Good point Kubla! I feel the jab at the ability to render dynamics or the lack thereof could be quite a grave issue. I find that the Spoiler renders large orchestral music beautifully with the right kind of software on the laptop. You can do better than foobar, I've found. So the reviewer's criticism could well be system dependent. I myself, very familiar with live classical music, heard no such thing. But then your question was if the review could hurt. Possibly, though Steve did not seem to think so. He pointed me to it and I suppose he would not have, had he been unhappy.
The "Spoiler" with "Pace Car"
Steve Nugent of Empirical Audio is well known in these pages and I thought it would be worth while to write up a short report here on my listening experience with his latest offering.
The digital side of my rig consists of a Zanden chain as well as DCS gear. All cables are by Stealth, (except for the Spoiler, where I found Steve's cable to be quieter) and on the speaker side I enjoy my good old Quad ESL 63, sitting on top of the Gradient Sub63, whereas on the top of the Quads sits an A Capella ION TW1S tweater serving the high end of the spectrum. For the real low end there is a pair of selfpowered subs. The Quads are driven by Zanden 6500s, the Gradients by Atma M60MkIIIs and the Plasmas by a highly modded Jolida JD 1000 RC. I run the Quads without a X-over, but use the Gradient balanced offering between the subs and the A-capellas. To my ears and those of my friends, the system is coherent,has all the advantages an ELS will bring, plus a carefully blended in high and bottom end. In my 4x5m listening room, more than satisfying LPLs are possible without the Quads shut down protection kicking in.
I used the Spoiler DAC with a Toshiba laptop, which Steve had syncronised with the clock in the "Pace-Car" and listened to all kinds of music from the computer through foobar, windows media player as well as iTunes, prefering foobar at the end. Comparisons were made in the way, that the CDs we wanted to listen to were transferred to foobar, listend to through the Zanden chain, the DCS Verdi Encore, Verona and Elgar combination and then trough the laptop connected to the "Spoiler" with a 5m usb cable run.
Whereas to our amazement the Zanden generally sounded more real than the DCS, which we realy only found pleasing with SACD, which of course the Zanden cannot do, Steve Nugent's "Spoiler" easily held its own with the Zanden. There was the same uncanny black silence, the same amazing presence of instuments and voices....and on certain discs it bettered the Zanden with female voices and violins, which simply sounded more real and more natural. Also, this was another finding which amazed us, in big orchestral music, the Spoiler often came out on top as far as width and depth of the soundstage were concerned. Instruments and voices were rock steady, tghe silence between notes uncanny.
This is just a prelimilary report, but it seems that in imediacy and naturalness in the rendition of instruments and voices the "Spoiler" with Pace Car is hard to beat and if you consider the prices of the gear we compared it with, that certainbly makes you think.
The digital side of my rig consists of a Zanden chain as well as DCS gear. All cables are by Stealth, (except for the Spoiler, where I found Steve's cable to be quieter) and on the speaker side I enjoy my good old Quad ESL 63, sitting on top of the Gradient Sub63, whereas on the top of the Quads sits an A Capella ION TW1S tweater serving the high end of the spectrum. For the real low end there is a pair of selfpowered subs. The Quads are driven by Zanden 6500s, the Gradients by Atma M60MkIIIs and the Plasmas by a highly modded Jolida JD 1000 RC. I run the Quads without a X-over, but use the Gradient balanced offering between the subs and the A-capellas. To my ears and those of my friends, the system is coherent,has all the advantages an ELS will bring, plus a carefully blended in high and bottom end. In my 4x5m listening room, more than satisfying LPLs are possible without the Quads shut down protection kicking in.
I used the Spoiler DAC with a Toshiba laptop, which Steve had syncronised with the clock in the "Pace-Car" and listened to all kinds of music from the computer through foobar, windows media player as well as iTunes, prefering foobar at the end. Comparisons were made in the way, that the CDs we wanted to listen to were transferred to foobar, listend to through the Zanden chain, the DCS Verdi Encore, Verona and Elgar combination and then trough the laptop connected to the "Spoiler" with a 5m usb cable run.
Whereas to our amazement the Zanden generally sounded more real than the DCS, which we realy only found pleasing with SACD, which of course the Zanden cannot do, Steve Nugent's "Spoiler" easily held its own with the Zanden. There was the same uncanny black silence, the same amazing presence of instuments and voices....and on certain discs it bettered the Zanden with female voices and violins, which simply sounded more real and more natural. Also, this was another finding which amazed us, in big orchestral music, the Spoiler often came out on top as far as width and depth of the soundstage were concerned. Instruments and voices were rock steady, tghe silence between notes uncanny.
This is just a prelimilary report, but it seems that in imediacy and naturalness in the rendition of instruments and voices the "Spoiler" with Pace Car is hard to beat and if you consider the prices of the gear we compared it with, that certainbly makes you think.