Antipodes Owners & Discussion Thread

[dbastin]

On 03/09/2021 at 8:49 PM, Stereophilus said:

there is a clear incremental improvement from the upgrade.

I'm sure many (incl me) would like to hear what you mean by incremental and how the value of the money spent on the CX upgrade rates relative to other similar cost upgrades you've done (eg. is it equivalent improvement to upgrading from a $2k to $4k power cord).

 

I imagine the improvement is most appreciable in a system that is well sorted in mos if not all other ways.  For instance, I've recently completed a phase of improving my signal (and in my case cable) grounding which is a considerable improvement. in my eagerness and preoccupation with the plugging new things in, cable routing etc I now regret overlooking a simple-ish but effective step ... I should not have been as pleasantly surprised as I was when I treated all the ground cable connections to Detoxit cleaner and Gold Pro contact enhancer.  So I then proceeded to treat all my AC power connections also, of course further improvements.  The $100 on these and some effort provide benefits that would otherwise cost $1000s in hardware.  There are much better enhancers around too, for more cost.

 

The moral is to consider all the relatively low cost details, I even treat my upgraded fuses and the fuse holders to the cleaner and enhancer.

Edited September 7, 2021 by dbastin

[richardloh]

No facebook account but just saw another oladra upgraded cx+ex in glorious blue leds like mine

 

Glad that Mark offered this to all after I contacted him almost 1 yr ago to have mine with blu leds as I had modded all my equipment but will not risk it with the Antipodes ... ymmv but green led is so outdated.

 

Cheers.

 

Edited September 7, 2021 by richardloh
Added photos

[Whites]

@richardloh I agree, the blue leds look really good, especially against the satin black case.

[Stereophilus]

4 hours ago, dbastin said:

I'm sure many (incl me) would like to hear what you mean by incremental and how the value of the money spent on the CX upgrade rates relative to other similar cost upgrades you've done (eg. is it equivalent improvement to upgrading from a $2k to $4k power cord).

 

I imagine the improvement is most appreciable in a system that is well sorted in mos if not all other ways.  For instance, I've recently completed a phase of improving my signal (and in my case cable) grounding which is a considerable improvement. in my eagerness and preoccupation with the plugging new things in, cable routing etc I now regret overlooking a simple-ish but effective step ... I should not have been as pleasantly surprised as I was when I treated all the ground cable connections to Detoxit cleaner and Gold Pro contact enhancer.  So I then proceeded to treat all my AC power connections also, of course further improvements.  The $100 on these and some effort provide benefits that would otherwise cost $1000s in hardware.  There are much better enhancers around too, for more cost.

 

The moral is to consider all the relatively low cost details, I even treat my upgraded fuses and the fuse holders to the cleaner and enhancer.

Sure, I can understand the curiosity, and my vague description was also intentional.  The upgrade will need a bit of time to settle.  Also, please consider that I have been 4 weeks without a high end server (subsisting on Bluetooth from iPad to Makua!) so my memory of pre-oldara CX to oldara CX is not a fresh back to back comparison.

 

Value of an upgrade is a personal thing, but so far, to me, it has been good value.  The 2 year extra warranty and performance increase from the extra RAM are instant tangible benefits.  The $1950 include shipping with insurance as well.  The most logical comparison is to the $2000 I spent to get the Makua streaming input upgraded to Roon Ready.  The improvement in the CX to that upgrade is of equal value IMO.  The SQ improvements are clear but not “night and day”.  The clearest benefit to SQ is of improved ease and relaxation.  The bass has returned to pre-upgrade levels… it may improve further.  I’ll write more when I am confident that it have fully “bloomed”.

[Godot]

18 hours ago, Stereophilus said:

4 weeks without a high end server (subsisting on Bluetooth from iPad to Makua!) so my memory of pre-oldara CX to oldara CX is not a fresh back to back comparison.

I feel your pain! Mine was a bit less, with a Playback Designs Stream IF meaning I could still stream in hires, but I really missed the Roon / EX combo. My EX has also returned, I agree with your post re upgrade benefits. I really appreciate a company like Antipodes supporting legacy products in this way, it is above and beyond what most manufacturers are able or willing to do.

