Antipodes Audio - Updated Range and Upgrade Program - July 2023

@MarkCole Any idea when the upgrade calls will begin?

Not right at this very second, we have had a small setback on a part, I will advise here when we do.

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Just wanted to confirm the K50 MK2 has the same USB as the Oladra MK1?
The upgraded K50 MK3 has the same USB as the Oladra MK2?
Same quality as the other connections as per upgrade program.
The reason I ask is my new Ideon DAC sounds incredible using USB & it’s their preferred option .

I’m not quite sure of your question to Mark C. The quality of the USB output is not just reliant on the USB output board but also depends on the server board, player board and power supplies in each device.

I guess you realise this and are not hoping that the K50 mk3 USB output is going to sound as good as the Oladra mk2 USB output even if they have the same USB output board. After all, the Oladra mk2 will be costing 10k more than the K50 mk3 (ie more than 50% more expensive) so there is likely to be a significant difference in sound quality of the USB outputs between the new models as well as with the other outputs.

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Are there any Oladra Mk IIs with any dealers yet? Wondering if anyone outside of Antipodes has had a chance to listen to it?

No not yet, will be later in the month.
We have just sold out of OLADRA, so if your dealer hasn’t ordered, it will be September.

They did order…so not too long, then!

I realise the K50 MK3 USB is clearly not going to be as good as the Oladra MK1 as they are completely different products being 10K difference -just curious .
Owners of existing K50’s who have upgraded to the Oladra clearly say it’s in a different league as it employs the upgraded player, server & App PSU’S etc which is understandable.

For 6k to upgrade the K50 mkI I certainty hope it is as good as the original Olandra if not better

The K50 mk1 upgraded will be a K50 mk3 which has a retail price of 19k.

In bare terms that compares to the retail price of the Oladra mk1 at 25k, ie 6k more than the K50 mk3.

It is not inconceivable that the K50 mk3 will be near to the Oladra mk1 and it might even be the equal of it but that 6k price gap does rather hint that it will be a tall order and will be a challenge for that to be the case. But even getting near to an Oladra mk1 would be a very high level of sound quality indeed and is not to be sniffed at.

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Dollars tend to be a really good indication. I think the one wildcard though is the lift from the reclocked USB. Some DACSs might be more apt to respond really well to this, so that might help to tilt the advantage over to the K50 mk3 despite the price differential. But I think if one is using the reclocker already with the original K50 and they are looking for performance on par with the original Oladra, the best bet would be to pick one up on the used market.

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Indeed. I have just seen the first second hand Oladra Mk1 come up in the UK and that would be a good buy.

Nice write up @JJJS . Thanks for sharing. Couple of my own &/or similar observations:

  1. at this level of (top notch) gear, i’m more often that not immediatedly wow’d by the change in sound when i first insert a new piece of kit into my stack.

  2. the truth in terms of what best aligns with my own unique set of personal sound preferences however only emerges after sustained listening.

  3. like you i found that i eventually missed what the Germans call “Sturm und Drang” after i had swapped out the K50 mk2 for the Oladra mk1. Probably most likely because of the type of music i listen to. If these devices were fruits (forgive the inadequate parallel) then for MY preferences the Oladra was slightly tipped over to over ripened and the K50 was just marginally on the other side of perfect ripeness. Neither perfect for me but the K50 closer to what i prefer.

  4. if I wasnt as clear about what my preferences are ( you seem to be very clear on yours) then i’m pretty sure i’d be “blowing with wind” chasing new stuff everytime it got released just because it sounded different (&still great) and simply for the sake of it…ie novelty (& dopamine rush😀). Gulilty as charged on past nehaviour.

  5. its simply fantastic to get to have the choice these fine products offer.

  6. hopefully the K50 mk3 takes me a little step closer to perfect “ripeness” without tipping over the edge.

This is such an important point.

I was expecting that a change in the kind of power supplies used would bring about a change in the overall character. SMPSs are wicked-fast and that might not be what all ears prefer. JJJS mentioned that the Oladra “lacked oomph” and it made me think of a Krell amp that I used to own. It carried a ton of oomph, but it was only after comparing it to my current Spectral amp that I realized that oomph was due to the Krell not being as nimble. I could certainly understand that many might prefer the Krell’s character, but not me as what I concluded was that the Spectral amp was more convincingly real. It took a bit of time to adjust to the missing oomph, but in hindsight, it was one of my best moves in audio, as other moves aimed at improving time domain performance have paid huge dividends as far bringing the sound of live music to my listening room. I suspect that I will find the new SMPS power supply much more to my liking. This is just speculation though.

Good provocation @dbastin2605 . I imagine Chord Dac owners had the same set of choices when it came to upgrading by adding an MScaler (hardware) vs simply deploying the much cheaper HQPlayer (processing software). @NickBacon may have some insight on this.

The Oladra brings to the party an umatched level of ease to the way music is delivered making it sound (to my ears) so very natural. It also achieves a goldilocks sort of combination with its high resolution, tonal correctness and full bodiness.

