuck Audio Mart in the spring, and my curiosity got the better of me. They sounded better than I had remembered the first time I auditioned them, but the RR3 is definitely a superior speaker. The SL6 is a bit bright, probably due to its metal dome tweeter. The bass is fairly deep and nicely controlled, though, and the overall balance is acceptable. It's definitely a good value.

So there you have it. Lots of fun, and lots learned!

QUTEST user here.

This is fantastic intel. Appreciated.

We have found the (Cellphone) Power Bank betters the already very good iFi iPower, in feeding the QUTEST. It’s night and day.

I confess we have never heard a Linear PS feeding the QUTEST.

Perhaps another shootout with the DIY Linear PS v pure, off-the-grid DC? :D
 


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