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Old 01-18-2018, 08:54 PM
PHC1 PHC1 is offline
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Default Audeze Deckard Amp

Picked up a store demo Audeze Deckard for a fair price. These are supposedly now all sold out and discontinued.

The Deckard is a Class A headphone amp with a DAC section built in that can do up to 384kHz/32bit.

Designed by BMW Designworks USA, the same team that worked on the BMW i8 design, the Deckard is a good looking amp.

Featuring three gain positions of 0dB, 10dB and 20dB (Low, Mid, High) and up to 4W of Class A power into 20 ohms, it has enough gain and "testicular fortitude" to drive virtually any headphone out there.

I let the Deckard warm up for an hour before the listening session commenced and since this was a store demo, it is fully broken in and ready to go.

I decided to pair the Deckard with its natural partner the LCD-3, the pair was more than likely voiced together at Audeze at some point along with the other Audeze models.

I was very curious to hear the built in DAC section as I have heard very positive comments about the Deckard and the few reviews out there are also positive.

Installing the driver for Windows was a breeze, it can be done with the included mini-CDR or download from the Deckard page at Audeze.com.

The Deckard all powered up and plugged into my windows PC with the provided USB cable, I fired up Roon, enabled the XMOS USB under settings of Roon, (Roon will usually see all new possible devices hooked up) and pulled up some of my recent albums that I have spent the last few weeks with, which are still fresh in my memory. The excellent Charlie Haden recordings are a real treat if you enjoy the intimately recorded jazz and enjoy the masterful bassist playing a double bass. The album Heartplay also features Antonio Forcione and his incredibly skillful guitar playing style.

To be honest, I was not expecting the Deckard to exactly overwhelm me with its performance since I have been enjoying my Violectric V281 and Schiit Gumby DAC as my reference and here is an amp/dac combo that used to retail for $699. So this is David vs Goliath type of a comparison. But, such as often the case with audio gear, we are sometimes very pleasantly surprised and this is certainly the case with the Deckard.

The Deckard/LCD-3 is an outstanding pairing. The Deckard effortlessly brought out the very best the LCD-3 are capable of with effortless dynamics. Paying attention to the double bass playing by Charlie Haden, each individual and often forceful double bass string plucking flooded my headphones with the richness and purity of harmonics the double bass is capable of on a decent recording. The resonant double bass instrument was reproduced with great articulation, drive, speed and harmonic richness that I am used to from the V281 but was not really expecting from the physically much smaller Deckard box.

Violectric easily puts out 5.6W into 100ohms which is way more than the LCD-3 would ever need and the 4W of the Deckard is evidently also plenty. So the Deckard does great BASS as was also confirmed on a few tracks of electronic dance music that I occasionally listen to with the synthesized bass lines being reproduced to the best of LCD-3 capability. The LCD-3 easily goes down to 10Hz in bass response as is confirmed by headphone tests specifically designed for that purpose but of course 10Hz is down somewhat but still audible and is felt more in the head rather than the ears. Good stuff.

Having been satisfied the Deckard does great bass which is one of my criteria for musical enjoyment, some amp/headphone pairings bloat out the bass, others are bass shy but remain articulate and in control even if not reaching the bottom octaves. The Deckard easily drives the LCD-3 to the limit of bass response with full control and articulation.

The vocals were engaging and tonally pure. I would say the Deckard much like the Violectric has a midrange presentation that is pure but a bit on the reticent side of neutral instead of being forward or in your face. That is always a big plus in my book. Class A typically does not present an overly forward midrange and the Deckard is no different here. Both amps are just one small step towards the laid back and the slightly chestier, weightier and meatier presentation, favoring the rich harmonic structure rather than the accentuation of the transient speed and apparent/resulting false sense of airiness and openness at the expense of proper weight and meat on the bones of the music.

Where the Deckard and its built in USB DAC could not truly compare is the accuracy of the instruments spanning the upper end of the frequency spectrum. Cymbals are clearly more natural sounding to my ears through the Gumby vs the Deckard DAC. This was also confirmed listening to Gumby through the Deckard and bypassing Deckard's own DAC. The Violectric built in DAC module also has a hard time competing here. The cymbals and piano purity is always a good test. The piano spans quite a wide frequency range and often sounds off by some margin because the upper octaves are just not quite right. Could be a Delta-Sigma vs R/2R DAC difference here. I have yet to hear a DAC do better with cymbals and piano than Gumby in my own system or from memory.

All in all, the Deckard is an outstanding AMP/DAC for virtually any headphone out there and is a fantastic value IMHO. It rewards the listener with a non fatiguing, harmonically rich and balanced presentation that is easy on the ears yet never bores with plenty of drive and control to keep things rocking. I was foot tapping and head bobbing from the first minute I turned the Deckard on and that is always a great sign, it simply means all is right and nothing distracts you from the enjoyment of music. Deckard is very musical and makes for a very enjoyable pairing with Audeze headphones that I have paired it with so far.

I have finally found a good solution for my office where I will pair the Audeze Deckard with the Audeze LCD2-Classic which also sounded fantastic with the Deckard.

Highly recommend the Audeze Deckard if you come across one.







Last edited by PHC1; 01-18-2018 at 09:11 PM.
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Old 01-19-2018, 07:05 PM
greekgod greekgod is offline
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Thank for the review. I have done A/B comparisons between the Deckard and the King. Let me tell you, once you hear the King, the Decakard will become completely unlistenable.
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Old 01-19-2018, 07:17 PM
PHC1 PHC1 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by greekgod View Post
Thank for the review. I have done A/B comparisons between the Deckard and the King. Let me tell you, once you hear the King, the Decakard will become completely unlistenable.
That's like saying when I had the Wilson Sophia speakers and I later upgraded to Alexia, the Sophia were completely unlistenable.

That's not how it works in audio my friend. No doubt the King is a great amp but the Deckard is a Class A amp with 4w of power with a very nice DAC section to drive any headphone to near perfection. It is a great amp. Going up from here brings only tremendous expense and diminishing returns but we all know that and some don't mind paying for that last ounce of performance.
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Old 01-20-2018, 02:22 AM
greekgod greekgod is offline
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Oh no, you have it all wrong my friend. The difference is not even remotely subtle. It is a night and day difference. The King offers so much more than just diminishing returns and the last ounce of performance. The King is so good that with a high resolution recording, it literally tricked me into thinking there was a live band playing in the room with me. It took me a good solid minute or two of looking around the room to realize I had been fooled. No exageration! It was an absolutely magical experience which is something FEW audio products can pull off. I highly recommend you give it a demo and judge for yourself.
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