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Brightest, coldest, dryest solid state amp?

post #1 of 14
6/12/11 at 2:56pm
Thread Starter 

As title says...

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post #2 of 14
6/12/11 at 3:15pm

You want a LM386 chip amp with severely undersized coupling capacitors? Or a Cmoy using a TL072? wink.gif

 

(I thought I'd start with the cheap variants.)

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post #3 of 14
6/12/11 at 6:03pm

I've heard that the nuforce icon mobile is very bright, but that's a portable amp.  

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post #4 of 14
6/13/11 at 4:37am

Benchamark's DAC1 amp section, brightest DAC/Amp combo I've ever heard.

Second will be Creek's amps, Creek OBH 11 and 21 SE are very bright..

Cheap chinesse amps are also quite bright


Edited by DarKu - 6/13/11 at 5:17am
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post #5 of 14
6/13/11 at 2:50pm
Thread Starter 

thanks, any more suggestions?

 

What about graham slee models - are they on the analytical side?

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post #6 of 14
6/13/11 at 10:07pm
It's not bright, but very neutral. The Dynalo/Gilmore Lite would fit the bill nicely. About as clean and crisp as you can get. A wonderful circuit, too.
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post #7 of 14
6/16/11 at 5:22am

Used to own a very early built burson 160a. it was bright to me, maybe too powerful as well.

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post #8 of 14
6/16/11 at 7:14am

The Channel Islands VHP-2 was fast, analytical and a tad bright. Very nice amp.

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post #9 of 14
6/19/11 at 2:31am
The headphone amp of the Benchmark DAC1 fits these criteria
- 0.11 ohm output impedance means straight frequency response from 0 to 20kHz for all headphones.
- very low THD + high power -106 dB, 0.0005% into 30 Ohms at +18 dBu (1.26W), as "dry" as you can possibly want with plenty of power.
- high current capacity 250 mA.

If you want brighter, you'll have to invest into an EQ and boost high frequencies.
Edited by khaos974 - 6/19/11 at 2:48am
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post #10 of 14
6/19/11 at 3:30pm

Nuforce HDP (from my experience).

 

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post #11 of 14
6/19/11 at 5:16pm

The brightest I ever heard was my old PPA that had an opamp in it whose name I can't remember, but someone who knows that amp could fill in here.  It sounded similar to the Gilmore lite, but dryer, colder and brighter, just as the OP is asking for.  I know it's one of the brightest amps around because it was the ONLY amp I could find that worked with my Headphile HP3000, which were exceedingly warm.  I walked around during a large meet once and they sounded best out of my little PPA simply because they were too warm on everything else.  I had the amp with an HD650 at that meet and everyone agreed it made the HD650 w/stock cable sound bright, cold and analytical.  wink.gif

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post #12 of 14
6/20/11 at 3:00pm

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by rhythmdevils View Post

The brightest I ever heard was my old PPA that had an opamp in it whose name I can't remember, but someone who knows that amp could fill in here...


Was it an AD8** something? Was it a PPA v1 or v2?

 


Quote:

I had the amp with an HD650 at that meet and everyone agreed it made the HD650 w/stock cable sound bright, cold and analytical.  wink.gif


LOL, that's just not possible, and if it were, then it would just be plain wrong.

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post #13 of 14
6/21/11 at 4:42pm

AD861 maybe?  I'm not a DIY'er so I never paid much attention to the opamp numbers. 

 

I guess compared to all the crazily bright headphones out there, it wasn't all that bright.  But they were bright for HD650's and they did have a cold and analytical sound. 

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post #14 of 14
6/22/11 at 10:45am

AD861

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