The last part of my system, a custom made music server, arrived and was personally installed by the man who built it for me – Lukasz Domansky of Lukasz Audio Labs. I was very grateful for this as not only did he tune the set up to the room and other components, but he fixed a number of cable compatibility issues between the server and the DAC that prevented playback. I guess this is one of the downsides to buying esoteric, small volume custom built equipment, but the upside is music far beyond what a mainstream product at the same price point could ever hope to give you.
IMG_0251 by
Greg Turner, on Flickr
To give you some sort of context as to how good the server is, I had been trying a Silvercore Whanfried Edition line stage pre-amp. This is a special beast, fully silver monocrystal wiring throughout and very expensive (£24k via G-Point Audio). It was quite special and lifted the dynamics, soundstage, detail and overall musicality of my system to a heart breaking level. I’m not sure why I even agreed to listen to it as currently, now the system I have is bought and paid for, there is nothing left to finance anything more than what I have. And that’s OK because what I have is wonderful. But still, I found myself musing that just when I should be enjoying a decent bump in engagement and enjoyment with the arrival of the server, I found myself thinking that the departure of the pre-amp would be by far the greater wrench and the server would be simply trying to limit the loss, a task I didn’t expect it to do especially well. Afterall, how much better could this server be over the Macbook Pro I’d been using until then?
The answer is that the server didn’t just limit the loss of the pre-amp, it almost exceeded the improvement that the pre-amp had made. The experience is revelatory, astounding, superlative.
IMG_0249 by
Greg Turner, on Flickr
The server, which usually retails for £6,900, was built for me to a budget of around £3k so has some significant performance downgrades. It is sort of a LDMS Pico built into a Mini case with some hot rodded hardware that allows it to run Roon as a Core (the Pico doesn’t have the horsepower to do this). It’s hard to say how much it really cost because it was a package deal – Lukasz’s FP10 speakers and the server for £5k; I don’t know the second hand value of the FP10s as I don’t think they sell often if at all on the second hand market but even if I had paid £7k for this server I would have been exceptionally happy, and keep in mind that the ‘off the shelf’ LDMS Mini does have some major performance upgrades on top of the one I have and is the reason it retails for a shade under £7k.
IMG_0247 by
Greg Turner, on Flickr
The server runs Roon as a core but Lukasz prefers the way HQ Player handles the files and passes them to the DAC. I can run either Roon or HQP but so far have not switched to Roon as the HQP output is sublime.
I cannot sing Lukasz’s praises highly enough. Yes I waited a very long time for the server and his management of time and expectations became something almost comical as one reason for a delay after another was offered, but I always had the sense that he was a genuine guy, truly passionate about music and building amazing servers that just sing like a nightingale. Even then, the wait time wasn’t that bad – ordered and paid for in January and delivered just last week. OK so twice as long as you might expect from a major brand from order to delivery, but the sound quality is equally as excessive. It really is quite magical.
IMG_0248 by
Greg Turner, on Flickr
The complete and final system is thus as follows:
IMG_0253 by
Greg Turner, on Flickr
- Lukasz Audio Lab custom built LDMS Mini server with Ideon Audio internal re-clocker, separate PSU and David Laboga interconnect between the PSU and server. The software is a custom stripped back Window OS tuned by Lukasz himself.
- Final Cut USB cable, custom made to Lukasz’s specs; the earthing arrangement in the DAC was causing problems with cable compatibility and none of the David Laboga cables would work but the one built by Lukasz works flawlessly and sounds superb
- Lampizator Golden Gate DAC with single ended 300B output tubes
- High Fidelity CT-1 Ultimate RCA interconnect – 5m runs from the DAC to the amps
- Silvercore 833c monobloc SET amps; 20W, hand wound silver output transformers sitting on Rogoz isolation tables
- High Fidelity CT-1 speaker cables
- Horns FP10s with internal silver wiring upgrade and matching Rogoz stands – the speakers are 30kg each, the stands are 45kg!
- Grapite Audio isolation cones under the DAC and between the speakers and stands and Graphic Audio pucks between the stands and the floor
- ProAudio Bono suspension table
- Some more Polish made kit that didn’t cost a lot and look just like sound diffusers; these are yet to be mounted onto the wall. For the money (£400) they are an easy upgrade to say yes to.
IMG_0254 by
Greg Turner, on Flickr
The total spend is, being honest, an appreciable fraction of my mortgage. But this was the promise I made to myself after my marriage broke down and during the years of being very unhappy in that union and not being able/allowed to listen to music (indeed obliged to sell my Naim kit), I said I would put aside that fraction to buy a dream system. The room is the limiting factor, but the true near field listening position and sheer musicality of the overall presentation is far beyond what I would have thought possible from the budget.
If anyone would like to have a listen, I am in West Sussex and would be very happy to host you.
IMG_0247 by
Greg Turner, on Flickr