@audiotroy
Yes it is a great "starter" integrated/player, the easiest to use component I have ever had. To the extent that it’s a "starter" - I’ve been in the hobby for a few years and had many integrated & separates both tube and solid state.
I have the Luxman MQ-88uSE right now as my main amp, and have had everything from Luxman 509X integrated to Hegel to Rogue, to vintage Luxman, Adcom, etc... with many different levels and combos of DACs and preamps (currently Backert Labs & Chord TT2/M Scaler). The one thing I never got into was high end separates (Luxman m900u, etc) and I wouldn’t really ever spend $20K+ on any one component.
All that being said, I’ve spent probably close to $80K in this hobby over the past 5 years and what stuns me is how exceptional this little $3K all-in-one is. Almost makes me feel foolish for going down so many rabbit holes.
The bottleneck in the Atom I think - compared to my current high end system - is probably the BB DAC, as it is not refined and realistic as the Chord stack. But it does make up for it in other areas - as I said, just the musical quality of the box as a whole kind of makes the strengths of the Chord a little less important.
Another thing is I believe my speakers are playing a big part in how good the amp sounds. I am very surprised to find the Atom seemingly a better match for the Rivals than the Luxman valve amp. It may just be more power, better impedance, or other things I never understood/paid much attention to.
I haven’t moved the Atom into my office with the Heresy IIIs yet, but I suspect the gap between the Atom and my current office amp (Sonos Amp) would be perceptibly less through the Heresy IIIs than what I am experiencing in the main system with the Rivals.
I’m recently and considerably invested in the Sonos ecosystem around the house, which is sad because now I’m probably going to have to upgrade everything to Mu-so etc over the next year. Right now I am seriously on the verge of selling off my Chord stack to invest in the Nova, which I wouldn’t have believed I’d do even a month ago.
It’s a real giant killer.
Although as an "entry level" component it’s still on the higher end of most "new" people dipping their toes into the hobby. I have several friends looking to get into hifi and I’ve been more likely to steer them to something like the Sprout 100 or Cambridge integrateds (61/81 etc) just because $3200 could be a big leap of faith for some people just getting into the hobby. I guess it depends on the pain threshold for people’s individual budgets.
Yes it is a great "starter" integrated/player, the easiest to use component I have ever had. To the extent that it’s a "starter" - I’ve been in the hobby for a few years and had many integrated & separates both tube and solid state.
I have the Luxman MQ-88uSE right now as my main amp, and have had everything from Luxman 509X integrated to Hegel to Rogue, to vintage Luxman, Adcom, etc... with many different levels and combos of DACs and preamps (currently Backert Labs & Chord TT2/M Scaler). The one thing I never got into was high end separates (Luxman m900u, etc) and I wouldn’t really ever spend $20K+ on any one component.
All that being said, I’ve spent probably close to $80K in this hobby over the past 5 years and what stuns me is how exceptional this little $3K all-in-one is. Almost makes me feel foolish for going down so many rabbit holes.
The bottleneck in the Atom I think - compared to my current high end system - is probably the BB DAC, as it is not refined and realistic as the Chord stack. But it does make up for it in other areas - as I said, just the musical quality of the box as a whole kind of makes the strengths of the Chord a little less important.
Another thing is I believe my speakers are playing a big part in how good the amp sounds. I am very surprised to find the Atom seemingly a better match for the Rivals than the Luxman valve amp. It may just be more power, better impedance, or other things I never understood/paid much attention to.
I haven’t moved the Atom into my office with the Heresy IIIs yet, but I suspect the gap between the Atom and my current office amp (Sonos Amp) would be perceptibly less through the Heresy IIIs than what I am experiencing in the main system with the Rivals.
I’m recently and considerably invested in the Sonos ecosystem around the house, which is sad because now I’m probably going to have to upgrade everything to Mu-so etc over the next year. Right now I am seriously on the verge of selling off my Chord stack to invest in the Nova, which I wouldn’t have believed I’d do even a month ago.
It’s a real giant killer.
Although as an "entry level" component it’s still on the higher end of most "new" people dipping their toes into the hobby. I have several friends looking to get into hifi and I’ve been more likely to steer them to something like the Sprout 100 or Cambridge integrateds (61/81 etc) just because $3200 could be a big leap of faith for some people just getting into the hobby. I guess it depends on the pain threshold for people’s individual budgets.