You seem to have a good understanding of this Dac. Does it use the M2tech OEM Bus powered board or does it have a dedicated power supply? Are you the designer or the distributor? I wand love to leanrn more about this dac. I weill be using my mac laptop to connect to the dac at the meeting? Can I use my NOS Tubes?
I am neither mate - simply a guy that is lucky enough to be 40 minutes away from the designer (Clay Geisner) and the manufacturer Lenehan Audio.
Here is info on Clay:
http://www.thespeakerspecialist.com.au/They are a pretty friendly bunch and a lot of Audiophiles out our way (myself included) drop in every now and then for a chat and a demo of their new gear or to use Lenehan Audio's Reference system to check out different gear.
Clay had a lot of trouble getting my Off-Ramp working via I2S with the PDX and when he finally did (it was a loose wire in the PDX) he had a good listen with the Off-Ramp. When I picked it up we had a long chat about the gizards of the PDX - some of which I knew before - but a lot was new. A number of guys out my way do that - you probably dodn't know them because they primarily post out here in Aus.
Interstingly a guy recently moved from Western Australia to near where I am - about halfway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast and he had extensively modded his PDX. He took it down to Lenehan Audio, I took my PDX, and of course there were some PDX's already there. We rang up another PDX owner and the stage was set for an interesting listen. We heard it via the old USB interface the PDX once had - a Teradac - and it was veiled and distorted compared to the M2Tech boards in the new DAC's using one of my standard test Tracks - Dianna Krall - A Case Of You - the piano and coughing is a good test for any DAC. We were going to check it out via SPDIF from my Off-Ramp but much to our charin and distress the SPDIF input on his PDX was on the blink and we couldn't get it working - it will need to wait for another time.
Interstingly, and not really related to this, he took an amp down called the Killer Amp and we all had high hopes it could be something special. When I first heard it I went my my - the midrange presence, weight and palpability was astonishing - I said it could have been the best amp I had ever heard. But others there were less impressed - one guy called it the blob - all midrange and no top or bottom end, slow, bloomy with no sound-stage or imaging. It really polarized. But what really struck me was when its owner said he thought it didn't sound like your typical valve amp - to me it was your typical valve amp in overdrive. And I had a phone call from a guy in Perth asking me what I thougt. I said it sounded like your quintessential valve amp - he said it made voices sound real - which to my ears it most emphatically did not - beautiful, entrancing etc etc - but real - nope. Anyway it will probably take a while to get fully up to speed on exactly what is going on with that amp.
The input to the PDX consists of M2Tech boards purchased from M2Tech - exactly what boards they are I am not sure. They evidently require a number of supplies and in the PDX they all have their own separate battery supply - no regulators from a larger supply - it's nothing cutting edge using modified Paul Hines regulators and the other top of the line stuff Steve Nugent uses - it was done basically to keep the price within reason - not to be an all out assault. Everyone, Clay, myself, everyone, thought the Off-Ramp would kill it - but it didn't - which left us all scratching out heads. Of course Lenehan Audio is chuffed - but it still is a big mystery.
If you want to know more of the technical details of this DAC simply drop Clay a line and tell him what the go is and I am sure he will be only to happy to discuss it with you - like he does with guys like me that drop in. Oh and the other thing is this DAC is not made in large quantities - Clay basically hand builds each one - so you will be speaking to the designer and builder.
Thanks
Bill
