Listening to the Volumio Preciso
Contents
The Preciso sounds detailed and controlled. The soundstage has a strong focus in the center, between the speakers. The sound is spacious, but you do not experience the soundstage spatially, the focus is clearly in a plane. The spaciousness is rather transparency.
The Volumio Preciso handles dynamic passages effortlessly, but it cannot properly reproduce the scale of the orchestra. With Chandos’ Prokofiev recordings, the orchestra is not very clearly chiseled out in the soundstage, and the placement of instrument groups in the orchestra from front to back is somewhat diffuse, but it does not distract.
With USB
Volumio’s included USB cable is excellent. An Audioquest Cinnamon USB cable takes some sharpness off the mid-high, but it is a small nuance rather than an upgrade recommendation.
Power supply of the Volumio Preciso
We compare the supplied power supply, an iFi iPower2, an SBooster, the Lineo5 power supply and the LHY 25VA as a power supply to the Preciso. We use both CD as a source, and the Rivo+ which we then connect with the supplied power supply as we use the Lineo5 for the Preciso.
The CD “So” by Peter Gabriel sounds more coherent with the supplied power supply than with the iFi. The proprietary power supply gives more bass and more weight on the mids and you are drawn more into the music.
Both the iFi and the Lineo5 make Volumio Preciso play forward. The means, the high frequencies gets emphasis relative to the bottom of the middle frequencies, and throws the balance a bit off. The emphasis is very much on the transparency of the playback, but the Rivo+ plays a major role in the resulting transparency.
With the SBooster, the sound of violin, cello and piano comes alive with the Van Baerle Trio. There is some “meat” to the sound. Most importantly, it is more of a musical story presented to the listener. The SBooster reveals a Preciso that is not only calm and decisive but also more joyful in its playback, but it is not the last word in involvement, as we will hear in comparison with the Earmen Tradutto.
When we connect the LHY power supply we hear a balanced reproduction that we like most and we use this power supply for further testing.