Amphora Headphone Amp Impressions

[HeadphoneAddict]

On another note - using my modded re-cabled D2000:

1) Comparing the iMod via built-in dock as source vs my CD/Apogee rig.

I use a Marantz CD5001 > Synergistic Research Active Powered Shielding COAX > Apogee mini-DAC > ALO SXC mini-RCA > the Amphora (basically $2000 source including cables and Sigma 11 PSU). Both were playing the exact same Diana Krall "Live in Paris" album. I used the volume pot on the Apogee to match the volume levels of the Apogee output to the iMod output levels. I had the two sources synchronized so well that there was NO discernable jump in the music when switching between the two sources.

The Apogee mini-DAC was slightly better in depth and detail and treble extension, but the iMod with lossless was impressively close. To the untrained ear some people would have denied any differences between the two sources. I can hear the differences (like maybe the Piano was slightly more forward with the iMod, and the Apogee was slightly more refined with the piano), but I was surprised at how well the iMod with Vcaps in the Amphora sounded vs the CD rig. My iMod cost $500 including the iPod, and plugged into the Amphora I would guess that it comes within 90-95% of the $2000 CD rig. (I know some people hate percentages, but it helps). Basically the iMod Vcap dock built into the Amphora is almost as good as the Jensen Copper Foil Cap iMod dock that I compared to the Apogee last year. To get a headphone amp into the dock for only a couple hundred more is impressive.

2) Comparing the Amphora single ended out of the Apogee mini-DAC vs the Single Power Square Wave XL balanced ($1249) via XLR out of the Apogee.

The Sq Wave was the amp I used to listen to the Jensen dock vs Apogee last year. So in this comparison I had both amps running at the same time out of the Apogee's SE and balanced outputs. I used my modded D2000 as before - with 4-pin XLR plug and the APS V3 4-pin to SE adapter in the Amphora, and plugged my APS V3 4-pin to dual XLR balanced adapter into the Single Power. I then matched the volumes of the two amps. I took the 4-pin jacks from the cable adapters into my hand, closed my eyes an mixed them up so I would not know which amp was which when I was listening.

I could not reliably pick which amp I was listening to. One time I thought one was more spacious and energetic and guessed it was the balanced amp but it was the Amphora. I mixed them up again and listened for that same sound, to tell the difference in the amps, and when I thought I was listening to the Amphora again I found it was actually the single power this time. They both sounded excellent, and too close to call.

With HD600 the advantage goes to the Sq Wave, especially balanced, but I wasn't kidding when I said the Amphora was a perfect match for the Denons. It was also a perfect match for the Edition 9, and if I hadn't sold the Ed 9 to help pay for my HD800 I'd be regretting the sale right now.

[digihead]

Larry - what color wood did you get? Black Walnut or Paduk?

[HeadphoneAddict]

Originally Posted by digihead

Larry - what color wood did you get? Black Walnut or Paduk?

Mine is Black Walnut, and Zimm's loaner is Purple Heart (see photos of his in my OP). I will take some photos of mine and post them up tonight.

[HeadphoneAddict]

Originally Posted by HeadphoneAddict

On another note - using my modded re-cabled D2000:

1) Comparing the iMod via built-in dock as source vs my CD/Apogee rig.

I use a Marantz CD5001 > Synergistic Research Active Powered Shielding COAX > Apogee mini-DAC > ALO SXC mini-RCA > the Amphora (basically $2000 source including cables and Sigma 11 PSU). Both were playing the exact same Diana Krall "Live in Paris" album. I used the volume pot on the Apogee to match the volume levels of the Apogee output to the iMod output levels. I had the two sources synchronized so well that there was NO discernable jump in the music when switching between the two sources.

The Apogee mini-DAC was slightly better in depth and detail and treble extension, but the iMod with lossless was impressively close. To the untrained ear some people would have denied any differences between the two sources. I can hear the differences (like maybe the Piano was slightly more forward with the iMod, and the Apogee was slightly more refined with the piano), but I was surprised at how well the iMod with Vcaps in the Amphora sounded vs the CD rig. My iMod cost $500 including the iPod, and plugged into the Amphora I would guess that it comes within 90-95% of the $2000 CD rig. (I know some people hate percentages, but it helps). Basically the iMod Vcap dock built into the Amphora is almost as good as the Jensen Copper Foil Cap iMod dock that I compared to the Apogee last year. To get a headphone amp into the dock for only a couple hundred more is impressive.

2) Comparing the Amphora single ended out of the Apogee mini-DAC vs the Single Power Square Wave XL balanced ($1249) via XLR out of the Apogee.

