'Tis the Season for a NEW DAC from LessLoss! New Product Announcement!Friday 04 December, 2015
Dear esteemed customers,
Long in the making, long held secret, now we reveal the first announcement about our latest high performance product, a new analogue-to-digital signal converter of superlative performance and value! Meet Echo's End: our new discrete precision resistor R-2R DAC with multiple integrated Firewall technology! LessLoss will soon release our new world-class DAC with discrete precision resistor topology. No off-the-shelf mass produced DAC chip is used. This ladder DAC will be turbocharged with no less than 11 directly integrated new generation Firewall modules. These will condition both the AC power as well as all DC supplies throughout the unit. The results are no less than phenomenal in terms of clarity and relaxation, without the tube-y type "softened" sound of transformers or tubes to achieve it. Digital inputs and analogue outputs The unit supports USB, S/PDIF, and AES/EBU digital inputs. Which ever one you connect, the unit locks to without any switches. Both unbalanced and balanced outputs are included. The idea behind the name Echo's End Think about this: every echo's end is where hearing transforms into listening. With most any DAC, you can hear everything. With Echo's End, you can listen to everything. Echo's End goes well beyond hearing sensation and affords best conditions for listening. With other DACs, you can hear good things in a technical sense. With Echo's End, you can listen to the best humanity has to offer. There's something there beyond the mere signal, and we want to go there. During testing, listening sessions became difficult because we kept losing track of time. After all, we are supposed to be at work here... Never has it been more difficult to peel ourselves from the desire to continue to listen for pleasure alone. It seems all critical faculties melt away and fail. Something else seems to take over, completely. One cannot help but marvel, and continue to marvel. (And no, we will not be held responsible for loss of sleep!) Let me just say it this way: you need this new piece of equipment in your collection! It represents a new performance proposition, completely unique in this world. We are way beyond hearing new notes in chords, new subtly revealed accents and minute gestures of expression. We are now listening to and easily comprehending intent, ambient reality, a clear record of past events, to the actual meaning conveyed to the listener. A single historical performance can be described by a thousand critics' reviews, but now we can actually experience what they meant. USB-ready; a new USB raised to audiophile standards Along with the Echo's End DAC, we are also developing the USB Firewall Key. It will be about $300. We can now say, for the first time in history, that USB is acceptable as a digital source suitable for audiophile playback purposes. No amount of digital smudginess or smearing remains in the sound. We now have a purity and clarity of tone previously only ever achieved by interfacing with well-shielded S/PDIF, AES/EBU, or even I2S. This opens the door to affordable desktop audio well within, if not defining, the highest performance class. An uninteresting, even cold-sounding, unmodified(!) computer can now convey authentic human emotion. There is nothing smudgy, fuzzy, or harsh remaining in the sound. Time passes smoothly as if from a reel-to-reel tape machine, less the noise. One is transported into a feeling of decades past, even before the rise of digital audio. Featuring Analogue signal outputs as follows: - 2 Channels Unbalanced (RCA), straight off of the Ladder DAC resistor network at 1.4V RMS. You can even drive many headphones directly, because this is a very powerful output. Or connect with a preamp volume control. - 2 Channels Balanced (XLR), at ~2V RMS. You can drive most any headphone through this output. Or connect with a preamp volume control. This is a masterpiece of high performance. All connectors and circuit boards are mated directly to wood. No Fuses. No frills. No lights. Not even any switches (automatic detection of whatever digital input is used.) Very little plastic throughout. Very rich, organic sound. Very pleasing and most hypnotic. No metal-on-metal junctions; everything is hand-soldered using solid core wiring, including all Firewall modules. A plan of action, with your help! We love this device and have poured years of our best energy into it. We want to share it with as many of you as possible, under the most affordable conditions. To achieve this, we must accrue part of the production funds in the form of your pre-orders. This will make the self-cost of the unit lower. In thanks, we will offer a production agreement with you at excellent pre-order financial conditions. We will also throw in a couple of gifts. (More on that below!) We want do another "kickstarter" style promotion and inform participants at all steps of progress. As the price is higher than for most