Georgi

The Platinum experienced a very significant redesign compared to the Gold. Our designers implemented a quad-DAC architecture, separating the D/A conversion of the left and right channels in different DAC chips, which affects very positivley the stereo separation and the overall imaging. In addition they added a FPGA up-sampler before the DACs which works with much higher precision compared to the one in the DACs. The video with Igor Levin, which I posted earlier explains better the technologies. Here's the preview of the Platinum review that Matej from Mono and Stereo is preparing. He also knows the Gold quiet well and is comparing the devices. Best, Georgi

Hi Boris, I'm not here to justify, but I should say that with the considerable background in professional audio that Antelope has we are the last to be accused in "audiophilese". Do not know what do you mean by marketing "spin", since in the descriptions of the Antelope sound we have used are mainly expressions and statements shared by some of the many audio engineers who trust our gear - check out these videos or these ones. Regarding the Oven Controlled Oscillator and 64-bit Acoustically Focused Technology - can't see any marketing fluff there - these are the core Antelope Audio technologies that are the bases of the accurate conversion of digital to analog signal. Cheers, Georgi

Hi antigrunge, You are right Platinum comes later than initially announced, but with the sound quality and innovation technologies it offers it comes way before most of the competitors. You will understand what I'm saying when you listen to it - the closest listening opportunity is CES, Las Vegas in January and ISE Amsterdam in February. The Platinum is fully functional, compatible with all operating systems - the 384 kHz support on Mac is a matter of a couple of minor tweaks on the USB driver coming out in a few days. The new Voltikus has nothing to do with the Zodiac Gold. If a customer wants to upgrade the Gold with a Voltikus is free to buy a first generation Voltikus which is still available. The Platinum, however comes only with the second generation of Voltkus. Antelope is the leading manufacturer of audio master clock and does not need cheep tricks to sale more clocks. The simple and most logical explanation of the lack of 10M input in the Gold is that by the time we developed the Gold the Atomic clocking was not a popular idea among home audio users. By the way how many manufacturers currently offer a DAC with a 10 MHz input? And yes, we are working on Gold firmware updates, of course giving priority to the products to be launched, while the R&D we did for the Platinum will help a lot in future Gold firmware updates. Best, Georgi

Igor Levin talks about the technologies that stay behind the new Zodiac Platinum DAC, discusses DSD upsampling and quad-DAC architecture.

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Pre-orders for Platinum DSD DAC and Voltikus PSU start shipping next week...