Lampizator Amber 3

Equipment / Electronics / Gear / Accessories DACs
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Initial impressions, I’ve been listening to this DAC for a few days now, and if your looking in this price range it’s well worth a listen.

Unlike the earlier Lampizator DAC’s it’s not an R2R implementation, but rather some unspecified Delta Sigma DAC in what they claim is a novel arrangement feeding into the traditional Lampizator pure Valve output section.

My Amber 3 the SE version.
Listening has been almost exclusively USB -> Amber 3 -> ZMF Pendant -> ZMF Verite so far, I have tried it on a few other Amps, I’ve also run it SPDIF from a Pi2AES, it was a marginal difference which implies a decent USB implementation.

I honestly didn’t really know what to expect from a DAC in this price range, I assumed given it’s well over 2x what the Gungnir Multibit costs, there would be potential for improvement. I was surprised to hear how much.

The first thing that leapt out when I started listening, even before even giving it a chance to warm up is that the staging is phenomenal. It’s difficult to convey the overall effect, the stage is obviously bigger, more 3 dimensional and it conveys the space around the instruments better than anything I’ve heard. But the overall effect is more than the sum of it’s parts.

It’s overall presentation is also very good, mid range and general timbre are the star, the bass demonstrates good impact, is well controlled and is ample, treble is smooth but without losing the edge I feel is necessary to convey some instruments properly.

I find it’s ability to retrieve detail is also very impressive, but I can only compare it to the Gungnir/Bifrost2.

I’m going to have to stop buying gear that’s clearly superior to what I own, because without a comparable reference it’s difficult to judge how good something is.

This has been one of those pieces of gear where I listen to familiar recordings and hear them again for the first time, lots of goose bump moments listening, and in the end that’s what it’s about.

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This DAC took me by the shirt collar slapped my face and called me a little bitch.

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I am the designer of this DAC, and as much as I liked the review (I REALLY did) I would like to comment on the opinion about the characteristics of the sound flavor. Here I want to share my own take - this DAC unlike 99,5% of other DACS doesnt have any feedback and any opamps, and both feedback and opamps cause stripping the music off the harmonics and life. So I consider this DAC pure, squeeky clean and neutral, and ONLY on comparison with feedback / opamp DACS this one seems slightly colored and over the top rich. The reality is the opposite. We design this DAC to have almost ZERO content of 2nd and 3rd harmonics, it is clean like triple distilled water. The MUSIC is beautiful, colorful, full of all kinds of harmonics, overtones, reverbs and so on. The Amber in my book is a benchmark of neutrality, nothing is added, nothing processed or “tubified”. When the music comes through untouched, it strikes you as way richer than the industry’s average, on other DACs.

I had watched the New Record Day review of this DAC and I laughed when I saw this in the comments. Because reading what @Polygonhell wrote here is a lot more in line with my experience and the comments from Lukasz Fikus than from Ron’s windy review on NRD.

I was listening to Dolly Parton’s cover of Stairway to Heaven and when the song finished, my wife who was not even sitting in the sweet spot, (probably sitting something like 30 degrees off axis) said. That sounded like she was here performing the song. It sounded real. She’s never commented on anything like that before.

Besides the usual stating on this DAC which is insanely realistic, deep, tall, and yeah wide (which I think is the easiest dimension for a DAC to recreate) it sounds clean, not antiseptic clean but just the way you’d expect the sounds to sound like. But like I just showered and I am clean kind of clean. Exactly what you’d expect. It’s happened while listening to high hats, drums, bass, trombone, the human voice, everything is just as it should.

I was joking before when I said the little bitch comment earlier, but to describe the level of staging and realism I felt the first time I really sat down to hear DAC, I made a movement to stand up and I got feeling of vertigo because the stage the music was playing in made me feel as if I was about to fall off, I was disoriented because there was so much sound around me and my brain to a second too long to process it all.

I chuckled afterward because it felt like I’d been let in on a little secret, an inside joke if you will. That being that, expensive shit can sound glorious. It was on another level, a level where I could see things that I didn’t even realize were possible before.

I’m glad I spent the money on this DAC, but man if my wife knew how much I’d spent on it and it being the reason why she made that “sounded like she was performing live” comment… :slight_smile:

I’ve got a new pair of speakers I’ll be trying out in the next week or so but after that I’m going to be laying low in the audio purchasing world, probably selling some of the crap and cables etc in the closet and just enjoying the sound of audio bliss for a good long while.

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@db_Cooper
Very nice! I am glad to hear that you are enjoying your new DAC. I love mine and cannot really look back. I would say it was a larger improvement than going from an SMSL to a BF1 or BF2 for that matter. It gives you the intangibles that tricks you into believing you are hearing a performance as you described.

Can I recommend this to someone with just entry level gear? Of course not, but if you have multiple high-end components, then certainly.
I justify mine because I try to use it on as many setups as possible, so that means one component is actually elevating multiple of my setups.

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I have the Amber 3 on my radar but I’m curious whether its a jack of all trades, capable with all genres or a more orientated DAC, more suited for classical, acoustical, jazz and rock maybe. I also listen to electronic and oldskool hip-hop and some DACs (Qutest for example) change the presentation which is very pleasing for some genres but, for me at least, very disturbing with other genres. Is there anybody who listen’s to hip-hop on the Amber 3 who can give his 2 cents?

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I will make some time to swap out appropriate speakers and try it this weekend and report back on the Hip hop, rap, EDM characteristics. You are correct I have not tried those genre’s in earnest on the Amber 3 DAC because the speakers I have been using were not to my liking for that style of music.

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That would be much appreciated, thanks.

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This weekend was a worthwhile expenditure of effort and energy in testing some equipment at home. I can recommend the Lampizator Amber 3 DAC with complete confidence across a wide spectrum of genres to include all modern music and even much foreign material. I have been putting some new speakers through their paces and used the Amber 3 exclusively for all my listening tests and enjoyment. I have gone through and continue to go through a wide variety of music and have not found any limitations or negative interactions with the DAC. The Amber 3 does not over emphasize or take away anything in the chain i have been running all weekend. Yes it has a bold flavor to it but i did not find any negatives in the music.
For your info my chain was: ROON streaming Quboz and Tidal > Innuos Zenith MK3 > Lampizator Amber3 dac > Vinnie Rossie L2iSE amplifier > Klipschorn speakers/REL subs
Good luck whatever you decide.

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That sounds like a very nice way to spend the weekend. I hope also you found some joy in spending the effort and energy while putting the Amber 3 to the test. I really appreciate it, its extremely kind and definitely more than just your 2 cents. I can scratch this concern of my list now with confidence.

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