Very happy to have it back. It sounds amazing using the EX as a lower powered server and the Stream IF as a Roon Ready endpoint. I expect it will only get better!

[richardloh]

On 07/09/2021 at 4:28 PM, Stereophilus said:

 

Value of an upgrade is a personal thing, but so far, to me, it has been good value.  The 2 year extra warranty and performance increase from the extra RAM are instant tangible benefits.  The $1950 include shipping with insurance as well.  The most logical comparison is to the $2000 I spent to get the Makua streaming input upgraded to Roon Ready.  The improvement in the CX to that upgrade is of equal value IMO.  

 

Hi Stereophilus,

 

Indeed a personal thing due to many considerations and indeed grateful to Mark of Antipodes to have invested to offer this latest oladra upgrade but unless I ditch the Antipode cx+ex stack, I will be stuck with a non-upgraded one as there is also a time limit for availability of this upgrade. And I really need the blue leds

 

Just to add, I would also recommend having Uptone ER and an oxco clock like the Afterdark double crown one at the least to take full advantage of our separate boxes. Until I can have the usd15k K50 in my system, I like to think that usd1.5k on ER and Afterdark clock had made up for the 10-20% or even more to have taken over the K50 until they have oxco clock options .

 

Cheers.

 

PS: With defining songs that I have been listening for days weeks, months and years, I have no doubt of the improvement from this oladra upgrade .. blacker black that expanded the stage with more details not heard or distinctly so and music just "pops".

Edited September 9, 2021 by richardloh

[Stereophilus]

Ok, for the shared benefit of CX and/or EX owners, I feel after 160hours of continuous use I can give a firm opinion on the OLDARA upgrade option.  
 

Do it!!

 

This upgrade is a serious improvement, and quite a remarkable achievement considering what I considered to be an already outstanding product.  Listening over the last 2 nights leaves me in absolutely no doubt the upgrade represents not only fantastic value, but also a gateway to digital audio that surpasses anything before it.  Bold words, yes… although those who see me post often on this forum know that I don’t use such statement flippantly.  If this is only 80-90% of what a k50 can do, then I know what my next purchase will be!

 

The thing I find so impressive about what I am hearing is how my Makua DAC now pulls apart the individual strands of the music, but simultaneously weaves them together with more flesh and bone than anything I have previously heard.  And the effect is reproduced regardless of genre, regardless of recording.  The sense of instrument focus is intense and intricately detailed, yet perfectly rounded and relaxed, hitherto something unknown to me.  Taking something like Dvergmál by Sigur Rós, as the music reaches its crescendos, there can be a sense of losing instruments in the milieu of strings and choral voices, but not with OLDARA… everything has its sense of place just so, but also interwoven and harmonious.  The striking glockenspiel notes (often a difficulty for digital systems to reproduce) leave no sense of hardness or undue ringing, instead hanging hauntingly clear and distinct points in the vast soundscape around them.

 

Another torture test, as it were, is If I Had a Heart by Fever Ray.  Utilising several distorted guitars to generate a different sense of broad undulating patterns, it can be all to easy to occasionally notice unwanted resonances where percussive kick drums overlap, or where vocals float in.  Not only are various elements more noticeably distinct, they also present more cohesively as whole now with OLDARA.

 

A relatively new artist to me, Anette Askvik, has recorded 2 amazing albums to date.  On her song Under the Tallest Tree from her first album, I have heard presentations of this track sound muted and lifeless, and others sound overly stark and bright.  It is a sparse composition for the most part, typically Nordic Jazz in the same vein as Tord Gustavsen’s works.  There is nowhere to hide for Anette’s vocal.  The OLDARA upgrade brings a sense of delicacy and nuance to her vocal I had not previously appreciated, something now quite aching and enveloping.

 

I have used examples to explain my findings as I think this is the easiest way to describe what I hear since the upgrade.  For me these changes were not immediate.  The coalescence of the sense of ease, the focus and the return of a sense of deep true bass have reached their culmination yesterday and today.  There may be more yet, but there is enough from what I have heard already to allow me to highly recommend not only the upgrade, but the whole OLDARA line up.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Stereophilus
Grammar

[TerryO]

@Stereophilus

 

Thank you for the comprehensive and well written update on the CX up grade and how it now sounds. Hopefully someone up here does the same upgrade as I would like to hear one.

