Beresford Caiman:
..
The Caiman and the Senn HD555s having some intimate moments together:
Cables that I ordered with the Caiman:
Sorry for the really bad mobile phone pics. I've been putting off buying a Digicam for ever.
After I unboxed the Caiman (ripped the packaging to shreds as soon as I got home) I hooked up the Coaxial (2) input of the Caiman to my (mass-market Philips DVD Player) and the Optical input of the Caiman to my WDTV (1st Gen). The fixed outs were connected to the RCA input of my Audioengine A2s.
I fired up the DVD player and Caiman, selected Coaxial 2, and popped in a CD.
No sound. Whoops!
I then swapped the interconnects to the Caiman's variable output. Tried playing music again. Still no dice. Gulp!
Now I started sweating and images of having to return the unit all the way to Stanley loomed up in my mind. I then started checking the A2s, making sure the power switch was on and the RCAs were connected. After a few seconds, I saw that the light on the power adapter of the A2s was not glowing.
Yep, the A2s' power adapter decided to kick the bucket right on the day I got a new component to play with. Sigh!
After thanking my stars the issue was not with the Caiman, I hooked up the Caiman's variable outs and fixed outs in turn to my cMoy amp (and the Senn HD555s to the cMoy amp) and there it was. Music! The relief of it and that first-listen thrill made me smile.
I immediately tried the Headphone out of the Caiman with my Senn HD555s and smiled again.
My initial impressions are positive. I feel there has been a substantial improvement in the highs -- they are more airy and open. Bass response and the midrange (vocals) are a bit recessed. Though the bass response is a bit less, overall, the bass seems smoother. I hope the mids will open up more with about 100 or so hours of usage. I'm not too good with describing nuances of music, so I'll leave that for the time being: Maybe when I look at the improvement in music after the burn in period.
In any case there is a clear and marked improvement in the
DVD Player --> Coaxial --> Caiman HP amp --> HD555 path over the
DVD Player --> Eagle EP to RCA --> cMoy --> HD555 path.
I immediately tried the Caiman and the HD555s with the WDTV (via Optical in). I've never listened to music from the WDTV over the Senn HD555s before, so I can't really do a before-after comparison. But this setup also sounds similar to the music from the Philips DVD-P. I say "similar", as I felt the volume level from the WDTV was just a bit higher than the volume level from the DVD-P.
Also, in some unexplainable way, I liked the music from the WDTV over the music from the DVD-P. I played Chantal Chamberland's "Hot Night in Baton Rouge", a favourite of mine, (many times) through both -- as CD over the DVD-P and as FLAC over the WDTV. The track on the CD was mastered from the same FLAC file. I clearly like the WDTV input's music more.
After this I quit the critical-listening mode and just spent the rest of the night listening to my favourites. After all, it is all about the music. And already I like it the way the Caiman makes it sound. I'm especially happy, because I ordered the Caiman blind, not having listened to it before, going by just reviews and Stanley's posts in various forums.
I've left the HD555s and the Caiman wrapped in embrace, making music back home. I will burn them in for at least 100 hours at the earliest. (The Senns are also pretty new, with just 25 or so hours of use under their belt). I'll need to break in the fixed and variable outputs separately in addition later. I'll wait till the A2s are back up for that.
The ordering process was quite smooth, with Stanley keeping in touch at every stage. The Caiman and the cables were shipped the very next day after I placed the order and I got delivery fast enough, without any hassles.
I will give my impressions after listening to the Caiman + HD555 combo after at least 100 hours of break-in.
Sorry for the long post. I'm still excited and that makes me write more
