With his ongoing DAC search I found time to get across town and visit with @Roby79 and have a listen to his Moon D260 streaming DAC and his loaner Soulnote D2 DAC. I took the Pulse and Holo Spring 3 with me.
He likes the node as a transport over the Mind 2 module in the Moon so that's where we began.
Associated Equipment: MF AMS35 class A freaking monster. Avalon Speakers I don't know the model.
His system is very transparent which I was not wholly prepared for even though I think mine is pretty clean in that regard. IN any event, it made comparing relatively easy and I put away the SPL meter after 30 minutes. The DAC in the Moon was pretty good. It sounded detailed, clean, polite, and there was nothing wrong with it, but it wasn't "emoting" (that's probably not a word) me either. Roby already has it up for sale, so I guess it's going, but one could certainly live with it and it's a different universe than the Node2 DAC. We put on the Spring 3 and it was deeper. richer, warmer and more bassy than the Moon. His room is limiting in space so to talk about sound stage is harder because we are sitting a lot closer to the speakers than I'm used to. We talked more about "room filling" sound. Roby likes guitar and nice recordings so it was a heavy dose of Nils, SRV, MK, Muddy, BB and some brilliant covers of Ain't no sunshine from Eva Cassidy and Jose Jones.
Let me also say that amp of his connected to those speakers is a really nice combo. They work together well. @CnoEvil I can see why you like that amp so much. The system, regardless of source, has a lot of scale and sheer presence and impact. He's got more coin tied up in cables than my whole system by the look of the diameter of those bad boys.
The Soulnote D2 is special. It has all you could want I think. It's more detailed than the Spring and more room filling. I was honestly afraid the Spring 3 would not be able to get close to the D2, but that wasn't the case. They sound different, but each is good in it's own way. The D2 has a bunch of options and filters etc, that we didn't get to use, but in one case I was complaining a bit about "digital glare" brightness, whatever and with the touch of a button it enters NOS mode and all is well again. Impressive.
The Pulse added to the mix was more of the same from past demos: laid back, better bass, vocals move slightly back from the more up front Node as transport. More coherent and integrated. It ended up much as it always does, you start hearing something you like and you stick with it and comparing takes a back seat.
We probably listened to the Spring+Pulse more than the D2+Pulse. Either way it was down to sonic preference. Though, I don't think I'd like the D2 with my speakers as much as I did with his. I made a conscious choice to try and find a mellow, laid back, "analogue sounding combo." The D2 + Pulse probably fits the bill with its myriad of options and filters, the Spring 3 is just a rounder, warmer, slightly less detailed sound.
It's nice to have finally met a fellow Hifi nut and music lover in person.
He likes the node as a transport over the Mind 2 module in the Moon so that's where we began.
Associated Equipment: MF AMS35 class A freaking monster. Avalon Speakers I don't know the model.
His system is very transparent which I was not wholly prepared for even though I think mine is pretty clean in that regard. IN any event, it made comparing relatively easy and I put away the SPL meter after 30 minutes. The DAC in the Moon was pretty good. It sounded detailed, clean, polite, and there was nothing wrong with it, but it wasn't "emoting" (that's probably not a word) me either. Roby already has it up for sale, so I guess it's going, but one could certainly live with it and it's a different universe than the Node2 DAC. We put on the Spring 3 and it was deeper. richer, warmer and more bassy than the Moon. His room is limiting in space so to talk about sound stage is harder because we are sitting a lot closer to the speakers than I'm used to. We talked more about "room filling" sound. Roby likes guitar and nice recordings so it was a heavy dose of Nils, SRV, MK, Muddy, BB and some brilliant covers of Ain't no sunshine from Eva Cassidy and Jose Jones.
Let me also say that amp of his connected to those speakers is a really nice combo. They work together well. @CnoEvil I can see why you like that amp so much. The system, regardless of source, has a lot of scale and sheer presence and impact. He's got more coin tied up in cables than my whole system by the look of the diameter of those bad boys.
The Soulnote D2 is special. It has all you could want I think. It's more detailed than the Spring and more room filling. I was honestly afraid the Spring 3 would not be able to get close to the D2, but that wasn't the case. They sound different, but each is good in it's own way. The D2 has a bunch of options and filters etc, that we didn't get to use, but in one case I was complaining a bit about "digital glare" brightness, whatever and with the touch of a button it enters NOS mode and all is well again. Impressive.
The Pulse added to the mix was more of the same from past demos: laid back, better bass, vocals move slightly back from the more up front Node as transport. More coherent and integrated. It ended up much as it always does, you start hearing something you like and you stick with it and comparing takes a back seat.
We probably listened to the Spring+Pulse more than the D2+Pulse. Either way it was down to sonic preference. Though, I don't think I'd like the D2 with my speakers as much as I did with his. I made a conscious choice to try and find a mellow, laid back, "analogue sounding combo." The D2 + Pulse probably fits the bill with its myriad of options and filters, the Spring 3 is just a rounder, warmer, slightly less detailed sound.
It's nice to have finally met a fellow Hifi nut and music lover in person.
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