DNA Sonett amp - and musing on music

[mike1127]

I just got to hear the DNA Sonett tube headphone amp at greater length, and wanted to write about that... and about audio evaluation philosophy, because the experience got me thinking.

(This amp is a recent design from DNA (Don North) audio and will be at the Can Jam next weekend. It's a tube single-ended triode. Full disclosure: I'm a friend of Don's, but I will try to write in an honest way that lets you judge for yourself whether I'm making sense. Also, many of you will be at Can Jam and can hear it for yourselves.)

A problem we face in audio is to evaluate a *single* piece of equipment, in the face of a problem: that equipment is always part of a whole chain from microphone to headphone and everything in-between. How do we isolate its characteristics?

Hear a fault? Is it the device you're testing or something else in the chain? Hear a virtue? Is it the device you're testing, or perhaps does it emerge from a synergy between devices?

A college professor (James Boyk) told me one of his strategies to deal with this complex situation was "adding up virtues."

Let's say you are evaluating speakers. And let's suppose you can't bring every speaker home---you must listen to some in the store, in an unfamiliar acoustic environment and with unfamiliar driving equipment. So you listen to brand X speaker and it has beauty of timbre, a very nice virtue. This professor's theory was that in spite of uncertainties, you could make a guess the speaker did possess a fundamental *capacity* for beauty of timbre.

If you heard the same speaker in another context and heard good microdynamics, you put a check mark next to "good microdynamics."

And now you make a reasonable guess that it's capable of *both* good microdynamics and beauty of timbre, when driven by equipment that also has *both* qualities.

Now, what about the complexity of equipment interaction? What if the speaker doesn't really possess good beauty of timbre in itself, but rather you heard a synergistic combination of equipment? Perhaps the components were even correcting for each other's faults: the amp could have been too bright, and the speaker too dark, and betwixt the two, beauty of timbre emerges.

How can you be certain or even make a reasonable guess about about a single device in the chain?

This professor held the view that there was nothing more beautiful, interesting, or exciting than live acoustic music, where every virtue we ascribe to audio equipment exists in a higher form. To him, if a component "got it right" in some area, it was an indication that equipment was accurate (close to a straight wire, in essence).

Let me give an analogy. Consider the "telephone game," where you whisper a sentence to someone, who whispers it to someone else, and to someone else, and so on for ten or twenty people. And then the last person speaks the sentence out loud, which has usually mutated beyond all recognition.

Think about two kinds of input to the telephone game: a few simple words, or a long paragraph.

Let's say the input is simply "tom cat." You put this through a line of twenty people, and at the end, contrary to our expectations, the phrase is repeated accurately!

Did every person along the way repeat the phrase accurately? Not necessarily. Maybe someone changed it to "top hat." A simple enough mistake. A few people later, someone mis-hears "top hat" and repeats: "tomcat." The phrase is put right again. A coincidence, but one that could happen.

Now suppose the input to the telephone game is a long, complex paragraph. We repeat the experiment, and the paragraph emerges intact! I would find this good evidence that *every* person along the way repeated the phrase accurately. It would be unlikely that a complex mistake was made and then put right again by accident.

This professor believed that many virtues of music were like that long paragraph. He is a pianist and spends thousands of hours listening to pianos and fine-tuning his performances, so he is aware that there are a thousand ways to get piano timbre wrong, but only one way to get it right.

I think he's right about much of this, and in particular I agree beauty of timbre is a complex property of sound (ask anyone who has tried to make electronic instruments that are as beautiful as acoustic ones---it is NOT easy; or ask someone who voices acoustic intruments) and not one that is likely to emerge accidentally or by the equipements' faults cancelling each other out.

I do believe that a low-resolution piece of equipment can sometimes sound warm and fuzzy, and that's a kind of beauty, but I'm talking about a really high-resolution beauty, one that lets you hear all the details the musician created and hear the sum total of beauty.

So back to the DNA Sonett, I listened to it with several headphones: the AKG K501, AKG K601, Beyer DT880, and Beyer DT990. (CD player was the Naim CD5X.)

With both Beyers, the beauty of timbre was compelling. Massed strings had a spiritual quality. Pianos, clarinets, French horns really almost startled me with their beauty. This was high-resolution beauty.

