To all of you who have shared your impressions of Källa:
Thank you!
I have honestly felt too embarrassed to make any comments to your reviews. But I have been happily overwhelmed.
Defender wrote: ↑2021-11-20 19:51
Airplay can get stubborn if you walk out of your wifi zone in case you just put your phone into your pocket but how often does that happen in your home.
Yes. That's why I keep my iPad mini 6 on the living room table, blank except for various streaming services and foobar2000 for possible NAS replay.
Defender wrote: ↑2021-11-20 19:51
Maybe it has to do with my system - Källa doesnt play as loud as Entity. Maybe next Tundra would be able to accept 5db more input solves the topic. I would even trade in some musicality of the Källa for it (because there is plenty).
I don't quite understand this detail, Defender. Entity has a very high output level (therefore suited only to low level MC cartridges). Källa has a slightly lower output level compared to most digital sources. This is because the DAC part of it performs best that way.
Background:
Any normal HiFi company would require all their products to sound equally loud, as that is convenient for the customer. They don't have to change the volume when switching from, for instance, vinyl to a digital streaming service. But I don't run a normal HiFi company. I optimize every unit to perform at its peak. And the output level is unfortunately one of the parameters that are a part of the final result. This is because there is a
lot of gain available in the amplifying circuits, often a hundred thousand times or more. Negative feedback brings it down to the desired level - the volume that you hear. Now either one can choose to set the negative feedback to an output level that is identical to all the other products. Nearly all companies do that, because it's convenient, for them and their customers.
Or one can choose to play with the many parameters involved; raw gain, cutoff frequencies and shelves, negative feedback, locally and universally. And then you'll find that the most musical combination of all these parameters will result in a varying output level between different circuits. Entity and Källa are
completely different circuits and they are both delivering at the volume level where they each perform the best, musically.
The only difference to the user is that you have to change the volume. So when you say that Källa has a lower volume than Entity (correct!), the solution is just to increase the volume when listening to Källa. The limit of Tundra will be the same no matter what source you use - it's the output level that counts. When using Källa, you can go higher than the standard limit of volume 78 on Sagatun and Boazu - it was added just to make sure people don't accidentally start playing a track when their child had pressed the volume up to 100. On the very loudest of songs, regardless of whether it's from Spotify or Tidal or Qobuz or a NAS, Tundra will be fine at level 80. Some songs are recorded lower (on Spotify you MUST disable the "Volume Normalization" option that is in the settings, it's a digital recalculation of every track that makes them sound equally loud and it's really bad for the music) and on the lower recorded songs, you might have to increase your volume several steps beyond 80 (orange).
So please just remove that volume limit and play as loud as you want.