 

On the female singer front, if you like Anette Askvik, which I also do then you may also like these other two singers, being, Sophie Zolmani (Soul) and Lily Kershaw. Especially her album The Music’s for the Sad Man, another of her albums I really enjoy is Lost Angeles, actually all of Lilies albums are great.
 

I guess I should throw in a third just in case, that being Agnes Obel who has some truly excellent albums.

 

Talk soon.

 

cheers,

Terry

Edited September 9, 2021 by TerryO

[dbastin]

11 hours ago, Stereophilus said:

I have used examples to explain my findings as I think this is the easiest way to describe what I hear since the upgrade

 

Excellent approach.  I too have been developing a playlist of music that really highlights the consequences of my ethernet improvements. 

 

This music often contains things that illuminate the difficulty the digital gear is having to reproduce, as you say, torture test (eg. Some modern effects used in vocal really smear the vocals if not reproduced ckeanly). Intense crescendos, resonating chimes and glockenspiel ... you've chosen well  And also things that really show improvements (eg. super deep bass, and layers of persussive drums, etc).  I have minimised music that sounds great on any decent system, and even better on great systems ... these may be 'glossing over' problems.

 

I encourage others to do this too, and of course choose music you enjoy rather than just for evaluation.

[delphi17]

@Stereophilus ,

 

Hi ,

 

Thank you for the detailed review.

 

just wondering if the upgrade is felt across the board between Digital file stored on server and streaming?

 

And do you still find that streaming has same performance as digital file?

 

Thank you 

[Stereophilus]

1 hour ago, delphi17 said:

@Stereophilus ,

 

Hi ,

 

Thank you for the detailed review.

 

just wondering if the upgrade is felt across the board between Digital file stored on server and streaming?

 

And do you still find that streaming has same performance as digital file?

 

Thank you 

I mostly listen to streamed music now.  Noting that I do often hear a slight difference between supposedly the same music on Tidal and Qobuz, the same applies to my experience of streamed files vs local files… That is, I have no way to verify if they are the same, so any difference I hear may be due to a difference in the streamed file (rather than the process of playing).
 

I honestly believe it is a moot point anyway.  The quality that I get with streamed music is now so good that even if I do hear a difference, I have listen very carefully to hear something that has negligible overall effect.

[Godot]

17 hours ago, Stereophilus said:

Do it!!

I have been through a similar evaluation of my upgraded EX and wholeheartedly agree. I lack the literary skills to encapsulate that experience as well as Stereophilus has but my sentiments are the same. The more time I spend listening the greater my appreciation for the improvements. Wonderful!

[dbastin]

FYI about upgrades ...

this is worth reading ..

https://antipodes.audio/portal/

 

And this seems to be the latest about the end date of current upgrade program, however it might change if production of other models is stalled by parts availability.

[richardloh]

On 10/09/2021 at 10:20 AM, delphi17 said:

@Stereophilus ,

 

Hi ,

 

Thank you for the detailed review.

 

just wondering if the upgrade is felt across the board between Digital file stored on server and streaming?

 

And do you still find that streaming has same performance as digital file?

 

Thank you 

 

Hi Delphi17,

 

How do you compared stored music files and streaming ?

 

I am streaming from free full flac internet stations likd Hionline, Frequence 3 etc., 320kbps stations and even 192khz like The Wave - Relaxing music which I find generally better than my ripped stored files in my 2x4TB samsung 860 SSDs.

 

Streaming music seems to be sounding less compressed and certainly of wider stage than even most dsd stored files .. and the difference is the same after the oladra upgrade albiet overall had obviously improved.

 

I am on squeezelite and and android squeezer app for control with less than favorable room accoustic.

 

Cheers.

 

Richard

Edited September 16, 2021 by richardloh

[richardloh]

On 10/09/2021 at 11:45 AM, Stereophilus said:

I mostly listen to streamed music now.  Noting that I do often hear a slight difference between supposedly the same music on Tidal and Qobuz, the same applies to my experience of streamed files vs local files… That is, I have no way to verify if they are the same, so any difference I hear may be due to a difference in the streamed file (rather than the process of playing).
 

