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The Absolute Sound - Best Product 2013 Between $3,000 & $10,000
HiFi Plus Review - December 2012 - Issue 94
6 Moons Review - Blue Moon Award
The Eximus DP1 is a high-end digital to analog converter up to 192kHz/24Bit, which can also be used as a pure preamplifier and top-quality headphone amplifier. The Eximus DP1 has 6 digital inputs including USB 2.0. Each input supports playback of files up to 192kHz/24Bit (44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192kHz). For USB, this is accomplished with the ultimate USB 2.0 solution from XMOS with its super-quality oscillators (2 separate oscillators for the multiples of 44.1 and 48kHz).
Alex Rasmussen of A-Rex/Neal Feay designed the chassis cosmetics. Alex owns a full-capacity machine shop in Santa Barbara, CA and is famous for his remarkable industrial designs for Ayre, Constellation Audio, Resolution Audio and many others. The basic design concept of the chassis is the leaf. It represents springtime and with it the month of April like their company name. The volume control, engraved details on the top and all the lines are based on this leaf theme.
The Eximus DP1 may be used anywhere and for all Hifi and recording/mastering applications. It can sit on your desktop next to a notebook computer, in a studio monitoring environment, as a headphone amplifier on a night stand or as your main DAC/preamplifier in a high-end playback system. All you need are matching headphones, a pair of powered small loudspeakers or a conventional Hifi system. For those who want a small but high-quality matching power amplifier, April Music will soon release the Eximus S1 power amplifier in exactly the same chassis and design which can be additionally bridged for larger spaces and higher output power (Oct 2011).
The Eximus DP1 is deliberately small, very beautiful and musically correct for music lovers. As soon as you hear the first note, you will easily identify the natural musicality of the DP1.
The music is simply there – no more, no less.
Now all you have to do is forget the equipment and enjoy!
In Stock
Posted by Paul Coster on 05/06/2012
The Eximus DP1 has around 60 hours listening time on it now. Not a great deal for a month and that is entirely due to other pressures on my time available for listening for I am happy to report a real improvement to my system. The first change is the ability of the Eximus to recover detail and to keep the separate instruments and voices apart, but this is only its second strongest feature compared with its rivals at this price (and some that are far more expensive)
The trump card is the authentic reproduction of the sounds of those instruments which really has you convinced that they are in the listening room. Tone and timbre are accurate and convincing when compared to the real thing and the natural speed and timing of the notes or percussion leaves me wondering why other dacs are unable to be so faithful. Notes emerge from the speakers as originally sung or played or struck, be it as the evolution of the gentlest of sighs or the fastest explosion of notes from a virtuosic performance. The DP1 is just so musical in its presentation, and if there were more hours in the day I would happily spend them listening to more of my music.
It sounds superb on both computer audio replay and as an external dac to my Oppo BDP83SE, which is no slouch with its ESS Sabre dac chips. It is less harsh than the Oppo playing through its own stereo circuit and just as detailed. I would also acknowledge the contribution made by new interconnect and speaker cables from Chris Sommovigo’s excellent Black Cat range, which are slightly more run-in than the Eximus together with excellent support and vibration draining from Stillpoint.
My conclusion is that I am hearing digital music with less error from the equipment than I have ever heard before. It makes you realise that both standard CD resolution and higher 24bit resolution music has far more to offer than has been acknowledged in the past 20 years.
All this and I have not yet tried the Eximus as a pre-amp for my record deck or as a headphone amp. I will not be surprised when April Music start to pick up critical praise in Europe for the DP1. No doubt you will see me again once you have stock of the matching S1 amp. Please let me know when that becomes available here.
