Monica 3 and qls 550 vs Twisted pear Buffalo 2 and IVY 3.

After reading the post by CLH , I decided to diy B2 also .

This arre my sound impressions .





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The B2 is my recent project and have
been using it for the last few weeks. The power supplies are also
from Twisted pear.

I have Monica 3 for several months and
this has evolved from Monica 2 . The power supplies are all diyed
and use a combination of cap multipier circuit from TNT audio and
Wenzel associate shunts.


My amp is diy Aleph J amp and
speakers are diyed V2 and OB5 from GR Research. I only use CD and no
high res files yet. I am a fan of NOS dac and my music taste are
mostly vocals with some orchestral music .




Both are excellent dac and there is
no particular winners in my book.

I will highlight the major differences.



Monica excels in vocal . Close mike
recordings are particularly seductive and I can sense the presence
of the singer in my room. The opening of the lips and the intake of
breath before the singer commence singing are easy to hear. Music is
breathtaking. The emotion from Cai Qing is easily to convey. The
wooden resonance from acoustic guitar sound realistic.



B2 portray better dynamic contrast and
it has a huge sound stage that seems to envelop the listener. I can
frequently appreciate 3 layers of music with orchestra. Musicians
playing in the back row of the orchestra is easy to discern. Bass is
better defined , leaner and the space around the musicians is wider.




Both dac are great fun to listen and I
have learned a lot of practical experience building them.





My next project is to play high res
files from a pc to B2. Just bought a cheap usb to i2s converter from
China to play !

Thanks for sharing.

I was thinking of B2. B2 employed ESS Sabre 32 bit chip, do you find the midrange glare that some had reported?

NOS dac is a charm when comes to vocal. It is short in edge delineation, soundstage dimension and smears a bit which suit well to vocal but very noticeable with musical instruments.

Could you elaborate the sound of GR research's OB5? Curious to know. It looks delicious.

Regards

HI CH,
I do not notice any glare in th mid range in B2. It is silky smooth and about the plane of the speakers . In monica , the mid range is in front of the speaker.
OB5 is a very good all rounder provided there is at least 3 feet around the speaker.
The planar magnetic tweeter is exceptional if you have a very clean power supply. Vocal, bass, soundstage and layering are all very good if you source is up ti it.
It is easy to hear every little change in the power supply of the source upstream .
Most of my friends who listern to it are impressed especially considering the price !
If you like bass and large scale music, you can consider V2 from GR and I am now running it in now. I have some pictures posted in audiocircle GR research forum. .

Regards

Great looking V2. The color combination is pretty. Good job.

How come there is no tweeter? Is your V2 run on a full range and the bass on active? Your V2 looks different from the one at GR Research.

I estimate the cost of construction touching RM4k. Enjoy the fruit of your labor.

This is a coaxial tweeter placed in the PA Audio upper unit.
The bass is active .
The bass resolution is excellent and no room boon at all. If you are in Kuching , sent me a PM. Open baffle bass is very different .
My construction cost is much less than that .
Other than the carbinet, all the parts are included in the kit.

how about putting all all the signal path in mono mode ? i.e. separate the left and right channel with dedicated transformer (r-core) in the dac, preamp until power amps.

Hi kakibook,
i have thought about that but decided against that because of the work involved.
The whole layout and chasis has to be redesigned.
My next project is computer audio and then a valve amp/preamp.

thanks

kp93300

Hi KP,
Very good comparision you've made. Actually there are a few more upgrades to BII:
1. Power supply, your using LCDPS, Plasid, Trident or any combo? My best experience is LCDPS + Trident.
2. Duo-mono, love it so far. A level up compare to stereo but money also double :p

By the way I don't have Monica to compare, it is about your own taste. But you can't go wrong with ESS9018.

Playing HiRes file will be another experience, I use HiFace as 'digital transport' to feed SPDIF to BII. Done a lot of changes to it, especially on the power supply. It is matching my expectation already but still got a few upgrade in mind.

Hi Wong,
I will be trying the Trident after i got used to the sound first.
Have you try the Lithium battery as done by Jkenny ?

After trying out a few types output caps, Monica is as good as B2 ! An ancient Japan Made 1.7 uF motor run caps seems to fit the job .
You know of a dc servo circuit to try for Monica ?


thanks

kp93300

Hi KP,
Didn't tried the Li battery as JKenny but have my own version of regulated power supply inspire by his project for time being. I am thinking of Salas shunt power supply, is rather cheap and can use on a lot of projects including BII.
I did try another capacitor brand of motor start engine from Italy, it is good but in my own taste, PIO sound better.

kp93300 wrote:Hi Wong,
I will be trying the Trident after i got used to the sound first.
Have you try the Lithium battery as done by Jkenny ?

After trying out a few types output caps, Monica is as good as B2 ! An ancient Japan Made 1.7 uF motor run caps seems to fit the job .
You know of a dc servo circuit to try for Monica ?


thanks

kp93300

kp

any hint about this ancient caps ?

Gabs

Hi Gabs
This are no name cap made for industrial use. This are probably made for fans . This looks ancient , probably more than 10 yrs but i measured the cap and the capacitance is spot on.
I will post some photo when i have time.
cheers
kp93300

Hi Gab,
this is an image of the cap

regards
kp93300

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/f6b7e

kp93300 wrote:Hi Gabs
This are no name cap made for industrial use. This are probably made for fans . This looks ancient , probably more than 10 yrs but i measured the cap and the capacitance is spot on.
I will post some photo when i have time.
cheers
kp93300

certainly not the usual AC film caps i used to see in the hardware store...

Gab aka Nikita

HI all,

Does BII still available? Thanks.

I believe the new version is B111 and cost more.

BTW as an update, I have hooked up the trident regulators and it was a slight improvement.
i have also added the volumite control to replace the Lightspeed LED passive pre,Again very minor change .

The change in sound perspective is very much less than I expected and minor when compared between the Aleph j 20 w and John Lindsey Hood 1969 10 W diy amps
The transparency gained by removing the pre is much more obvious.
Less is more !!!

Any more Buffallo users in Kuching ?
We should meet to compare notes !
cheers

kp93300

Hi kp93300

I heard there is one person enjoying this kit, kp. If you are from kuching, that person should be you i suppose? I will be back to kch soon and hope any Buffalo users allows me an audition?

I'd gone upside down, bought the I tube Zator but have not decide either COD or BIII. Since I can't find any BII, and BIII is costly, and not sure COD is good or not, therefore will only decide after that. I hope someone would sell me pre owned BII since it doesn't looks so complicated.

Why there's so many diyers from Sabah and Sarawak and I can't find any from peninsular ...???