With that lay of the land, identifying the Giant Steps' placement isn't difficult. First, let me stress that as far as magnitude of impact goes, this newcomer design sits as high as the Carbide Audio and sound|kaos specimens. That made it logical that when moving between any of these in no particular order, the results were three distinct yet equally intense flavours. While efficacy transcends personal biases and tastes, it doesn't overwrite them. On that note, Carbide Micro's gearing prioritized precision, articulation, speed and directness. Vibra 68 leaned more towards darkness, saturation, envelopment, softness, density and other artsy assets. Giant Steps ventured even deeper in the latter direction by injecting still greater heft, juiciness, backdrop inkiness, sensuality and moisture. That's the short form. But there was more.
Backdrop blackness, smoothness, resolution, tone and colour deepening are all byproducts of noise rejection. The more noise we cut, the more these virtues step to the fore. Of the three footers, Giant Steps produced the most dense, atmospheric, anchored, dark and velvety sound. This gave reason to think that whatever this novel design does in the magnetic domain, it works really well. Most interestingly, on raunchy fare macro-dosed to party SPL, the Lithuanian stack proved as quick, controlled, resolved and composed as their sparring partners. Usually prioritized tone, blackness and organic qualities put the speedier aspects on the back burner and vice versa. Not this time. When music in demand of crack and slam was on the menu, Giant Steps followed along. The true ace in their sleeve was still elsewhere, however. When Giant Steps were on duty, my system made music noticeably more relaxed, flowing and sensual than with the other two footer types. I'm not entirely sure whether I can put into words the exact sensation I want to convey but with these black pucks in play, spatial embrace, ambience, a soothing mood and enjoyable flow particularly on calm minimalist tracks was uniquely strong and most agreeable. To my ears, that very high level of listening comfort was their strongest asset.
In the context of the earlier car analogy, Giant Steps would be a ride with the same RPM limits and horsepower as Vibra 68 but a softer-sprung suspension, leathered-up interior and tinted windows. That said, there's a place for all three models. Each easily trumps stock footers of electronics or speakers.. As the most twitchy, radiant, electric, intense and illuminated of this lot, Carbide Micro with the hardest insert will do wonders for systems that put softness, chunkiness, warmth, calmness and intimacy first. Vibra 68 is most universal and evenly balanced so will work equally well pretty much anywhere. Giant Steps voiced contrary to Micro aims at scenarios that sound too fresh, lean, mechanical and emotionless. That's the rough guideline.
At this point my understanding of how Giant Steps go about their business was firm but I still had more experiments to do. I formed three stacks of two then three Giant Steps each to track whether their unusual noise-rejecting skills could compound in ways that would net a worthwhile performance spike. The short answer is yes but diminishing returns applied. While six under my DAC did more than three in a manner that registered, the very demonstrable difference of going from zero to trio didn't repeat. The still detectable change that followed after adding three more to reach nine was even smaller. Using as many under three separate components of DAC, preamp and streamer was the obvious play for best results. Still, stacked Giant Steps reinforce their effectiveness. There was one more scenario that I couldn't stop thinking about. As robust and short as they are, these LessLoss pucks seem ideal for combining with other footers. Now my DAC sat atop Giant Steps, those on the base of inverted Carbide Micro. When two opposite flavours mix, usually the outcome is their average. But today's footers injected their copious density and unique calmness into Micro's twitchier turbo profile. The joint action largely resembled what Vibra 68s does on their own but stronger and as quick, open and airy as what Micro does by itself so gains all around. From this quite unpractical triangulation I gather that blending magnetic and mechanical isolators can net excellent results. Let's wrap. I'm sure that the LessLoss Giant Steps will raise eyebrows and make forum pundits boil. I can largely understand when the theory behind their MO is quite far out. Then again, just as the manufacturer's Firewall did already, today's tiny nicely dressed robust footers changed my system a lot – so much in fact that I consider both equally effective and wicked. LessLoss fans may find that intel useful. Others willing to at least try Giant Steps may find them very surprising and performance-wise quite the step up indeed.
Publisher's postscript: With my fuse of personal curiosity lit by Dawid's findings and unexpected explanation of the MO of these pucks, I signed up for a follow-on review. That doesn't retread ground Dawid covered already. Instead it veers deeper into the magnetic domain to learn whether these innocuous bits can be exploited for (cough) non-conventional apps, too.
