Final thoughts on the CTH
Blutarsky picked up wiatrob's CTH review sample the other day from me, and will be comparing it to his EC-01, Zana Deux and Melos SHA Gold over the next couple of weeks or so. I loaned him my Mullard short plate which I liked so much in it as well. He has about 8 or so tubes from Bill, and a sheet telling him what voltage to set the amp at, so it should be safe.
We briefly compared the CTH to the EF1 and Amphora again, with the tube hybrids being very similar to each other as before. Then I unplugged the EF1 to move the power supply and forgot to plug it back in and power it up, so didn't have time to warm it up again. The CTH with Mullard short plate is a rich and full sounding hybrid with good power for low and high impedance phones. It was just a little less detailed, spacious and extended than the more costly ALO Amphora, which also retains a sense of tubey richness despite being a SS amp. I never did find a tube combo for the CTH that could exceed the Amphora, and it was fairly well matched by the EF1 with a Mullard tube as well (although it passed up the EF1 when EF1 had the stock RCA clear top).
We also listened to the AV123 headphone Bluto acquired from Mark Schifter which sounded nice but I think I prefer the CTH a little bit more with the Grado HP-1000. There was nothing bad about the AV123 but I simply didn't have enough time with it to get a good impression for what it can do. That will come later, and I did come away with the impression that the Av123 headphone amp sounds good to me. It seemed like the CTH had better synergy with the HP-1000's (Equinox cable) and the AV123 was really good with the SARN re-cabled ATH-A900, although the CTH did a good job with the A900 too and visa versa.
Again, I enjoyed my final visit with the CTH before it went to the next tester, only wishing for a power switch and a set of RCA input on the rear, if I was to be purchasing one. I think the CTH sounds much bigger than it's price or size, and due to the ease of finding tubes for the CTH it might be a better choice for some people than the Millett Starving Student, which I also really like a lot. And the price is more affordable than the similarly performing EF1 too, if you are capable of building it yourself (not me). I would not be surprised if Blutarsky found it to be good competition vs my old TTVJ portable Millett hybrid as well (which is a very amp too).
Great to hear!