I think it's reasonable to conclude that the DNA Sonett has the capacity for high-resolution beauty: it functions accurately in that domain. (Note that we can make that conclusion about *every* component in the chain, too: CD player, headphones, and even the recording.)

When I switched to the AKG K601 headphone, raw physical beauty was not as foreground, but another virtue was grabbing my attention: expressive musical shapes with clear subtle dynamic changes.

This is one of my favorite virtues of good music. Musicians put so much expression into shaping their phrases. A wind instrument may start a note with a gentle crescendo and subtle increase in vibrato. A phrase may get a bit louder and more insistent the middle, then end softly and mysteriously. A pianist may play arpeggios with small dynamic changes from note to note.

"Microdynamics" is the closest audiophile term I know to describe this, although it can sometimes get thrown around outside the context of enjoying music. Like any technical aspect of a system, microdynamics are only good to the extent they accurately reproduce what the musicians were doing and make it easier to enjoy the music.

Adding up virtues, then, we can suggest the DNA Sonett is capable of both high-resolution beauty and conveying expressive shapes. What about the headphones? I would say the Beyers were better at beauty and the AKG K601 was better with expressive shapes.

At the very end, we listened to the AKG K501. We should have brought it out at the beginning. The K501 didn't sound as high-resolution or as spacious as the K601, but I think it had more accurate timbre, and got closer to conveying the whole range of virtues of the DNA Sonett.

I very much look forward to getting my own Sonett in a few weeks and doing more listening with the K501. I'm going to continue my search for the "perfect headphone," too, one that can accurately convey every virtue of music. (I'll let you know when I find it, although I may have to convey the message via a psychic medium, because I don't think it exists in this life.)

[santacore]

Donald just left my place 1-2 hours ago and gave me a nice taste of his new amp. Unfortunately, I only listened to the single ended output version as I ran out of time.

Overall I think the amp looks really great. I personally really dig the design and aesthetics of the amp. Not everyones cup of tea I'm sure, but I really like it. Fit and finish were excellent and the overall build quality seems very high. I didn't get to see the inside, but I would guess it's quality stuff.

I tried the amp with my HD650's, Denon D7000's, and on Donald's recommendation my DT880's that I usually use for work. I found the amp played great with all the headphones, thanks to the impedance switch. The overall sound of the amp was fast, detailed, and very musical. It was kind of the like the best of solid state and tube. It actually reminded me of the listening impressions I had of the Zana Deux that I heard last year at the LAX meet. Overall just a great sounding amp. I will need more time with the unit to make a proper review, but these are my initial thoughts.

If you can make it to Can Jam do yourself a favor and drop by and visit with Donald. He's a great guy and is extremely easy to talk to. I look forward to hearing more this coming weekend.

[mike1127]

I kinda "buried the lead" in my first post, so I thought I would post a quick summary here.

I have not heard really high-end headphone amps before. I've heard amps in the $500-1100 range. (Don tells me the Sonett is expected to retail for around $1200.) The Sonett is far, far higher resolution than any headphone amp I've ever heard. Going from the ASL MG-Head to the Sonett is like going from 35mm to a large format camera. This is only good to the extent that it serves the music--and it did. I was hearing wonderful nuances of expression in each classical piece I listened to.

With the Beyerdynamic headphones (DT880 and DT990) the beauty of timbre was wonderful. The Sonett seems to be capable of a very beautiful, musical presentation.

Soundstaging was very good, probably a natural result of the high resolution. I normally think of the K601 as having an expansive, continuous (non-lumpy) soundstange, while the DT880 not quite as much of those qualities. Well, with the Sonett, the DT880 was a much bigger and higher-resolution soundstage than I've ever heard, and it only got better with the K601.

I hoping to hear the K701 this weekend at the show, and maybe someone will let me borrow one long enough to hook it to the Sonett.

-Mike

[santacore]

Mike,

I agree with you that my DT880's never sounded as good as they did with the Sonett.

One other thing I forgot to mention last night was the extremely low noise floor of the amp. My house isn't the quietest, but I detected no noise coming from the amp. That's pretty rare for a tube amp in my experience. I also liked the range of the volume control. It was very easy to dial in the right level for each of the phones I tried. Good stuff!