accessories, we want to emphasize our pledge to satisfy you and to never let you down in terms of communication. Pricing suggestion: Retail price is set at 4962 USD. There will be great savings available to pre-ordering customers. We want to be ready to ship on or before December 20, 2015. This means we need to get moving now. If enough people respond favorably, we will be able to offer pre-order conditions of close to 50% discount, and speed up production! As we have been working behind the scenes on this, we already have much in place for this, but not quite all. At this point, the most seriously demanding production issue will be the enclosure. Your enthusiasm in the form of a pre-order will remove this final barrier and we'll be able to roll out enough units efficiently to make this limited time "dream price" a reality. Compare the performance to exotic units retailing at around $50,000-$100,000. This product lives not within the lifestyle marketplace realm, but square center in the realm of electronics art. And we want to make it accessible to you. You have already seen our production partners at work with the Firewall modules. These are the same wonderful people who will mill the Echo's End enclosure. They are young, energetic, meticulous, trustworthy, and have very high work ethics standards of their own. Everything they make, they stand behind 100%. We would never settle for anything less. Success in the past, success in the future The new generation Firewall pre-ordering project was a huge success. We want to do the same with the Echo's End DAC, and we are now ready if you are. This time it can go more quickly because we already have most of what we need locally. What we need to move ahead Right now, all we ask for is your response. Provided we can meet the production numbers through your pre-orders, we will hit an incredibly attractive pre-order price never before seen in this performance category! Oh, and that's shipped, by the way! Are you signing up? Perhaps you want more than one (you need one for your office, too, otherwise you'll constantly be late for work, for reasons you'll probably understand later, when, alas, the pre-order offer is gone...). Let me know via return email and I will log up the total number interested. If it looks good enough, I will soon be announcing real availability, lock in the pre-order price, and immediately get things moving. This unit has been a long time in the making, and the mature sonic results leave you in no doubt, even after only a few days of burn-in. (Burn-in is amazing on this unit, by the way, something in itself to marvel, even before full maturity of tone is established. The thing seems to grow like a living organism!) Want beauty? We will also be offering a beautifully deep lacquered version for a 380 USD surcharge. We decided to keep this as an option, separate from the pre-order price, so as to keep the entry price as low as possible. If you are really on a tight budget, we have thought of you and you can still get all of the pristine quality of sound for less money. If you have the extra 380 USD, we'll gladly go all the way and provide you a deep, beautifully lacquered version. This will lend a depth of appearance and finish which complements the unit's depth and richness of organic tone quality. It's an option. You choose. We don't need this surcharge up front. We can accept it later during production. You can even decide later whether you want the lacquered version or not, after we show you the difference in appearance. How good is the performance? This DAC does not sound anything anywhere near its price class would suggest. We are talking about sound on the level of quality amongst the very best that humanity has until now had to offer, analogue or digital. I look forward to your preliminary response! A short note will suffice, please. For now, please answer: (1) I know I am taking one Echo's End DAC! (2) I know I am taking one or two Echo's End DACs! (3) I know I am taking two Echo's End DACs. I will return to you with the results and soon announce our plan of action based on your response. How much time do I have to decide? Earlier I wrote about gifts. These are our gifts to you: (1) Pre-order and pay within 2 weeks of today and receive a FREE LessLoss Firewall module with oakwood case and LessLoss modified Oyaide C-079 to go along with it. (2) Pre-order and pay within 1 week of today and receive the above FREE Firewall module for power, as well as a FREE LessLoss USB Firewall Key, a $300 value and represents our next upcoming product in the Firewall line. (3) Pre-order and pay any time between two weeks from now and Jan 1st, 2016, and receive both the above (Firewall for power and Firewall for USB) for 50% price reduction. Thanks for your support It will be such a pleasure to provide you with Echo's End. Echo's End is exactly where we as audiophiles truly reside, and often return for more of what we get there. Thank you and have a great day, Sincerely,
Louis Motek | LessLoss.com
|