Hi, everyone. I've just spent three days comparing the AMR to a Lenehan Audio PDX Level 2 DAC in my home. My system is far from epic or perfectly configured, but I thought I'd share some of my observations.
First off, the opportunity to run such a comparison is due to the incredible generosity of a local gentleman who owns the DP-777 and Mike Lenehan, who is more dedicated to customer service than perhaps anyone in any industry I've ever dealt with; I would highly recommend Mike to anyone who is considering the PDX (and I would absolutely recommend considering it).
I had the PDX in my system for about eight days before I began listening to the AMR and the PDX easily made my system sound better than it had ever sounded previously. Detail, clarity, depth and breadth of soundstage, sense of space, particularly around acoustic guitar and female vocals -- all there like never before.
For the comparison (which involved the AMR owner and my wife), we mostly listened to redbook tracks, probably about 35 or so on the PDX and maybe a little more than 1/3 of that on the AMR. Some of our reference tracks ended up being the following:
*Joss Stone's "Some Kind of Wonderful" from the Soul Sessions
*The Wailin' Jenny's version of "Old Man" from 40 Days
*Band of Horses' "Detlef Schrempf" off of Cease to Begin
*Hem's "We'll Meet Along the Way" off of Funnel Cloud
*Cassandra Wilson's "Come On In My Kitchen" off Blue Light 'til Dawn
*Robert Plant and Allison Krauss's "Fortune Teller" off of Raising Sand (in 24/96)
After hours of listening to the PDX, which we all felt sounded great, we fired up the AMR (leveraging its preamp stage, which had not been run-in at all). I think the AMR's owner really wasn't sure how the AMR was going to stack up against the PDX, and after months of waiting to hear the AMR, I was certainly excited to finally hear it myself.
My wife was the first to comment and her take held up throughout the rest of our session and has continued to sound right throughout the following two days of additional comparisons: the AMR is brighter and presents a bigger image from front to back. That brightness may be a coloration as opposed to a greater degree of revelation or neutrality -- I'm probably not sophisticated enough to know. Whatever it is, depending upon the track, it seems to remove a film on the music that the PDX presented when compared to the AMR.
Nothing about the AMR even remotely approached other reviewers' experience of lifelessness. The AMR showed its brightness or assertiveness, in particular, on "Some Kind of Wonderful" and "Fortune Teller". Like the PDX, it did a phenomenal job of showcasing acoustic instruments and creating a sense of space and air around vocals.
In short, I found both DACs to be outstanding in my configuration and recommend both of them and both Darren Censullo and Mike Lenehan without reservation. For the moment, I find the AMR to be a better choice in my system, but the comparison is not yet done as Mike would like to swap out resistors in the PDX so that we can conduct another assessment. I will be happy to report on the results of the next comparison.
