My overall impression from listening to the 818v3 last week was a slight disappointment relative to the prototype machine heard back in April with the same speakers, which may be explained by the fact that I listened to mainly MQA and high resolution tracks at that time, whereas the recent session included more red book CD tracks. This time round most of the listening was via the USB input using Roon – another variable in the mix.

The sound was very good but, like Hector, I came away thinking that certain tracks were missing a vital ingredient. Hector has mentioned the Gretchen Peters album and I agree with his assessment; the same was true of the recent Natalie Merchant album, which is a very good recording that lost something in the mix – it became less warm and more clinical. On the classical side the recent high res Elizabeth Watts Linn recording of Mozart arias was also unimpressive, which was very surprising given that it is generally viewed as a high quality recording – the sound lacked body and scale. Conversely, the CSO/ Mackerras high res recording of Mozart’s 38th Symphony was simply wonderful, as was the Hilary Hahn Bach high res recording (one of the original MQA demo tracks). Diana Krall’s Girl in the Other Room was exceptional in both high res PCM and DSD format and recent material by Mandolin Orange in standard redbook guise was also very well presented.

It is difficult to generalise, but my impression is that the redbook treatment is not a major step forward relative to the v2 and that perhaps the v3 in this regard is more work-in-progress that will improve further via firmware changes over time.

Streaming: Roon, NUC, QNAP869 NAS
2ch system: dCS Vivaldi, Audionet Stern, Audionet Heisenberg, Magico Q1
Retro system: 101/104/105, Red Rose Spirit