Originally Posted by HeadphoneAddict
I want to add to my comments about single ended HD600 on Amphora vs balanced HD600 off the Single Power balanaced Square Wave XL with Blackgate upgrade. While the advantage goes to the balanced rig as I stated above, I am still surprised at how much more transparent the HD600 sound now with 250 hours on the amp than they did when it was pretty new. Those with HD600 do not have to avoid the Amphora as I was worried about initially.
I had a Headamp Gilmore Reference Amplifier here for a several week loan a few months ago, and I compared to my Sq Wave back in January. While the Gilmore Reference was quite close to the Sq Wave with the D2000 and Edition 9, it was not as good with the Grados or HD600 as the Sq Wave or WA6. And now after comparing the Amphora to the SP and Woo, I believe the Amphora would top the Gilmore with the RS-1 and HD600 as well. So, I like the Amphora more than a Gilmore Reference, and about as much as my Single Power balanced Square Wave XL with everything but HD600 and K1000, but slightly less than my maxed WA6 (my favorite).
For a lark I tried my new K1000 on the Amphora (with my 4-pin to SE adapter) and on the Single Power balanced. Up to the volume limit of the Amphora there was no clipping and the sound was clear, just not as loud as I would like to normally listen to them. With the balanced rig the sound signature was very similar to the Amphora, with the big difference being the volume and dynamics with the amp turned up. What I am finding is that the detail, transparency, imaging, separation and soundstage of the single ended Amphora is close to that of a more costly balanced Square Wave XL with most of my headphones.
Other than the Sq Wave having more power for HD600 and K1000 when using most of the typical head-fi headphones, there are not a lot of other reasons to recommend the balanced Single Power over the single ended Amphora (particularly with all the poor SP customer service reports).
(1) They both drive two headphones at the same time, but the Amphora can drive two low impedance phones at the same time without flinching and the Sq Wave XL struggles to do that.
(2) They both have outputs on the rear, but the SP is a simple loop out that doubles as an SE input, and the Amphora is a pre-amp out.
(3) The Amphora allows two sources to be connected at the same time, and switched in and out - while you can connect a source to the Sq Wave RCA or to the XLR but not at the same time (as the other input acts like a loop out).
(4) If you connect two sources to the single power at the same time (even with only one playing music) then the sound suffers as the Sq Wave tries to send the signal from one source via loop-out into the other source - I suppose this messes up the input impedance.
(5) The Amphora has a very nice Goldpoint attenuator and a gain switch, while the Sq Wave uses two very tiny volume knobs for left and right that are difficult to use and you must take some time to match the volume of each channel whenever you adjust the volume (I have to use my mini-DAC as a pre-amp to avoid the issue).
(6) The Sq Wave, while smaller than the Amphora, is larger as a package when you weigh in the huge power brick, so it is not as transportable as the Amphora (which runs on battery).
So, I will be sending Zimm's Amphora to mrarroyo in a couple of days, as I now have my own Amphora here to play with. Blutarsky got to listen to this Amphora/iMod a week ago and liked it more than the iMod/Vcaps/P-51 Mustang (using woodied APS V3 cabled HF-1). Later Naamanf, Sherwood and Asr will get to hear my Amphora, so I don't need to hold onto the extra one.
Zimm - Thanks so much for the short loan (which was going to be for another month or longer), and the opportunity to burn it in and post my findings before I got mine! KB knew I had expressed interest before the release, and I'm glad he held the one that I wanted for me until I could sell off some stuff to pay for it.
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