Lampizator Baltic 4 valve DAC
I have been using solid-state electronics for years but have always been intrigued by valve or tube based components. The Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista products, which were very impressive when I reviewed them for The Ear qualify as hybrid tube products, but the Nuvistor tubes used in them are a niche component in the world of tube electronics. A few weeks ago, I chatted with Greg Drygala of G-Point Audio, which finally set things in motion for me to try a tube-based DAC.
Lampizator is a small but revered Polish manufacturer whose DACs I have been impressed with at several hi-fi shows, the Baltic 4 sits on the second rung of the company’s ladder, with the Amber 4 below it. Where the Amber 4 is a single-ended design, the Baltic 4 is natively balanced, so it offers XLR outputs in addition to single-ended RCAs. Prices for this DAC start at £6,480 for the fixed output unit. The unit tested here includes the optional volume control, effectively making it a digital preamp, and costs an additional £2,040 with remote control. Greg brought over a plethora of alternative rectifiers and indirectly heated dual-triode tubes for me to try with this DAC. For those new to tube-based products, experimenting with tubes from different manufacturers and, indeed, vintages and specs is known as ‘tube rolling’.
The Baltic 4 was placed on the top shelf of my Quadraspire SVT rack to facilitate this. Swapping tubes produced some clear changes to the balance of the sound; most surprisingly, swapping the rectifier tube to a Westinghouse VU71 pushed the rear of the soundstage well behind the speakers. Changing this to Psvane Acme 274B brought additional space and air to the party. Swapping the output tube from the modern Chinese tubes we started with to Sylvania JAN 6SN7W improved instrumental texture, focus and bass control. None of this will surprise long-term users of tube electronics, but I found the effects of tube-rolling fascinating and potentially a great aid to system matching.
Design, build and features
Using tubes is a decisively retro ideology, but the Engine Eleven digital board used in the Baltic 4 is bang up to date. This DAC can play every digital format users are likely to find available, including DSD512, which, considering that many DACs have passed through my hands and cannot reliably exceed DSD128, is pretty impressive. The Baltic 4 has four digital inputs: AES, SPDIF RCA, Toslink, and USB and the input volume for each of these is fully configurable. To the rear is a rocker switch to facilitate full power off and on, with the standby button somewhat confusingly and inconveniently towards the front underside of the unit. Being a demo unit, no remote was supplied, but internet photos show an on/off switch on the remote, presumably meaning that you don’t need to find the button on the DAC. My demo unit was an early production sample, which, although fully up-to-date internally, does use the front plate from the Baltic 3, so bear this in mind whilst browsing the photos in this review.
For a price Lampizator components can be upgraded by the company as the products evolve. As you can see in these images, my sample is silver with a very clear and easy to read display. The volume control doubles up as an input selector, which scrolls through the inputs via an inward press. This DAC became a talking point for visitors, many of whom didn’t even know that such things existed, let alone having a strong following in the audiophile world. Lampizator distributor Greg Drygala explained that these tubes should last many years compared to those in an amplifier as they are not driven hard, which is probably why they didn’t get particularly hot, even on warm days. Thankfully, our cats kept well away from my system while the Baltic 4 was in-situ, which was an unexpected bonus.
Lifelike
For reference, all critical listening was via my Melco N1/S38 server/streamer, connected to various noise-killing devices, such as Melco’s S100 network switch. Cables included Titan Audio power, CAD USB II-R digital and Townshend Audio Isolda interconnects and speaker cable. I began using the Moon 641 integrated amplifier and, later, the Moon 600i and the Baltic 4 replaced a £12,000 DAC/streamer that I had recently finished reviewing for another publication. My wife’s immediate reaction was that the Baltic 4 sounded notably more natural and realistic, which cannot be a bad start. Whilst the more expensive component certainly had its merits, there is no denying that the Baltic 4’s midrange, in particular, is incredibly attractive and natural to listen to, which makes long listening sessions most enjoyable.
Sound quality
During the initial listening I played mainly to golden-age jazz and some classical music recommended by Greg, which sounded extremely impressive through this DAC. Later on I listened to some more modern music, including bass-heavy electronica and rock. Being new to tube designs, it took me a while to get used to the Baltic 4’s presentation, where my own Simaudio Moon 780D, and indeed DACs from the likes of Chord Electronics, tend to impress first with their rhythmic bass drive and precision, the Baltic 4 produces a comparatively soft and loose rendition of the music. Once you relax and listen deeper, the bass is all there and can be incredibly deep and powerful when the music demands, but it is slightly further back in the mix. This DAC is no slouch, though, it is impressively dynamic and throws a wonderful soundstage that fills the room like few others, certainly nothing else I have heard at this price point gets close in this regard. What you get is wonderful instrumental texture and tracking of microdynamics, which can be extremely intimate and involving. Similarly, the Baltic 4 does a fantastic job at revealing the recorded acoustic and studio effects, it reproduces the body, resonance and sustain of acoustic instruments better than any other DAC I have heard. You don’t get quite the same level of transparency with dense multitrack rock and electronic music as a good solid-state design, but the Baltic 4’s softer edges make the best of these genre’s often overly harsh and bright recordings, which makes you want to keep listening. Despite this, it excels with acoustic and more sparse recordings, where you marvel at the level of sheer realism on offer.
The way the Baltic 4 presents the soundstage is utterly palpable and unforced, it creates a beautiful sonic picture laid out across the entire plane around my speakers. Instruments have real body, texture and tonal purity, which makes them so believable. The top end is well extended and possesses all the air you could ask for, but in my system, it was utterly devoid of any harshness, tizz or exaggerated sibilance. Take the Cowboy Junkies’ classic album The Trinity Sessions(CD rip of the Cooking Vinyl pressing). This closely miked production can sound unnaturally sibilant with lesser DACs, but here, Margo Timmins’ voice sounded so solid and natural that the sibilants felt part of her performance rather than detracting from it.
The Lampizator Baltic 4’s full-bodied presentation greatly benefitted recordings that usually sound thin and lifeless. The latest 24/192 release of Steely Dan’s Aja is said to be a flat transfer from a copy of the original master tape. I had previously found that unless you really crank it up, compared to some of the other versions I own, it also sounds musically flat and uninvolving. The Baltic 4 proved just the trick for this version, giving it the life and body it sorely needed. An album I have been enjoying recently is Yellow by Emma-Jean-Thackray (24/44.1 Qobuz). Via other DACs, this album can sound dry and, in parts, thin and grey. The added colour and body the Baltic 4 brings out helped the music fill my room with a wide and deep soundstage, which was hugely involving.
Conclusion
I found my time with the Lampizator Baltic 4 entertaining and enlightening. It gives the music a sense of presence, air, body, life and intimacy that I have not previously experienced. Compared to the best solid-state DACs, it can sound slightly less precise, controlled and analytical, and you don’t get quite the same force and drive in the lower frequencies, but its other qualities make up for that with the majority of music. I recall hearing one of the company’s larger and more expensive models at a show, in a system that delivered a tremendously powerful and rhythmic bass performance, so this isn’t a limitation of tube technology per se. I will undoubtedly miss the magic this DAC delivers, and I am not looking forward to adjusting to a solid-state DAC once it has gone back to the distributor. Being able to change the tonal balance and soundstage perspective by swapping tubes is a valuable tool with which to fine-tune it to suit your system and the optional variable output stage is of a high standard and potentially reduces your component count. If you crave digital music that sounds more natural, vivid, intimate, yet dynamic and involving, the Lampizator Baltic 4 could well be the answer.