After neglecting my speakers for a while due to my recent electrostat headphone lust, I have put together my speaker rig again after receiving the DIY First Watt F5 amp. My main speakers are actively bi-amped, and I was looking for an extremely resolving amp for tweeter/midrange (Aurum Cantus G3 ribbon/Focal 7K2 midrange) beyond what my tube amps can provide. The F5 is fantabulously beautifully resolved in this range, I must say.

BTW. Yes, that is the controversial Storm Audio Pandora DAC, currently used in "Master" mode, slaving my Lynx 2B spdif output from my quiet PC.

Sweet looking setup Jon, and you must have very good karma to own one of the few Storm Pandoras that exists, without problems no less.

Sweet looking setup Jon, and you must have very good karma to own one of the few Storm Pandoras that exists, without problems no less.

Who said anything about problem-free Pandora

There is a reason the top cover is off other than the huge teflon output capacitors I placed protruding out...

Magic looking speakers! And I love all the tube boxes scattered about. A tweaker lives here.

what's going on with it?

It arrived with spdif input not working as well as shipping damage (aka poor packing job) to the external casing. Part of LCD flickers. There were some shorted wiring as well, which I had to hunt down and fix.

Most of all, it sounded subpar in stock format (TDA1543 x8 and stock Claritycap output caps), lacking detail and dynamics.

After I fixed many issues, put in 8 more TDA1543 (total 16), changed the output caps to combo of polystyrene and teflon, it's sounding *much* better. It still has spdif intermittency issues. I suspect a cracked PCB tracing somewhere but it works most of the time..

Its toslink and USB input are sounding surprisingly good, though. The USB-I2S coupling sounds very good compared to other USB-spdif jobbies I've listened to.