I have a very understanding wife who never asks what I spend on my audio and cycling hobbies (and when she does, I use the law of thirds, I multiply what I paid by 33% and that's what I tell her I paid!). Works at our house... Mostly.
I owned the DS for about a year. I never tried it with the TH-900 but I did with the LA-7000 (modded D7000) which is very similiar. When music wasn't playing, you could hear a low level hissing sound through my LA-7000. If you're listening to rock it may not be a problem but if you listen to classical the noise may be annoying during the quiet parts. The amp was designed for hard to drive headphones and not low impedance high sensitivity cans. It does what it was designed to do very well. IMO, IEM's would be a no go.
As Steve I also owned the DS for sometime and totally agree with him. It sounds amazing with hard to drive cans or high impedance cans but it has too much gain (even at the low gain position) for low impedance/ easy to drive cans. It is not designed for those.
Good God People, We seem to be talking about the need for power here. I know this is a Ray Samuals product discussion, but why keep chasing your tale if POWER is what you want, well then just go with the undisputed king of POWER, and stop trying to re-invent the wheel....Get the Violectric VA200, get the power of Thor, and be done with it. If that can't power your most demanding Can, then, maybe you should just strap some speakers to your head instead....
I personally like the sound of the DS better. IMO the GS-X sound a little to analytic (dry) to my taste. In addition to that if you own or planning to own the HE-6 the DS power them better. I listen to the GS-X at RMAF with the HE-6 and had high expectations but unfortunately was disappointed.
by DRY you mean lower distortion on both end or just less resolution on the amp in general?
I heard some people say that DS is bit warmer than other SS amps due to some high distortion op-amp added to the output stage to make it sound more "TUBE" like.
With no proof, I cannot confirm if this view is true. So, can you go into more details to expaint the sonic difference?
Yes, IMO the DS sound is in the warmer sound of a SS amp and I personally like that. I don't know how Ray accomplish that but I personally like the result.
What I meant with dry is more analytical, faster and digital sounding compared to the more analog, tube like sound of the DS. Don't get me wrong the GSX II is a great amp but I personally like the sound signature of the RSA amps maybe because I am used to the sound of my Woo.
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