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Any amps similar to the soon to be released Cary Xciter?

post #1 of 6
1/13/09 at 12:32am
Thread Starter 
From the specs, this amp seems to be what I am looking for; plug and play, class A tube integrated headphone amp with a remote. I stress apparent ease of use because I have never owned a tube hi fi product. My only concern is that its current will place too many limitations on monitor speaker choices. Without a demo, it is impossible to have an opinion about its sound quality from the speaker terminals and the headphone amp; however, I image there are those who have strong opinions about the sound quality and pricing of Cary products. With this in mind, are there any amps which have similar features to the Xciter and offer hi end sound from the speaker posts and headphone jack.
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post #2 of 6
1/15/09 at 1:33pm
I thought the Xciter was launched already ?

It is an interesting amp - the first from Cary Audio that put a lot of attention of the headphone amp circuit. Quite attractive too. For US$2,750 MSRP which means it is going to be less on the street, I think together with the "Cary" brand, it can be quite competitive compares to some of the popular brands in this community.

F. Lo
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post #3 of 6
1/15/09 at 2:19pm
It is an interesting amp - the first from Cary Audio that put a lot of attention of the headphone amp circuit. F. Lo[/QUOTE]

Not true. Cary has had headphone jacks going through the entire tube compliment in both the 300SEI and SLI-80 integrated tube amps. Even the Ultralinear pentode, Class A triode switches work in the HP circuit. This new amp was designed more for computer use along with the usual great HP circuit they have. A bit less expensive, a bit less power, same quality as the standard integrateds. Dennis Had has stated this somewhere. I bet it will be a nice Class A amp for phones or flea power.
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post #4 of 6
1/15/09 at 2:42pm
Leben CS600 also takes 6L6 and KT-88s, like Xciter, but also accommodates EL34, KT-77, and 350B tubes as well. I've started a thread of some stereo amps that are excellent as headphone amps, here:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/lis...9/#post5299511
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post #5 of 6
1/15/09 at 2:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MellowTriode View Post
Not true. Cary has had headphone jacks going through the entire tube compliment in both the 300SEI and SLI-80 integrated tube amps. Even the Ultralinear pentode, Class A triode switches work in the HP circuit. This new amp was designed more for computer use along with the usual great HP circuit they have. A bit less expensive, a bit less power, same quality as the standard integrateds. Dennis Had has stated this somewhere. I bet it will be a nice Class A amp for phones or flea power.
Well, what I mean is that this is the first time Cary Audio called this the Xcite Headphone Integrated Amplifier - an obvious attempt to position it more as a headphone amplifier than a typical integrated amp. This is how it differentiate from the famed 300SEi.

According the Cary Audio website :

Quote :

The beauty of the Xciter headphone amplifier is that the listener can take advantage of the entire amplifier through the headphone output. When the headphone selector is engaged, the user is listening to the entire amplifier, from the input section to the output transformer. Additional features are loudspeaker outputs and sub woofer outputs - one for each channel, and the motorized remote control function for adjusting listening level and mute.
.....

The Xciter headphone integrated amplifier is the first in a series of products to come under the Xciter name. The next Xciter product from Cary Audio Design will be a matching Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) featuring USB, coaxial and TOSLINK inputs. ...

Unquote.

So, this seem to imply a very different product positioning compared to its bigger brothers.

These are pretty tempting....

F. Lo
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post #6 of 6
2/18/09 at 6:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MellowTriode View Post
Cary has had headphone jacks going through the entire tube compliment in both the 300SEI and SLI-80 integrated tube amps. Even the Ultralinear pentode, Class A triode switches work in the HP circuit. This new amp was designed more for computer use along with the usual great HP circuit they have. A bit less expensive, a bit less power, same quality as the standard integrateds. Dennis Had has stated this somewhere. I bet it will be a nice Class A amp for phones or flea power.
In the 300SEI, there isn't a headphone circuit in the usual sense. Plugging in a headphone just switches a relay to direct the regular preamp output to the headphone jack. There's no separate circuit for driving headphones. Depending on your perspective (and the impedance and sensitivity of your headphones), that could be an advantage or a disadvantage. That configuration also gave the 300SEI headphone jack enough power to drive AKG K1000 phones, which few other preamps on the market can handle through their headphone jacks.

I used to own a 300SEI, and I found its bass output (from either the preamp outs or the headphone jack) to be far too loose and uncontrolled for my taste. I hope the Xciter is substantially better in that regard.
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