Woo Audio 3 vs Schiit Lyr/Valhalla - Page 3

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrHouse 

...the best of both worlds.

I haven't heard much about this amp.  What makes you think it the best of both worlds?  What worlds?

I think Graham Slee makes some pretty nice products. They have a phono stage I want. No personal experience with their products yet. If you do purchase their amp please post your impressions here. I'm sure many of us would appreciate the review.

I do have the HD650 and the Lyr and I can promise you that is a very nice combination. The Lyr tube rolling thread is very active with lots of good advice on tube models. I'm sure that I saved $$ on trying multiple tube sets simply by following the recommendations of others. I don't consider the Lyr overkill for the HD650 even though the volume knob generally finds itself between 0900 and 1200. There is some white noise but it isn't even noticeable at my listening volumes. It's nothing to be concerned with. Personally I would want to compare the Lyr to the Woo WA6 or possibly even the WA6SE.

This is probably pointless as the OP has moved on to other considerations. But for those in doubt about the Lyr after reading this thread, check out Skylab's updated ranking of tube/hybrid amps. I believe a review is to come, but note the Lyr's position in the top 10 and the company it's in.

It goes without saying that it comes down to personal preference in the end, but if you're looking to buy without auditioning these components, a guide like this from an experienced and respected member is infinitely more helpful than someone making blind assumptions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by grmnasasin0227 

Haha that we are. Are you still set between these two manufacturers? If it were me I'd take the WA3 over Schiit stuff in a heartbeat. Why? Built to order (Schiit just has a factory and pumps them out), many combinations of tubes you can use (by my calculations from data on Woo's site, there are 81 combinations) so you can find the perfect sound for your cans that you like. Jack at Woo will also sell you many of the tubes that his amps can use so you don't have to go running around trying to find them.
 

This doesn't look like a factory to me:

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/schiit/3.html

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/schiit/4.html

I'm not going to post personal blog links out of respect for privacy for Schiit's employees, but the person responsible for the assembly is pretty clear that he or she is doing the lion's share of the work.  That person also makes it abundantly clear that he or she spends a great deal of time listening to the amps.

Not sure why you're running your mouth about gear or a company you don't really know anything about.  Mike, Jason, and Rina are not getting rich off of the community while they design and manufacture amps that give fantastic performance for a great price.  It's kind of obnoxious of you to make these negative statements on a company and gear you have no experience with.

Edit: I'm sorry if this post comes off as harsh, but your comment on Schiit irritated me.  I've never met Jason or the others, but everything I've read about them has demonstrated that they're stand-up guys, and I think this kind of unjustified rhetoric is completely unmerited.

Get the schiit lyr! With the right tubes, it clean beats more expensive amps such as the Meier concerto, woo audio6 and burson 160 imo. It even comes pretty close to my maxed out woo wa5 in some respects like dynamic punch and the woo amp is almost 10 times the price!

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrHouse 

Does the lyr (on each use) need time to warm up the tubes before good sound comes out? if so, how long?

 

This is MUCH cheaper than the Graham Slee Solo Ultra Linear, so still curious.

Give it 20mins to half an hours. But I'm pretty happy with the sound before the tubes warm up.

You may even find it's listenable at ~10 mins, optimum at ~20+ as yeemanz says. It's not that big of a deal really. The Lyr and HD650 are a great match.  
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by yeemanz 

Give it 20mins to half an hours. But I'm pretty happy with the sound before the tubes warm up.

 

How about HD600 with lyr? Thanks!

I own that very specific combo at the moment. I only have the 6BZ7 tubes that you can order from Schitt directly. I think they both go together great. It drives them with authority and made my HD600's much more enjoyable. I don't have any low impedance headphones so I wasn't able to hear any noise or anything.  Funny too after reading the posts about the Ultra Linear it just so happens that I have an Ultra Linear on loan from Graham Slees loaner program and as much as I hate to say it I think it sounds a bit better to my ears with these phones. If it weren't for the price I probably would more seriously consider purchasing it. Also take into consideration which tubes I'm using with my Lyr. I have not delved into the world of tube rolling and may not either. I'm sure with the right tubes though the performances between the two would be much closer. My 2 cents. If there's anything specifically you want to know about the sound with the Lyr and HD600 you can PM me and I would be happy to answer any questions you might have. 

Just finished reading this thread, and by now it seems you have moved away from the Valhalla, but a couple of points:

- (AFAIK) The Lyr is a hybrid amp indeed, but the the Valhalla is a "real" (i.e. OTL) tube amp, just like the WA3. And both share the same benefits and disadvantages of OTL (Output TransformerLess, as opposed to transformer-coupled, i.e. hybrid(?)):

- You get true tube sound all the way (how good that is/sounds to you is a different matter), which for me was important: If I was going to go the tube road, then go it all the way... as somebody else wrote, or go SS all the way. At the kind of money I wanted to lay down at the time, the Valhalla was the cheapest, yet solidly designed option. And I didn't want to experiment with tubes, just wanted something that works, and the Valhalla delivers.

- Bass: more than anything it depends on the headphones! My W5000 is known to be weak in that area but the very improvement of hooking it up to the Valhalla was what send me down the dark head-fi path in the first place. Once I hooked up the Beyer T1 and later the W3000, I really can't complain about those lacking bass driven by the Valhalla. I didn't find it lacking in power either since even with the T1 I don't go much past 12 o'clock IF I really feel like cranking it up, most of the time it's even less than that.

- However the drawback with OTL tube amps is usually power: not so much of it (does not necessarily equal bass performance) So now I'm eyeing different headphones , and the Valhalla isn't going to handle those, so I'm looking at a more powerful OTL tube amp, the WA2. It's at the limit of my price range, but still delivers much more juice than the Valhalla while still being a true tube amp (and allows plenty of tube rolling) If you look at Woo's lineup, everything else (non-Stax) is transformer-coupled, incl. the WA6-SE, which at almost the same price delivers almost twice the power of the WA2, at the expense of not being a "pure" tube amp... And of course this is also why you see some pure tube amps for speakers having a gazillion tubes to be able to generate enough power.

- So if you want the real tube experience without any hassle and don't have (or plan to acquire) headphones requiring a lot more power, the Valhalla is great bang for the buck. I'm sceptical about the Graham Slee Solo. I'm sure it's a high-end piece, I have read how it is possible to tune SS to have certain characteristics (like emulating "tube sound") but for that kind of money, I'd like to read a lot more reviews & see some test data before pulling out my wallet... For me anyway, at the same price as the WA2 it's no contest. And if in the future I'd like to try non-tube, then I'd rather go high-quality solid-state... seems like Hifiman's LE6 would be an interesting option for example.

- Lastly, the post about Schiit's manufacturing & service irritated me as well. The gang of three has always been responsive and helpful with any questions and issues I have had. For instance, after a couple of weeks of burn-in I got a slight hiss in one channel, and a tube swap confirmed it was the tubes. I wrote Jason, and he set up a replacement shipment, not just the one tube but the whole set. And I offered to have it packed in with my soon-due Bifrost, but Rina shipped the set immediately, separately, anyway. I don't think they have a factory "pumping them out", I think there's even a post about how they handle most of it themselves. And Jack at Woo has also been responsive to email too, so I think both are fine companies to deal with.