DSPeaker Anti-Mode 2.0 Dual Core (Home Demo Experience)

aashish351

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Folks!

For those who attended or are following the Delhi Hi-fi meet (Jan 2013) would have seen this product DSPeaker-Anti-Mode 2.0 Dual Core on demo during the meet. It is small form factor Room EQ + DAC under one roof. During the meet, I argued with and was successful in convincing Ashish Kesarwani of Lakozy to bring the DSPeaker to a standard home environment to demonstrate it's real effectiveness. The following week he came with the DSPeaker, PSB Synchrony One B, NAD C375BEE and NAD DAC-1 to my place for a casual demo session. Given below are my fair and unbaised comments. For this thread, I will only focus on the DSPeaker 2.0.

We started with listening to my existing setup first with my music from the vortexbox without any DAC or Room Correction. Ashish then played some of the music he was familiar with to get an understanding of my setup. We listened to "Jaisalmer by Richard Clayderman & Rahul Sharma", "Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd", "Jai Taal by Zakir Hussain", "What the World Needs Now", "Samba Adagio by Safri Duo". This lasted for about 45 minutes before we decided to make the first change - configure the DSPeaker with Analog In & Out for only Room Correction duties. We can all visit the website and read all about the specifications, so I will not waste time on dwelling on those. The calibration lasted 15 minutes. The graph made on the screen of DSpeaker showed major dips and peaks in the 50 Hz to 100 Hz region. I was already familiar with this phenomena in my room (recall my thread on Low Frequency Measurement). So started the listening of same tracks and switched between bypass and corrected modes to hear the difference...

At this stage, some of us might expect me to write either hugely positive or negative experience, but it was neither. For those who understand high fidelity enough by now, would know that after a certain level of hi fi components, the improvements with further upgrades are subtle but have the potential of taking your experience to a whole new level. My experience was similar. The crisp, fast and punchy notes of Zakir Hussain in "Jai Taal" had an improvement that I had only imagined. In the bypass mode, the mid bass had an annoying, loose, and hanging resonance which was completely hiding the characteristic sound of that tabla note. Since I have played tabla for about a year during school, I can't help but feel sorry when people demand huge bass in the tabla notes. The truth is, the tabla mid-bass is a very complex note which can boom a lot or sound flat due to room interferences or poor quality equipment. The DSPeaker made this sound almost as close to the real thing.

I must admit that during the Delhi meet I thought of this product as one of the "big boys toys", but I have been proven wrong. Yes, the puritans of hi -fi would not want to add electronic room correction into the thousands of dollars worth of equipment. And I don't disagree. If you can have a room which allows your expensive equipment to give the true sound, then by all means avoid a dsp. But in practical situations and for many of us, this could be a useful, "effective" solution. On the other hand, I did not see any major change in the treble and high frequency response. The vocals and mid bass definitely sounded clearer and more detailed due to the complete removal of loose hanging bass from the 50 - 100 hz region. For some the immediate response on hearing the corrected response would be - "where did my bass go". But if you relax for some time and concentrate on enjoying your music, you would hear that actually the bass notes have become much cleaner and flatter. On the negative side, electronic room correction has a big impact on the output level of the source. So the volume on the amplifier had to be increased quite a lot for the same levels of sound.

Next, we connected the laptop to the in-built DAC of the DSPeaker. This has a strange output spec of 24/48, however, the performance and specification are too different things. The in-built DAC in this definitely performs at the same level of various mid-priced DACs in the market. Slightly warmer, but without any loss of top end detail. Before, I heard the DAC performance, I was skeptical about the MRP of Rs.75000/- of this product. But considering that the DAC in-built is definitely up to the level of other 20 - 30 K DACs in the market, you are actually getting a good two-in-one product for the price.
 
Thanks for the review. I saw this with Lakhozy Bombay when Priyesh had just got it and was raving about it. Could not get a chance to demo it then and its great to see that you got a chance to do an in home demo. Why did you not try it out on your own gear?

I'm glad you mentioned the impact on the output level of the source. When using another digital room correction setup in my place it really bothered me that I had to turn up my volume control that much to get to my preferred sound level.
 
The results mentioned above were on my gear only - the exposure and Dali combo. I think I did not mention that clearly. He brought his gear also which we hooked up later but I have not mentioned my opinion on that yet.

Sent from my GT-P3100 using Tapatalk HD
 
I was skeptical about the MRP of Rs.75000/- of this product. But considering that the DAC in-built is definitely up to the level of other 20 - 30 K DACs in the market, you are actually getting a good two-in-one product for the price.
If one had a power amp, it is three in one, I understand. It can take a digital source signal, and provide a room corrected, volume controlled analog signal to the power amp, thereby eliminating the need for a preamp.
 
Where can I get it for 75000 as quoted in the first post?
I guess you will have to go back in time. Or wait for the rupee to strengthen further. Or used, if it hasn't worked for someone that bought it.
 
I guess you will have to go back in time. Or wait for the rupee to strengthen further. Or used, if it hasn't worked for someone that bought it.

Good one. I hadn't noticed the date of the first post !

I am getting a good offer on Lyngdorf RP-1 (demo piece). Maybe if that is the current rate for DSPeaker, then I should opt for Lyngdorf demo piece especially with the developer's background. The Lyngdorf is available locally with a home theater specialist which he is using in his demo room. I had asked for DSPeaker but he has not yet got it.
 
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It seems to be doing much the same thing. A lot more expensive though? How much are you getting the demo piece for?
 
Lakozy has sent the unit to Pune for my audition, before I even asked them to. Talk about hi pressure proactive selling! I will post my assessments here in a few days.
 
On a quick skim, one major difference seems to be that the DSPeaker has a Digital input and can be used as a DAC, whereas the Lyngdorf does not?
 
On a quick skim, one major difference seems to be that the DSPeaker has a Digital input and can be used as a DAC, whereas the Lyngdorf does not?
I don't know about the Lyngdorf, but yes, that is one reason I may buy the DSpeaker, if the room EQ does enough of an improvement. Also, it has a volume control, and a power amp suffices, no need for a preamp.
The net investment, number of boxes, and box foot print can be reduced because of this.
 
Very timely, thanks. My interest is to better hear the bass lines at lower listening volumes in the music I like - Jazz. I also like piano - classical and jazz - and have a large collection. I will make sure that even if the room eq works in one, it doesn't take anything away from the other.
Going by the specs, this should not happen. In auto mode the EQ limits itself to 150hz and below. This limit can be reset to values from 80hz to 500 hz in custom mode. Piano sound should remain unaffected, at least in auto mode.
But, only careful comparative listening to Piano music can tell, and I will be sure to do a lot of that in the audition. Provided of course the first part for Jazz works enough magic.
 
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