LISA III Killers.... - Page 2

I recently got to listen to the Stepdance and compare it directly to the uHA-120. My ears preferred the uHA in all aspects. It has more clarity, better soundstage, and more present mids. Overall it's just more lively and spacious. The Stepdance on first listen seemed to have more bass slam, but once I really delved into some of my more demanding bass tracks, the uHA conveyed the lowest bass notes with more power and authority (this is when pushing my Ultrasone Pro 900s). The Stepdance would lose focus a bit, with the lowest notes getting a little blurry when pushed to higher volumes. The uHA never lost any grip whatsoever. And the uHA's treble has the most wonderful, crystalline character I've yet heard, even eclipsing the Lisa's treble presentation. 

 

The more I listen to the uHA the more I'm impressed. I love this little amp. And it makes me curious as to how much better the Class A AHA-120 sounds. 

Curious enough to fork out over 650 USD for it ? Not sure what postage will come to, but thats SR71B territory. As I said before, it also puts you in striking distance of some very powerful fullsize amps - Concerto, Talisman T-33H and several desirable tube amps. Just as we saw with the Lisa III, power costs more in a smaller package. Unless you are planning to spend a lot of time on the road, I personally would find it hard to justify - the P4 gives me all the power I need and I wouldnt be carting a pair of LCD-2s through airport security anyway.

Well when I use an up-to-date currency converter I get the 348.50 GBP to dollar conversion to come to about $569, a little bit better. But yes, as you make the point, that is a very steep amount for a portable/transportable amp when you could apply it to a desktop. My needs mean that I normally take my amp home from work, so something 'transportable' is fine for me. Honestly, for the work setting, I'm still researching and considering tracking down a used AMB M^3. But yes, based on how the uHA sounds I'd be prepared to pay for an AHA too. Because the uHA is every bit the equal of my current stationary work amp, the Lisa III.

Edited by cn11 - 4/19/11 at 5:29pm

No probs - you know what you want and you are prepared to pay for it - I have to respect that.

Ha ha, yeah! You certainly can't make up one's mind to the contrary when a stubborn HF'er gets theirs set on a decision (however, an AHA purchase is still a ways off)!! 

 

http://www.headfonia.com/portable-class-a-just-audio-aha-120/

 

I will give Mike credit for being able to get his hands on a review amp (and post impressions) very, very quickly.

Wow, that's an awesome review.

 

I've purchased a used AMB M^3 for desk duty at work, so my plans to pick up the AHA-120 have taken a back seat for a while. Between the uHA-120 and the M^3 I have the amp needs addressed I think. I'd still love to own one someday though. I hope Justin keeps getting more and more business from reviews and word-of-mouth. 

Is there anyone else that can compare some of the "beasts" ie. SR-71B, 2Stepdance etc. Just curious how this amp stacks up aginst them. So far the info is limited on this amp. thanks

From my experience and research, we can only compare with what others have said in separate threads, and decide for ourselves, taking the risk. There's not many people out there who have many different portable amps to compare with one another, and I believe the last reviewer that could review many amps in a very detailed manner, and whom we can trust, was Skylab; he retired from portable amps a while back.

I tried to look up the AHA-120 for comparisons, but there's so little information about this amp that I decided not to consider it. It's not that I believed it was not an adequate amp, but rather I did not have the resources to purchase it, and sell it if I didn't like it, mostly because I live in Canada.

You can still read up on it and see if it might be a good match for you. http://www.headfonia.com/portable-class-a-just-audio-aha-120/

Bridging stereo amps to achieve dual-mono is never a good idea with "grown-up" amps.   Possibly not so much of an issue with headphone amps due to less demanding loads, but the principles are the same.  Why pop for two of these and have to bridge them when the RSA is purpose-built?  Just sayin'.

 

Certainly, things have changed a great deal (for the better) since the Lisa III's introduction, but it remains a benchmark product.

Guys, I am a massive fan of Justin's uHA-120, and I believe I made that clear in my review - I still own the amp and use it almost every day, so its not a case of 'review sample lights fanboy fire' ...

 

That said, I have read and re-read Mike's impressions of the AHA-120 at Headfonia several times, and it makes less sense to buy the more expensive amp (over a desktop model) with each re-reading. I am very happy with the VFM equation offered by the uHA-120 (particularly after the vendor dropped the VaT from the asking price (!) because I dont live in the UK) but the AHA-120's asking price puts you within reach of some very desirable desktop amps, You can only bend the laws of physics so far. 

 

(Its not the only portable amp I've crossed out on this basis - a large chunk of Ray Samuels' amps fall into the same bucket for mine. Your mileage will inevitably vary, but its a large chunk of cash)

well said, i was actually going to post this last night but got distracted. not only will this actually NOT be truly balanced operation, but rather bridged (there is a difference) but you WILL be effectively halving your load impedance and doubling the output impedance. truly balanced amps are only referenced to ground through the power supply, the positive and negative signals are referenced to each other. the use case you mention has both positive and negative poles referenced to ground still. now it is true that many companies promote these bridged single ended amps as balanced because they can be fed a balanced signal, but its a misnomer imo