AXPONA: Resonessence Veritas, Audiokinesis

[amirm]

If you want to meet a friendly and knowledgeable speaker designer, you need not search anymore. I have never seen such a modest and down to earth person as Duke LeJeune. Here he was presenting his higher-end (top of the line?) Bienville Suite speakers.

And to finally put Mike out of his misery , we finally have the Veritas Resonessence DAC based on the new ESS ES9028Pro DAC courtesy of another nice professional colleague, Brian Walsh.

Duke cracked me up when he said the display speakers were for sale due to manufacturing flaws that until he mentioned, would have been completely invisible to anyone!

 

[amirm]

I spent a lot of time chatting with Brian/Duke and unfortunately did not take the time to capture much music: https://play.google.com/music/preview/Taqkdvwx42az4qwruuuia7p7v6m?u=0#

Fanfare for the Common Man
Gerard Schwarz

This sounded very nice. These speakers had better low-end than the ones Duke was showing at CES.

As to the DAC, well it sounded nice too . Brian said they were already shipping and I think the retail is $2899 or something close to it. He said a number were shipped already.

 

[Mivera]

Cool. Too bad there wasn't the same DAC with the 9018S in it for comparison. It's very hard to weigh the improvements in a DAC chip when evaluating a complete system as a whole.

 

[amirm]

That's the thing. What I hear and report on at shows is really the sound of the speaker, room and music. Anything else is hard to impossible to quantify.

 

[TitaniumTroy]

Another favorite room, really nice speakers with the Swarm Subwoofers.

 

[Duke]

Thank you very much for stopping by, Amir, and for including our room in your show report.

Yes the Bienville Suite is my new top-of-the-line system. It embodies a somewhat unorthodox approach to pattern control/room interaction. I suppose it's more JBL-esque than Revel-esque, but with a dash of bipolar disorder thrown just because I can't resist coloring outside the lines. (Actually in this case it was "dipolar disorder" because of what we were doing to deal with the room acoustics in the transition zone.)

Apparently that recording of Fanfare for the Common Man was being played in other rooms, and we got compliments from people who said the bottom end sounded more natural in our room. I'm sure that our modal decay rates were just as bad as any other small room at the show, so if we had noticeably better bass, then the difference was probably due to the smoother in-room response of the Swarm.

My personal high point of the show was when a blind audiophile spent time in our room (he goes by "Mr. Peabody" at Audio Asylum). I asked him if he'd been aware that he was listening to horns and he said no, he had not. <not-so-modest fistpump>

And thank you also, Titanium Troy!

 

[amirm]

Great to see you here Duke. Look forward to our next chat at another show!

 

[bpw]

I just noticed Amir's thread over on WBF and thought I'd post the couple of literature sheets shown as well as the system listing. The price of the Atma-Sphere preamp is $2800, not $2900 in the listing.

The Resonessence Labs Veritas DAC retails for $2850.

 

[amirm]

Hi Brian. Thanks for the information and welcome to the forum! There has been a lot of interest in your DAC and ESS chip within. So any information that you get your hands on in the future would be appreciated .

 

[bpw]

Hi Brian. Thanks for the information and welcome to the forum! There has been a lot of interest in your DAC and ESS chip within. So any information that you get your hands on in the future would be appreciated .

You're very welcome, Amir. This is the first Veritas DAC in the US, on demonstration here. An open house is planned here for Saturday, May 14th, demonstrating the DAC, the Ryan R630 speakers, and another new product coming.

Mivera, I see you are very near Resonessence Labs, so perhaps you will be able to audition a Veritas one day soon.

 

[Mivera]

You're very welcome, Amir. This is the first Veritas DAC in the US, on demonstration here. An open house is planned here for Saturday, May 14th, demonstrating the DAC, the Ryan R630 speakers, and another new product coming.

Mivera, I see you are very near Resonessence Labs, so perhaps you will be able to audition a Veritas one day soon.

Yes I know Mark and the boys already. I'm still waiting for Dustin to bring by a Mirus with dual 9038's

 

[bpw]

Yes I know Mark and the boys already. I'm still waiting for Dustin to bring by a Mirus with dual 9038's

You should ask Mark about 9028 vs. 9038. You are in for a surprise.

 

[Mivera]

You should ask Mark about 9028 vs. 9038. You are in for a surprise.

I hear they both smoke the 9018, but the 9038 is on another level from the 9028. The 9028 is a pin compatible drop in replacement for the 9018. The 9038 has an extra pin. However I heard if you bend that extra pin back, you can upgrade a 9018 DAC with the 9038

 

[bpw]

I hear they both smoke the 9018, but the 9038 is on another level from the 9028. The 9028 is a pin compatible drop in replacement for the 9018. The 9038 has an extra pin. However I heard if you bend that extra pin back, you can upgrade a 9018 DAC with the 9038

"on another level" -- Man, that buzz phrase is so worn out I cringe every time I hear it. As for the rest, it depends on who told you: a salesman or an engineer.

 

[Mivera]

"on another level" -- Man, that buzz phrase is so worn out I cringe every time I hear it. As for the rest, it depends on who told you: a salesman or an engineer.

I heard it all from the engineer who designed the chip's. Mark is a good guy, but he's not even an audiophile. He just runs the show at Resonessence. Dustin does 100% of the DAC designs. Ever meet Hans? He's the "ears" for Resonessence. They wanted to use my speakers for RMAF last year but I didn't think my speakers were good enough

 

[Mivera]

I had a couple Mirus's last year with custom clock upgrades, and custom remap of the FPGA to accept I2S over LVDS. Nice DAC's. However Dustin told me even the evaluation board for the 9038 pro powered by a cheap SMPS sounds better than the original Mirus. So this really has me excited to hear the Mirus with the 9038's

 

[amirm]

Found my second set of pictures:

 

[bpw]

I hear they both smoke the 9018, but the 9038 is on another level from the 9028. The 9028 is a pin compatible drop in replacement for the 9018. The 9038 has an extra pin. However I heard if you bend that extra pin back, you can upgrade a 9018 DAC with the 9038

I asked Mark (again) about the 9028 and 9038. Here is what he said:
"The 9038 has been designed for Multi Channel applications and is not suited for stereo."
He had added in a previous comment that the 9038 doesn't perform as well as the 9028 for 2-channel use.

As for bending pins back on a chip, on the assumption you consider yourself a credible engineer, I can't believe that you would ever consider doing this, and based upon Mark's response I am not sure your assertion would be valid anyway.

 

[Mivera]

I asked Mark (again) about the 9028 and 9038. Here is what he said:
"The 9038 has been designed for Multi Channel applications and is not suited for stereo."
He had added in a previous comment that the 9038 doesn't perform as well as the 9028 for 2-channel use.

As for bending pins back on a chip, on the assumption you consider yourself a credible engineer, I can't believe that you would ever consider doing this, and based upon Mark's response I am not sure your assertion would be valid anyway.

So when the Mirus comes out with the 9038's that will be a downgrade? I'll keep that in mind and share this post when your promoting it.

The Ayre QX-5 is likely going to be a flop as well.

 

[bpw]

So when the Mirus comes out with the 9038's that will be a downgrade? I'll keep that in mind.

You sound like a wannabe. Buh-bye!