By way of contrast my experimenting with HQPlayer could not replicate this sort of goldilocks combination in a coherent &/ or convncingly natural way, and if anything music was delivered with an artifical digital sheen that was anything but natural/satisfying.

Whether its worth paying US29k to get that big slice of musical nirvava is another question. To my mind and ears, where money is not a constraint, it is a no brainer.

When I was helping Sean Jacobs to evaluate and fine tune his new ARC6 linear power supplies we were both surprised just how much effect a power supply can have on the sound quality of a digital only device and this question of ‘speed’ was often discussed. What seemed to matter was the impedance of the power supply for best sound quality and a ‘fast’ sounding power supply might in reality just be a noisy power supply leading to enhanced false detail artifacts.

I am a great fan of the Oladra sound but I do admit that a little bit of me wonders how it might sound with some high quality linear power supplies in an external case instead of internal smps. Unfortunately this would almost certainly take the Oladra nearer to 35k. Anyway my curiosity might be sufficient to have a play with some repurposed ARC6 power supplies that were used for another project . . . . . .
.

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“Fast sounding” is a subjective impression. My use of the term “fast” was meant to point to objective performance. I think “false detail artifacts” is a quality of poorly-performing power supplies that can fall in each of the camps (linear, hybrid, SMPS). A well-engineered / well-implemented power supply will always beat a poorly-engineered / poorly-implemented power supply. I do think though if we compare best in class in each camp some differences will be emerge that set them apart with positive qualities being exactly the result of the supply being better in a particular area.

It sure would be informative to be able to easily swap out the power supply to hear its exact contribution. You are right about the price being higher but I think it would go even higher than $35K as a separate chassis might be needed. While sound quality is a foremost consideration, I think one still has to appreciate that the Oladra’s more compact chassis was made possible by the change in power supply.

Taiko has been included in either their switch or their DC distributor a GaN pre-regulator that is claimed to have leveled the playing field as far as the power supply needing to be low impedance. A good power supply still matters but in this case as good as one needs might be something like the affordable Uptone JS-2, which has inferior regulators relative to the great and expensive power supplies from Sean Jacobs. Whether this pans out in practice still remains to be seen but I find it fascinating nonetheless. I hope these pre-regulators make it into more products in a affordable way.

I suspect the K30 upgrade may be the best value for money. It’s reclocked usb will be the same as the new Oladra I think. It was certainly the best value when I bought it. For the usb user it was better value then the K50.

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Oh, if only that were the case.

I have wondered if the use of fast and speed terms when promoting power supplies is of any meaningful relevance or just more marketing speak. I accept that technically some power supplies might have parts and/or design typology that are particularly ‘fast’ and in that way the use of those terms is truthful. However, for a server which processes data, assembles that in packets and stores that in RAM awaiting delivery by ethernet … all quite in advance of the actual output time … I do wonder if speed is really an issue. And for a player/renderer, which is time sensitive in terms of music because it outputs streams rather than ethernet packets, I imagine has very low power requirements and there is typically 1 or more stages of reclocking that introduce a ‘lag’ in time (ie. the reclocked output like Oladra and/or DAC reclocking). Presumably the design of players and reclocking minimises the lag and anyhow their power is fed via capacitors which store power (and presumably a good design will store enough to function optimally under even the highest loads). I imagine the ‘speed’ of power matters more at the DAC and mostly the power amp (as can be evident by using high current power cords on even moderate and relatively efficient power amps … read about Shunyata DTCD).

It seems to me how a power supply deals with the noise it generates matters alot more, and having fast parts might help with that. And of most importance is if (or how much) that characteristic is a synergy with other things in a system, like the noise generated by a server mainboard or player board, and how the various power supplies and the things they power (and their residual noise) create a harmonious synergy.

However all that is probably quite moot if the AC supply to the power supply is very noisy. I suspect the next frontier is batteries, DC powered devices and low noise inverters where AC is required. That is the path I am on but limited by spare time constraints (which I would have plenty of if money where not a constraint).

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John Swenson has claimed that noise can be dumped onto the ground plane if digital circuits are not supplied with current quickly enough to meet instantaneous demands. I think this helps to explain why low impedance supplies are so beneficial to digital gear as the lag to supply current is reduced. It stands to reason then that a supply that is quicker fulfill instantaneous demands can offer lower noise performance. SMPS have that capability but the problem has always been that they bring noise with them that offsets the benefits of them being quicker. A smart designer can offset that by properly dealing with the noise that an SMPS brings. Two of the smartest designers of high end servers believe there is a ton of merit in this approach over linear supplies for servers.

As far as instantaneous demands in a computer, one just needs to spend time looking at a performance monitor on a Mac or PC. There is constant activity and the power supply is constantly asked to fulfill demands the instant it’s needed.

The potential for not having instantaneous demands met is significant - especially on a Server engine running an app like Roon. Less so on a Player engine running a very lightweight player app, but even there experience shows that a low impedance supply still provides substantial benefits. Heck even a fairly static device like a switch benefit greatly from a low impedance supply.

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