That headphone also takes a WA33 Elite + JPS wiring to actually sound great. Last CanJam 2022, Jeff Wells brought his Commander and Headtrip monos and that was Krakatoa bass explosiveness with the 1266 Phi!

Pretty much tells me it's not gonna scale as much as the OG Susvara. Flat and lifeless are the last thing I'd ever say about the Susvara on the best chain

You can mod either version. The DIY version has 22uF capacitors by default. AFAIK, only Toonarist has modded it for the Elrog 274B. I still have the reference build and am not FOMOing on the 274B access for now

Only the Sophia Aqua II will work. The rest of the 274B won't unless you roll a 4uf input cap to get access to Elrog 274B

For the Susvara, I use the Mullard GZ32, Tung Sol 6SU7GTY and Tung Sol 7581A. For ZMF Atrium, I swap the 7581A to Svetlana “S” KT88

Aegis will drive the Susvara really well and competitively well at its commercial asking price, but it's not gonna be on the level of the Riviera AIC-10 Bal hybrid tube amp on speaker taps (still the best amp I've ever heard for the Sus). But, for your other headphones, Aegis will definitely...

If you're in SoCal, you can also try out my Aegis Trireme Special Edition (homage to DenverW's Aegis build) and Yggdrasil MiB combo: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/socal-meet-june-29th-2024.973037/

Yggy More is Better and Aegis (synergy is just chef's kiss!). Two highly refined sounding DAC and AMP (both are airy sounding to boot!) combo!

New Agarthas have the RCA 6XA5GT tube rectification with the rectifier choke hidden inside the chassis

You can certainly roll a 6SN7 to Agartha unlike the Aegis

Whatever DAC you throw in the Aegis, even Apple Dongle it'll drive it fine. Input sensitivity is pretty high with the Aegis IMO

Don't DHT SET amps (300Bs, 2A3's, 45's, 805's, 811, etc.) commonly have fixed biased output stage? I rarely see amps that can swap between 2A3 and 300B tubes as well

How much more would the XL version even provide?

Chip or not, it's all about implementation. Even the best DACs on the market uses chip DACs rather discrete resistor ladders (Lampizator and Aries Cerat and Linn before they released Organik DAC for example)

Yes! That's the one! Sounds great even out of the box :). I'm still letting mine burn-in as I perceive it to open up a bit after just 1 hour of listening

Who's into tubes that glow blue in the dark? These new production Tung Sol KT66/7581A looks glowingly good in the dark :) The bass on these Tung-Sol rivals the KT88 in the slam factor IMHO and beats it in sheer presence. Mids are somewhere in between TAD KT66 and KT88 in the lushness. Treble is...

IMHO, I get the gist that the Sus Unveiled won't scale as much as the veiled OG, but at least it's easier to drive and get the most out of it than the OG. With the OG, depending on the chain, it can sound from unengaging or dead flat to OMG incredibly slammy, tight, dynamic, subterranean bass...

Geopolitics gets in the way of fun unfortunately

Now if it's held in Taiwan, I would see far more people residing in the West attending the event

What tube's do you have in the Nautilus?

Team Tung Sol for now! American and Russian Tung Sols meet and greet :)

The newer iterations are 3.5mm. It was 2.5mm originally

Midgard is more mature in the treble refinement than Piety

Bonneville or Black Star is the best choice for slam. However, you will have a slight upper treble emphasis with the Bonneville which adds a good amount of sparkle and is an evolution from the Andromeda family

Literally describing the Arya Organic to me but in Susvara's technicialities