 

Hi Stereophilus,

 

For you, local stored files or streaming Tidal, Qubuz etc. sounds better ?  Probably stored files but my situation differs and hence seeking confirmation .. and hopefully find out why

 

Cheers.

 

Richard

Edited September 15, 2021 by richardloh

[Stereophilus]

10 minutes ago, richardloh said:

 

Hi Stereophilus,

 

For you, local stored files or streaming Tidal, Qubuz etc. sounds better ?  Probably stored files but my situation differs and hence seeking confirmation .. and hopefully find out why

 

Cheers.

 

Richard

I find myself mostly listening to Qobuz, although there really isn’t much difference.

[ikhuong]

Hi folks,

I am getting a USB DAC without streamer and have S40/S60, what would be better to add ? S20 or S30 ? Hope some pone has opportunities to experiment those to give an advice

 

thanks,

 

[Stereophilus]

15 minutes ago, ikhuong said:

Hi folks,

I am getting a USB DAC without streamer and have S40/S60, what would be better to add ? S20 or S30 ? Hope some pone has opportunities to experiment those to give an advice

 

thanks,

 

@TerryOis probably best placed to field that question

[barbz127]

25 minutes ago, ikhuong said:

Hi folks,

I am getting a USB DAC without streamer and have S40/S60, what would be better to add ? S20 or S30 ? Hope some pone has opportunities to experiment those to give an advice

 

thanks,

 

S20 is a reclocker without any USB outputs so you won't gain anything there given youre talking about a USB dac.

 

S30 will give you another endpoint you can link to the network port on the S40.

Edited September 18, 2021 by barbz127

[dbastin]

7 hours ago, ikhuong said:

Hi folks,

I am getting a USB DAC without streamer and have S40/S60, what would be better to add ? S20 or S30 ? Hope some pone has opportunities to experiment those to give an advice

 

thanks,

 

 

Strategically speaking, even if your DAC has SPDIF and AES inputs, the likelihood is that having a separate renderer/player will be better than reclocking/converting  output from a single S40 doing both server and player functions.  So S30, and it can be powered from S60.

 

However, while I have not heard S30, my guess is Auralic Aries G1 using wifi will give a much better outcome, because it has seriously good wifi Isolation from the network. Better still, try to find a DAC with a great streamer built in that also has very good wifi - ie great isolation and eliminates format conversion and usb cable.

[ikhuong]

Thanks all for advice, make sense to go for Server/Player setup instead of reclocker which might be questionable in real benefit to convert usb to AES/I2S and will be vary with different dac input implementation 

 

 

Edited September 18, 2021 by ikhuong

[Stereophilus]

37 minutes ago, dbastin said:

 

Strategically speaking, even if your DAC has SPDIF and AES inputs, the likelihood is that having a separate renderer/player will be better than reclocking/converting  output from a single S40 doing both server and player functions.  So S30, and it can be powered from S60.

 

However, while I have not heard S30, my guess is Auralic Aries G1 using wifi will give a much better outcome, because it has seriously good wifi Isolation from the network. Better still, try to find a DAC with a great streamer built in that also has very good wifi - ie great isolation and eliminates format conversion and usb cable.

I would agree, and actually typed out something similar, before reverting to my above comment.  As we know, experience does not always align with expectation though.

[TerryO]

For those that may be interested in finding out more about the S40 this is a good read.

 

https://antipodes.audio/s-series/antipodes-s40/

There is some informative reading on both the S20 and S30 also to be had. 

 

cheers,

Terry

ps … Kevin I have pmed you.

 

Edited September 18, 2021 by TerryO

[kishorebs85]

Hello Everyone - This is Kishore from Singapore.

We don’t have any dealer in singapore for Anitpodes, can I check if there is any dealer here who can ship to singapore?

 

I am looking to purchase either K40 or CX or S40/S60 to primarily host the Roon Server

 

Thanks in advance.

[dbastin]

4 hours ago, kishorebs85 said:

Hello Everyone - This is Kishore from Singapore.

We don’t have any dealer in singapore for Anitpodes, can I check if there is any dealer here who can ship to singapore?

 

I am looking to purchase either K40 or CX or S40/S60 to primarily host the Roon Server

 

Thanks in advance.

I think this is the Australian Distributor.

 

https://sonicpurity.com.au/brands/antipodes-audio