Quote:
Originally Posted by
ULA
➡️
Maybe its too early, but curious how you are finding these working compared to your primary EQs I've seen you mention in other threads? Do these feel better suited as complimentary tools?
Quite curious about these especially for a lot of electronic/hiphop coming through here, quite a few of the functions on both seem like they could be good workhorse tools
I have had them for 8 days now and naturally in that time have mastered a lot of different material before posting.
For Hip hop its absolutely amazing. That firm sound on the 54 injects a real sense of weight and attitude into the performance that caries well on rap.
For electronic music I did a cover of robot rock the other day and it was very much night and day. Really took away the ITB sound and gave it serious a lot of tight kinetic energy.
What I am finding them good for is anything where you want a firm and authoritative finished sound. There is an impressive finish to them and a flexibility around that to go into darker territory without anything being lost. They both have a sound and compliment each other beautifully. Most of the time I am using both so far. I often check one or the other and I have used just the 51 on one track and just the 54 on a rock track. That particular rock track the 54 on its own was able to take the music from sounding very blurry and demo like and push it up into sounding just like JET! Insane.
So where I am bypassing them is softer and more sweet sounding music.
A few folk records and an operatic record the Thermionic Swift was the choice.
Just now I am doing a nostalgic country track that the Curve Bender won out by a large margin due to the firmness of them losing out to the lush harmonic nostalgia of the Curve Bender.
That said I am finding the SPL PQ and REQ 2.2 particularly useful as partners to the Coloreq combo. The Coloreq comes first and sets the vibe and shape and the PQ or REQ can do the minor correctional stuff that is often needed.
For electronic and hip-hop. I am loving them.
Rock, world music, metal, anything with weight and attitude. Most things work amazingly.
I am driving them first in the chain with the mercury so far and using the REQ as a buffer because the units after that have transformers and don't play nice with the 54.
I tested a different Dac with a similar ohm load and the sound and levels changed dramatically so the 54 is very interactive.
My tests so far are based only on the Mercury - REQ2.2 combo so YMMV in that regard. Thats the only caviet with my review.
I would like to take the time to swap out the REQ with the Curve Bender and Bax etc when I have time to see if the attitude changes when interacting with different boxes.
I know its a potentially contentious subject I venture into but.....
Also I highly recommend playing around with cables. For example Monster studio pro 2000 had a very noticeable difference to Mogami Gold. like not even close to nulling due to the radical impedance differences between those 2 cables. I wish I could post those hiphop files. The client was mind-blown at how dramatic the shift in presentation was by changing just the cable from the DAC to the 54. Mogami darkened the air and the transients changed dramatically and became more recessed. More tape-like. To me its honestly not that surprising given that the Monster Cable can't pass an AES signal to save itself, dropout city due to the impedance difference from AES specification. Only small staggered bits of data make it though.
I suspect Vovox would do something similarly different in the presentation.
So some real caveats there in my review. But good ones if you ask me.
Having something so interactive means you can forge a chain that no one else can come close to sounding like. And I like that a lot!
