Thanks man.

Does anyone know if I can use this in Europe with a normal plug adapter, or if I would need a voltage stepper (like the previous Monolith 788)? Website says: Power supply: 24 VDC inline brick, universal input 100–240 VAC if that helps.

Sounds to me like you should stick with the Clears, since you don't find the treble to hot. Hifiman stage is big because it's tall not wide. Not as wide as HD800, if that's what you're after.

Arya could be problematic if you're very sensitive - I am sensitive and find it just at my limit, and on some songs a little over. Of course, I don't know if you're more sensitive than me, or not. But you can always EQ it, which I sometimes do. HEX resolution isn't a problem unless you get used...

They are pretty similar in most ways - the biggest differences are resolution (Arya clearly better), treble (HEX more relaxed/rolled off), and the depth of the soundstage (Arya more 3D/HEX just as big but flatter).

Ah, ok. Interesting. I hadn't noticed that, but you may be right.

I haven't heard HEKv2 - supposedly similar to Arya - but I wouldn't call Arya rounded and soft, or say LCD-3 has harder edges - but maybe I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Are you talking about speed or FR? I assume you're talking about treble, but maybe I'm off.

Interesting. I just noticed on their website is says over a quarter watt! I wonder what's up with the revisions to the recommendations.

Interesting. I talked to Audeze about this, and they recommended half a watt at 110 ohm, which all my amps do better than, but I've never tried it with something more powerful. Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to do that at home - although maybe I could take them to a store and test your...

Just power hungry cans, especially when EQ is being used on uncompressed classical... It's really not a problem that comes up much, more of a mystery that peaked my curiosity.

No, they were plugged into different sockets.

I was using fixed line out to maintain my volume matching (I think I remember needing to do something inside the unit to use that option), so volume pot is disabled but gain switch still has an effect (I believe the amp doesn't actually have variable gain, so it's always the DAC making the...

Thanks, that certainly sounds possible. JDS does say they designed Atom using what they learned on the O2, so it's quite possible they kept the pot in the same chain-position, especially since they seem quite concerned with noise and distortion measurements. The NFB high gain DAC output is 2.5...

Perhaps someone can answer this question. I was comparing NFB-11.28 to Atom, using the NFB's DAC to isolate differences in the amp sections only. I was listening to "Apostolo glorioso" by Dufay on Spotify (Lorelei Ensemble). 10 seconds in, only when Atom and NFB's DAC are both in high gain (NFB...

I'd go for it :)