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Amp recommendation for Ultrasone Edition 8

post #1 of 13
8/4/10 at 6:13am
Thread Starter 

Goodday

 

Recently I purchased the Ultrasone edition 8 headphones

 

Now I am researching what amp to buy in combination with the Ultrasone 8 and my Sugden CD21.

 

Reading on the forums I tend to go with the Woo Audio 6 SE

 

But Is it really worth the extra money in comparison to the La figaro 339 (or Darkvoice 337) ? Especially considering its dual mono.

 

And ofcourse Im very interested in experience of other ultrasone ed 8 users and their amps.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Ewald

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post #2 of 13
8/4/10 at 9:43am

At your price level I wouldnt go tubes with the ed.8's. They are low impedance and already offer a certain warmness in their sound signature. My recommendation would be to go with the SPL Phonitor or Auditor or a good class "a" amp like the Burson, Lehmann black cube or the like.


Edited by GuyDebord - 8/4/10 at 9:44am
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post #3 of 13
8/4/10 at 9:48am

well.

to offer a different view, my woo audio wa6 seems to pair very well with my edition 8s.

there's a gain switch on the back, which i believe taps the transformer at two different points, for low and high impedance cans.

and, on the low setting, the edition 8s sound great.

 

i have a caliente as well.  and it does not pair well at all.

i need to check the literature again, to see what the output impedance is with the caliente.  but, regardless, the sound is boomy, and does not sound very controlled.

 

cheers!

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post #4 of 13
8/4/10 at 9:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by GuyDebord View Post

My recommendation would be to go with the SPL Phonitor or Auditor or a good class "a" amp like the Burson, Lehmann black cube or the like.


don't the phonitor and auditor have high output impedance?

in that case, they would be WAY not good for the edition 8.

 

i personally think a tranformer-coupled tube amp is the way to go.

 

wa6se may be a little overkill.  wa6 may be the answer...
 

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post #5 of 13
8/4/10 at 10:21am
Thread Starter 

Hi Wuss

 

Good to hear that you like your combination of the ultrasone 8 and WA6

 

I wonder whether you have tried the ultrasone also with the WA6 SE ?

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post #6 of 13
8/4/10 at 11:41am

no.  haven't ever heard the WA6 SE. 

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post #7 of 13
8/4/10 at 12:36pm

I prefer solid state amplification with Ultrasones - Rudistor, B22, M3, Meier Prehead, maybe Headamp.

 

/edit: I've only heard Ultrasones on OTL tube amps, not any transformer-coupled tube amps.

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post #8 of 13
8/5/10 at 1:54am
Thread Starter 

Maybe a combination would be something, I read that Graham Slee has made a solid state with a Tube sound ? Solo Ultra linear

 

Anyone tried this amp  ?

 

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post #9 of 13
8/5/10 at 2:42am

Never heard the Edition 8 but my ALO-780's sound superb with my Woo6 se, if thats any help.

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post #10 of 13
8/5/10 at 4:18am

I have a Trafomatic Head One and a Goldpoint Headphone Pro V9 and Auditor currently...

 

Scrap the Auditor it´s optimized for high impedance headphones. While the ED 8 is not bad on it by any means. It´s so efficient the amp really has to be bad for it to be bad... If rumble is your main criteria yout will get that but I rather trade it for fast punches. Rumble leads to some congestion and it´s not the ED 8s nature to congest. Not even unamped it congests...

Anyway it´s not on the level of either my Goldpoint headphone Pro or Trafomatic head one for any of my low impedance headphones. The ed 8 is truly spectacular on those two amps so it can do great

on both tubes and solid state obviously. I need more time to give a final verdict but if you only need an amp and no preamp or dual input functions. Have no high impedance headphones and budget oriented the GHP is a no brainer really. If you are space limited it´s more then 6x smaller and 6x lighter so it has a lot going for it.

 

Head one is surely fancy looking and will make you positively biased just on looks though ;)

 

But anyway the head one and Headphone Pro have VERY similar signatures. The Head one is certainly a very serious tube amp not much colouration in it that´s for sure. Both these make music sound more natural then ever to my ears.

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post #11 of 13
8/7/10 at 7:17am

The Edition 8 sound absolutely phenomenal on my Leben CS300X - but I am guessing that's out of the OP's price range.

 

As such, the Meier Concerto and the WooAudio WA6 also drive them quite well, IMHO.  As mentioned above, I would stay away from OTL tube amps, but some transformer-coupled tube amp (like the WA6 and the Leben) work extremely well with the Ed 8.

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post #12 of 13
8/9/10 at 6:30am
Thread Starter 

Thanks for the input guys, on the whole I see Wooaudio coming back alot, but is there a specific reason why the WA 6 (SE) is more spoken of then the WA2 ?

 

I like the design and the extra inputs of the WA2, but then again it doesnt seem to have a low impedance switch.

 

And then there is the balanced option, from what I read going balanced is a big advantage ?

 

for example, Woo 6 single ended or little dot VII balanced (hybrid) ?

 

if only I could listen to all of them

 


Edited by tweek - 8/9/10 at 6:42am
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post #13 of 13
8/9/10 at 6:46am

For the Edition 8, the WA6/6SE is a better choice due to the Ed 8's low impedance.

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