[olblueyez]

I cant seem to find any pictures of the back of the amp, does the balanced output version have XLR inputs?

[moonboy403]

Originally Posted by olblueyez

I cant seem to find any pictures of the back of the amp, does the balanced output version have XLR inputs?

There are only rca in.

[olblueyez]

Originally Posted by moonboy403

There are only rca in.

That sucks. I wanna use those XLR's on the back of my Stello.

[IPodPJ]

Originally Posted by mike1127

The Sonett is far, far higher resolution than any headphone amp I've ever heard.

Come on, Mike. That's not true. You may prefer the sound of tube amps and their presentation, but the Phoenix has higher resolution and you heard it. You should also mention to people that you prefer the K601 to the HD800. I love the Sonett too and it's among my favorite tube amps. I hope to own one soon. But let's call a spade a spade. A high-end solid state amp will reveal more detail than a high-end tube amp, as tubes have more distortion.

[moonboy403]

Originally Posted by IPodPJ

Come on, Mike. That's not true. You may prefer the sound of tube amps and their presentation, but the Phoenix has higher resolution and you heard it. You should also mention to people that you prefer the K601 to the HD800. I love the Sonett too and it's among my favorite tube amps. I hope to own one soon. But let's call a spade a spade. A high-end solid state amp will reveal more detail than a high-end tube amp, as tubes have more distortion.

He wrote that on 5/24 Phil!

[IPodPJ]

Originally Posted by moonboy403

He wrote that on 5/24 Phil!

LOL. Damn, I didn't see that. Sorry. I'm sure he still prefers the Sonett though. Tube guys will prefer tubes. And until I heard the Phoenix I preferred tubes with the HD800 too.

[Currawong]

mike1127: That's a very interesting description you've given and I think a nice, systematic approach to evaluating gear. It looks like at $1200 it's going to be very good value. Another reminder of what I missed out on by not coming to Canjam.

[Leny]

Originally Posted by IPodPJ

...tubes have more distortion.

Fascinating, please explain...
> how much more distortion?
> how is the distortion measured?
> how does the measurement process correlate with the human psychoacoustic system?
> your references?

[boomana]

Originally Posted by IPodPJ

LOL. Damn, I didn't see that. Sorry. I'm sure he still prefers the Sonett though. Tube guys will prefer tubes. And until I heard the Phoenix I preferred tubes with the HD800 too.

All tube amps don't sound the same, and all solid-state amps don't sound the same. It's interesting that when you start getting into higher-end quality, the sonic differences between tubes and solid state quite often defy the stereotypes (i.e., tubes are "tubey" and warm; ss is detailed and analytical) which get tossed around here quite a bit too frequently.

[oatmeal769]

I definitely hear you (no pun intended) about distortion on less than stellar quality tube amps. It is readily audible, and the reason musicians like tube amps so much - that overdriven breakup is the desired sound.

I'm not so sure you're right about very high quality tube amps made for listening. The Zana Deux's and RSA's I heard at the show demonstrated the cleanest, clearest, most dynamic sound I've ever heard through headphones - or speakers for that matter. Can you explain your reasoning?

[IPodPJ]

Originally Posted by boomana

All tube amps don't sound the same, and all solid-state amps don't sound the same. It's interesting that when you start getting into higher-end quality, the sonic differences between tubes and solid state quite often defy the stereotypes (i.e., tubes are "tubey" and warm; ss is detailed and analytical) which get tossed around here quite a bit too frequently.

No, they certainly don't all sound the same. They sound very very different from one another. But none that I've heard with the 800s (and that was quite a bit) even under meet conditions had a black background like that of the Phoenix, B22, or Phonitor.

The tube amps I can remember off hand are: RSA B52, DNA Sonett, Zana Deux, HD-2, WA5, WA6 SE, WA22, TTVJ 307A, Millet Hybrid, Darkvoice 337, Singlepower SDS-XLR..... I know there are many more but that's all I can think of right now.

Solid state: Phoenix, Phonitor, SE B22, RSA Apache, Opera, Amphora, Luxman P-200, Benchmark DAC1, Lavry DA11, Headroom BUDA, and more.

I think that qualifies me to make comparitive statements like that.