Just in: Lampizator Baltic-3 DAC

One more reason that the audiophile hat sits so uneasily on my head.

 

Different strokes for different folks.
But still, i'm sure everyone likes some 'nudies'.

 

Never known whether this stuff is Lamp-izator or gaslight-izator. I remember the early stuff, and the weird level-1 gets you this, level-2 gets you better, level-3, and so on. And wasn't one of his original boxes based on the innards of one of those logitech boxes that used to be a great way of connecting a computer to a hifi?

Last thing I remember reading about impressions of the build amounted to miscellaneous bits held together with hot glue. And I don't think the guy is either embarrassed or ashamed of that. Don't know why he would go all security-screw now. Doesn't keep anyone out: even I have a hundred-plus bit collection of which I've only so far used three or four.

Used to be wooden boxes. He must be looking at a very different market now to the early days.

(I'm just a grumpy old guy, who bristles at putting tubes into stuff because. But if his stuff sounds good and works well...)

 

Remember that Synergystic Spatula company? The expensive connectors that were actually just full of nothing but sand? That Headfi wouldn't allow us to simply call out as simply total crap? Remember the company that bought a cheap DAC (or maybe it was a cd player), built a fancier cabinet around around it and sold it at as high price equipment?

Yes... grumpy old cynic again. Just: I never quite fancied the Lucas-aid.

 

You're referring to the Lexicon universal disc player that was an Oppo BD-83SE player housed in a more "premium" chassis and sold for roughly 3-4X times the price.

 

Oh yes, those were the days when Audioholics posted their famous review on the unit. AVS Forums were having a giant fight over it and sooner or later that thread was closed. Even had people treated violence over this rip-off device, which was the same deal back when HD-DVD and Blu-Ray were fighting each other. The drama got me through work back in the college days.

 

That's the one. Stories of Audioland, eh!

 

Yes, it was quite a scandal at the time. Called in to question the "legitimacy" of high-end, when there were "glowing" reviews in the high-end mags of the Lexicion unit when someone could buy the Oppo unit literally for a fraction of the price. And, rightly so.

 

And I should make it clear that I was tangentalisifying there... no implication that anys such thing applies to Lucus's kit.

Maybe the security screws just hide that he no longer uses hot glue!

 

"High End" audio, as just about all luxury markets, have a wiff (more than a wiff) of carney row about them. What this incident, MQA, and others tell us is that most of the audio review mags/sites/sources are just advertisement gloss for the industry, even if they claim to exist for and be relevant to the consumer.

 

IIRC Edge Electronics (the one with those hideous pyramidal monoblock amps) got caught doing the same thing. It was literally an Oppo inside its own casework with the face controls removed, plopped inside a 50lb CNC'd enclosure.