Antness built Gilmore V2SE
This is my first foray into a high-end solid state amp. Due to time restraints my unit was sent out without silk screening. But I was more than happy that I at least I got it.
For solid state comparisons with the Gilmore I own a Creek OBH-11 and a really good headphone jack on my Denon receiver. Neither of which could have prepared me for what this amp was capable of. Since getting into this headphone sickness I have owned a Sonic Adventure Reality hybrid amp, a Melos SHA Gold Reference hybrid amp with MAR mods, and the purely tubed RKV w/ Impedancer. After owning the incredible sounding RKV I was sure that I would miss the signature midrange bloom of the tubes, the great bass, and the wonderfully enjoyable listening sessions it provided me. Will those things be provided by the Gilmore? Or will I long for that lush, liquid tube sound I was so accustomed to?
To make sure that it was at it’s full potential I let it run for almost a week straight, 24 hours a day. Listening at various times didn’t really give any sense of break-in since I had changed CDPs, ICs, and a PC, and I wasn’t sure what was breaking-in. After this week of listening to my old favorites over and over again I now feel confident that I have my arms around this amp and can report on what I am hearing. To verify that the sounds I was hearing weren’t just synergy between one set of cans I swapped between three different cans to see how it would fare. The Sonys used were the V6 and CD3K, for Grados the HP-1.
Taking a handful of my favorite and most known CDs in hand, I started down the path that was laid before me with the newest toy to grace my desk in Quito......
Design - much like the RKV design philosophy, this amp has no caps or inductors in the signal path, only the power supply receives the usual cap treatment. The RKV has only has tubes in the signal path from the RCA jacks until you hit the headphone jacks, and only a transformer in the Impedancer if you use it. The incredible simple design of the Gilmore ensures a pure signal that is free from the phase shifting that occurs to voltage and current when caps or inductors are involved. The signal enters the RCA jacks and from there it is solder runs and transistors until you hit the drivers of your favorite cans. Simple, but not simplistic. Kevin Gilmore is known for designing incredibly good sounding audio gear, and this is no exception.
Attack - when a performer hits a note really hard, it can be very difficult for an amp to get up and go that fast. It often presents you with a sound that is smeared or splashy. It just doesn’t sound realistic or well done. This is not the case with the Gilmore. The attacks come across without a bit of smear or splash. It hits hard and fast, just like it should. Trumpets, percussion, cymbals, triangles and other such instruments that have that incredibly sharp attack transient to them are done very well with this amp. It can go from dead silent to very loud so fast that it is incredibly realistic. When the strings of a guitar are plucked with the fingers you can hear that initial sound that is often lost or blended in with the note it produces. It was amazing to hear those strings just sing with power when called on to do so. The fast strumming of a mandolin sounds incredible with this amp. The notes that are often blurred hit and get out of the way for the next one without getting in the way. In comparison the Creek was slow and lost that initial attack transient, even using the Grados. The pluck of the strings lost that burst of energy, and slowed down to just being a normal sounding note. In the song with the fast strummed guitars the Creek also tended to blur the notes together with no space between the notes. The Gilmore presented them as a very fast series of notes with enough speed and attack to keep them separated. Mandolins also lost that nice, clear, crisp, attack they have when played well. That little magic the Gilmore has was lost upon the Creek, and sadly missed when it went away.
Soundstage - while not up to the incredibly expansive RKV’s soundstage, the Gilmore nonetheless performed magnificently. It was every bit as believable in its presentation, just a small amount smaller. The Sony V6s, notorious for not having a very big soundstage, sounds bigger than I have ever heard them before. I only hooked them up very briefly to the RKV before swearing I would never do such a thing again.
While the soundstage is smaller than either the HP-1s or the CD3K, it is still very nicely done, just a bit congested sounded. Amazingly, the Creek gave up very little to the Gilmore in the way of soundstaging. It was a little more forward, so the instruments and singers appeared closer, but maintained a lot of the depth and width of the Gilmore.
Imaging - spot-on in every way. The instruments and singers are stable in their location, life-sized, and believable. While it can’t go as far right-to-left or front-to-back like the RKV, it is still quite expansive in its imaging with instruments realistically placed and reproduced. The Creek also kept up pretty well in imaging. The triangles in one song that came from above and to the left came from the same place. It gets a little congested with complicated passages, and tend not to place instruments out as far as it should.
Midrange - while not as emphasized as a tube amp, the mids are nonetheless very well done. While I miss the richness of mids that the RKV had due to its wonderful design and tubes, I find that I prefer the sheer accuracy of the mids with the Gilmore. The slighted bloated mids of the RKV tend to draw one in with it’s richness, but gloss over too much for me to prefer it’s sound over the Gilmore. When listening to some awesome singers singing, I could actually hear the slightest of quivers in their voices that made it oh so much more enjoyable and believable than the RKV. The Creek's mids are not nearly as well done as the Gilmore's. They are a bit more dry and less real sounding. The "you are there" factor really went away with the Creek's presentation.
Highs - after using an RKV for several months it was quite impressive to actually hear all the highs that the RKV just couldn’t do. There is actually a bit of info up there that the RKV can’t produce, and I am glad to finally hear the highs that I hadn’t heard before. Cymbal or triangle hits sound both sweet and have the bite they should. These hard to get right sounds are also very accurately done on the Gilmore. The splash you can often get in the high-end stuff is simply gone, replaced with a very well done and realistic sound. Here's where the Creek was left in the dust. The highs now were totally splashy and indistinct. Cymbals now lost that sheen, bite, and distinction that the Gilmore brought. Tambourines now sounded
very splashy. They lost the individual sounds they produce when moved in each direction. The sounds now smeared into almost one continuous note that lost distinction between the quick back-and-forth movements. The crisp, sharp highs that had such great decay with the Gilmore now were lost, only to be replaced by highs that were a little grating, and way less enjoyable.
