Well it’s time for the review.
Let me get to the bottom line 1st, for those of you who don’t care to read through a long post.
Remember YMMV (your music may vary), this applies to my system, with my synergies, and my preferences.
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Does the LanRover make an audible difference?
Yes
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Is it better than sliced bread, in other words night and day?
Not with my system.
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Is it better than anything else used with my system?
No
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Was there any difficulty in setting it up or making it play?
Absolutely none!
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Are the differences large enough to justify keeping it?
Unfortunately, no
Okay off to the races.
You can see from my signature below there’s a bunch of equipment in my system. About 15 months ago I moved halfway across the United States. It took some time to have a new audio room built and then several months to dial in the system that had been dialed in, in my previous audio room over an 18 year period. I finally accomplished “dialing it in” about two months ago.
My setup currently is pretty simple and straightforward as far as digital is concerned. An HP 520 touchsmart with an i5 processor and six gig of memory. It’s running Windows 10, Fidelzer and jRiver 20. The USB out goes through an audioquest jitterbug and then a Locust Design Group Polestar USB cable to the PS audio DSD directstream DAC.
In preparation for the arrival of the LanRover I pulled out my old USB to S/PDF blue box that uses a much older XMOS chip. To my surprise S/PDIF input was audibly better than USB direct. The Blue box has both coax and optical output. There was no difference in sound quality from coaxial versus optical. Therefore I chose to use optical because of the galvanic isolation.
It was with great anticipation that I waited for the arrival of the LanRover.
I’ve now listened for several days with several different configurations.
1) USB direct with and without jitterbug versus LanRover with and without jitterbug
2) blue box vs blue box supplied by LanRover with and without jitterbug
break-in/burn-in: out-of-the-box it was less impressive than the following day. I’ve not noticed any change over the successive days.
My DAC supplies a Behringer crossover. The same one supplied by Sanders with his hybrid electrostatics. From there everything above 127 Hz goes by way of tubes directly to large electrostatic panels. I listened in the extreme nearfield so it’s somewhat like a huge set of headphones, but without the “in the head image” problems.
The LanRover versus direct adds a slight bit more lower midrange warmth and slightly better defined image, in other words more tightly defined within the sound field. There is no noticeable difference in width, depth or height of the images. At the same time the LanRover seems to lose a bit of harmonic complexity.
The blue box by itself is much more revealing than the LanRover, especially with harmonic complexity.
Adding the LanRover to the blue box again demonstrates a very slight warming of lower midrange, but a loss in definition in both lower bass and harmonics. The best way I can describe what I’m calling the loss of harmonics is the difference between listening to a very good speaker with and without a grill cloth.
As I indicated I was quite excited about receiving the LanRover, based on Paul’s glowing report. And you will notice that there are others on this thread who have been thrilled by the differences.
Unfortunately for me my $50 USB to S/PDIF converter, purchased several years ago, easily outperforms the LanRover and the addition of the LanRover to the chain actually makes the sound less real and less involving. Remember YMMF.
I hope this review helps others. And I’m very appreciative and thankful to Paul and the crew for the opportunity to Beta test.
Bruce