The Sq Wave was the amp I used to listen to the Jensen dock vs Apogee last year. So in this comparison I had both amps running at the same time out of the Apogee's SE and balanced outputs. I used my modded D2000 as before - with 4-pin XLR plug and the APS V3 4-pin to SE adapter in the Amphora, and plugged my APS V3 4-pin to dual XLR balanced adapter into the Single Power. I then matched the volumes of the two amps. I took the 4-pin jacks from the cable adapters into my hand, closed my eyes an mixed them up so I would not know which amp was which when I was listening.

I could not reliably pick which amp I was listening to. One time I thought one was more spacious and energetic and guessed it was the balanced amp but it was the Amphora. I mixed them up again and listened for that same sound, to tell the difference in the amps, and when I thought I was listening to the Amphora again I found it was actually the single power this time. They both sounded excellent, and too close to call.

With HD600 the advantage goes to the Sq Wave, especially balanced, but I wasn't kidding when I said the Amphora was a perfect match for the Denons. It was also a perfect match for the Edition 9, and if I hadn't sold the Ed 9 to help pay for my HD800 I'd be regretting the sale right now.

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.

[Zimm]

My pleasure Larry. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Sounds like I bought a hellava good little amp.

[jingles_97]

<deleted> - contented was for a different site. sorry

[jingles_97]

I got my amphora no. 10 last week! here is a picture of it.


Here are some impressions: the amp is really nice straight out of the box. I only have a couple of iems at the moment, se530 and westone3. So far I have tried it in my bedroom with an Optimus CD-3400 / iBasso D-10 (DAC), and in my living room MSB LS-1 transport / Monarchy M22c (piggyback DAC) Even at that early burn in stage, this amp is very transparent. Any changes in your gear, up and down the signal chain, will be revealed by this amp. With the iems, the ground noise level is slightly elevated. It desn't bother me too much at this moment. Adding the Shure attenuator that comes with the se530 does cut it down significantly, but it also kills the treble, so I don't use it. So far I am very happy with it, knowing that one can build a great setup centering around this amp.

[KB]

Larry, Vinnie and I want to thank you for your impressions and taking the time to post in this forum!

Ken

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.

[travisg]

wow i want this amp

[HeadphoneAddict]

Originally Posted by KB

Larry, Vinnie and I want to thank you for your impressions and taking the time to post in this forum!

Ken

Sure, no problem, that's what I'm hear for!

[digihead]

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.

Excellent comments as always Larry. Thank you for the impressions.

One other item to note....considering a Singlepower Square Wave vs. an ALO Amphora is no contest when it comes to companies to deal with. Knowing the situation with Mikhail, it is yet another feather in Ken and Vinnie's cap in having amazing customer service.

[HeadphoneAddict]

Originally Posted by digihead

Excellent comments as always Larry. Thank you for the impressions.

One other item to note....considering a Singlepower Square Wave vs. an ALO Amphora is no contest when it comes to companies to deal with. Knowing the situation with Mikhail, it is yet another feather in Ken and Vinnie's cap in having amazing customer service.

That's what I said above - SP customer service is lacking, so why bother till he sorts it out.

[mrarroyo]

Larry, although you receive your Amphora would you like to keep Zimm's for another three weeks so you can compare a fully burnt-in unit w/ an "cold one".

As you know there are a lot of people who believe in burn-in as well as a bunch of people who do not believe in burn-in. I believe because I have heard the difference in portable amps where one had 800 hours versus two other amps at 0 and 400 hours of burn-in.

By having both it will afford you with an unique opportunity. What do you think?

Ken/Vinnie/Zimm would this be OK with you?

[HeadphoneAddict]

Originally Posted by mrarroyo

Larry, although you receive your Amphora would you like to keep Zimm's for another three weeks so you can compare a fully burnt-in unit w/ an "cold one".

As you know there are a lot of people who believe in burn-in as well as a bunch of people who do not believe in burn-in. I believe because I have heard the difference in portable amps where one had 800 hours versus two other amps at 0 and 400 hours of burn-in.

By having both it will afford you with an unique opportunity. What do you think?

Ken/Vinnie/Zimm would this be OK with you?

Ken has been burning in mine for weeks now, so it is burned in about as much as Zimm's.

Besides, I'm not the one who needs to be convinced burn-in exists. I've heard it. Since I am an advocate of burn-in, as are many of use here locally, which skeptics are going to believe me if I say the 250 hour Amphora is better than a fresh one?

At the CO head-fi meet last july we compared three Predators at various stages of burn-in with something like 200, 600 and almost 2000 hours, and the differences in refinement and soundstage were noticeable by everyone who listened.

[Zimm]

I'm cool with what ever you guys would like to do. Just as long it gets to my house by September. If one of you guys are going to make it out to Can Jam, take my amp along for the ride.