Bass - using a test disc from Bass Mekanik, called Quad Maximus, you can select tracks with bass notes 5 seconds in duration each, starting at 10Hz and ending at 100Hz. Using this disc I tried to see where I could get some discernible bass out of each set of cans and see how well the amp served up the thunderous bass notes fed from the disc. The Sony CD3K starts to give some decent bass right at 32Hz, but don’t hit their stride until about 34Hz where it gets very impactful. The HP-1s didn’t start to have any really visceral bass until they hit 34-35Hz. It was there, but nowhere near as loud as either of the Sonys. At 37Hz it was just starting to hit pretty hard and with sufficient volume, and by 40Hz it was finally pleasing to this reformed basshead. The V6s started getting decent and discernible bass at 28Hz, and by 30Hz it was already getting pretty visceral. I mean, these cans can really go low and hit hard in the bass department. It seems like the Gilmore could go WAY lower than anything you could hook up to it. Those larger caps installed in the V2SE really give this thing some punch in the low end. I wish I could use it as a preamp on my sub to see just how low it can go. The bass is always tight and punchy with this amp, even at these super low frequencies. Things never get sloppy or loose on you, it just delivers the punch the way a headamp should. Surprisingly, the little Creek did pretty well in the bass department, but gave up some ground in the way of producing the various bass notes as different and distinct. It tended to take on a "one-note" bass effect that is way less believable than the Gilmore's excellent bass reproduction. With the Bass Mekanik CD in place I once again wanted to see what the Creek could do with the Grados. The bass came through at the same place as it did on the Gilmore, about 35Hz, and with just about as much punch. From 30Hz-33Hz there was basically nothing discernible from the Grados, but at the same 34-35Hz point the bass suddenly becomes palpable and hearable.
Details - this amp is, by far, the most detailed headamp I have ever heard, yet at the same time it gives up absolutely NOTHING in the way of sheer enjoyability or musicality. It just gets out of the way of the signal coming in and amplifies it and passed it on to the headphones. The better the source, the better this amp sounds. It takes the signal from the source and pass it on without tainting or coloring the details at all. Listening to live recordings really give a sense of being there due to the addition of the subtle acoustic clues that tend to be lost with a lesser amp. The room characteristics are easily picked out and tell you right away that you are listening to a large room venue, concert hall, or studio with echo added in the recording. Certain tracks I hear keyboards way in the background for the very first time using the Gilmore. At other times it brings in notes that were too low or too congested to hear before into my hearing for the first time. I was simply amazed as I went thru disc after disc and discovered subtle noises, voices, and instruments that I never heard before. The Creek lost a good portion of the details of the music, both thru omission and commission. That's to say it loses details from its inability to reproduce the details of complex music, plus it just is unable to pull all the details out of the music fed to it.
Balance - this amp is exceptionally well balanced across the entire frequency spectrum. Nothing glaringly jumps out at you. There is no over-emphasis on the highs that hurt your ears. The bass isn’t one bit bloated, and doesn’t over power the rest of the music. The Creek is a bit top-heavy comparatively, and adds a little high-end harshness to the music that was comfortable to me. After 20 minutes I wanted to stop listening with the Creek. Even using the Grados it was too harsh in the highs to listen for any length of time.
Background - vacuum-like. With the CDP paused and the volume up as far as it can go there is a vast blackness without the slightest hint of noise coming from the amp. This adds a nicer background in which the music is allowed to come thru in all it’s splendor and nuances, sans coloration or noise. This amp had the latest Antness mod where the transformer was moved from being screwed into the bottom of the amp on the circuit board to the side of the enclosure. This was Antness’ idea to ensure a dead silent amp free from noises or hums caused by the transformer. Great idea and results in a dead silence. The Creek was also dead silent until the volume knob was just about maxed out. At that point a hiss come into audible range. Below that is was also silent.
Input Separation - the Gilmore comes with three inputs, but how well does is separate them from each other? Is there any blending or crosstalk from these separate channels? Well, when trying out the PCDP to see how the amp sounded with a lesser source, I decided to see how well the sound was separated from one channel to the other. So, while running channel 1 I switched to channel two, set the gain to full, and listened to see if any music came through. Not a peep of sound came through from the other channel. Very well done and will help those using multiple sources hooked up to this little wonder. The Creek only has a single input, so there's no way to check this using the Creek.
Overall Presentation - this amp is neither in your face, nor laid-back. It just manages to do something quite special - allow the music to arrive at your ears the way it was recorded. Throw it something aggressive, and it will arrive aggressive. Give some laid-back jazz or classical and it will arrive laid-back. It doesn’t force the music into some mold that makes it all sound the same. The Creek sounds a bit aggressive to me due to its high-end harshness and slight emphasis in that range. It's a little tipped-up in the highs.
Conclusion - this is one incredible little amp at Justin’s asking price, and a real winner in my estimation. It is simply fabulous sounding in every way with everything I could throw at it. Nothing could get this amp congested. Nothing could make this thing stumble or stutter in any way shape or form. While I haven’t heard the standard V2 to comment on how different it sounds, much less if it is worth the extra money to go with the V2SE, I can say this much, this amp sounded quite neutral and incredible to me.
The Creek did amazingly well against the Gilmore considering it's diminutive price tag. It cost about 1/4 that of the V2SE, but has no reason to be ashamed. On its own the Creek sounds very good, and with some capacitor swaps would sound even better, but the Gilmore was just more neutral and better overall.
Just for fun I shot a photo of the Creek all pulled over backwards due to the Nite IC hooked up to it:
Gilmore V2SE review - pretty long
