[Nimzerz]

Had a great time on Saturday. I don't have a great picture of what I brought but I did take some pictures of other things that I heard. Was really cool to hear a lot of rare tube amps and see how they pair with ZMFs. Also was great to spend more time with tungsten and compare my single sided version to the double sided.

@Ishcabible had an incredible setup. I didn't get to spend a ton of time listening but I thought the caldera sounded great through the Oliver Sayes preamp and Esoteric poweramp.

On the same setup I heard the new Yamaha Planar which sounded very odd but I kind of liked it. It was just very v-shaped and aggressive sounding but for some genres like metal perhaps I could see it working well.


From @pravous I heard the Aegis and Airmid with Atrium. I've spent some time with Airmid in the ZMF room at Canjams but it was my first time hearing the Aegis. I preferred the Aegis overall, it had a more full and punchy sound while the Airmid sounded a bit more open and clear but lacked some of the weight that I really liked from the Aegis.



The new ZMF portable sounded great. I first heard it in Chicago off of the JDS Labs amp collab and enjoyed it but it sounded almost more cohesive here however I'm not sure if there have been any changes to it since Chicago or perhaps the amp pairing just worked better.

The Vali 2 was a great little amp that had a really pleasing sound with Bokeh and HD800.

@wizzman121 had an awesome setup as always and I really liked hearing both the Auteur Classic and Caldera Redheart on the Cayin HA-3A


@DeweyCH brought some awesome tube gear as well and I really enjoyed the Bottlehead Stax amp but didn't get a chance to spend time with the Ampsandsound I think it was a Mogwai. The L700s on the bottlehead sounded warm and fun, no harshness or lack of bass but they still had that ethereal and fast sound of an estat.



At my table it was fun to compare the Tungsten single sided (purple) to the double sided (orange) off of the Firstwatt SIT-3 that I brought. I thought the SS was a bit warmer with more up front vocals and a slightly punchier sound while the DS had much smoother and airier treble with a more laid back presentation reminding me of Susvara.

I also brought my Mass Kobo 475 and it was fun to hear a bunch of IEMs on it and compare to the Kinera Loki which are my favorite IEM at the moment.



I only heard about half of what was at the meet so looking forward to impressions and pictures of the gear that I missed. It was great to meet everyone and chat about audio and headphones.

Happened to stumble across your post and saw you tried the Tungsten on the SIT-3. How did that sound?

I was convinced the SIT-3 would not be able to power them without sounding awful because they are high impedance, and the amp's high order distortion grows with impedance. If you install resistors in parallel to reduce the impedance seen by the amplifier, you probably won't have enough power to the headphones.

 

[cangle]

Happened to stumble across your post and saw you tried the Tungsten on the SIT-3. How did that sound?

I was convinced the SIT-3 would not be able to power them without sounding awful because they are high impedance, and the amp's high order distortion grows with impedance. If you install resistors in parallel to reduce the impedance seen by the amplifier, you probably won't have enough power to the headphones.

Sounds pretty good actually. The SIT-3 is a pretty warm amp so sometimes it can be too warm based on the preamp, dac, and cabling but at the meet, from memory, the sound was pretty balanced. I've run Tungsten on SIT-3 at home but with the Serene KTE preamp and sometimes I run out of volume. But with the Kara as the preamp, it has more gain then the serene, I have plenty of headroom with the Tungsten. I also haven't run into the amp distorting or anything with the Tungsten attached. I've run it both through the Zynsonix adapter box I brought to the meet and direct to the amp through a banana to female 4 pin xlr connected to my headphone cable.

My other speaker amp that I'm familiar with is the Schiit Tyrs. Those sound pretty different to the SIT-3. With the tungsten on the SIT-3 I get a warm, thick, but smooth sound, with an emphasis on the bass and mids. The treble is soft but still detailed although lacking some air. The Tyrs with the Tungsten stage larger, sound more clear, and have a more impactful sound. However the bass feels a little lean next to the SIT-3. The Tyrs have a lot more headroom too.

 

[sp33ls]

The Tyrs have a lot more headroom too.

Both will have plenty of headroom for headphone usage... even 1W into a Susvara is loud... too loud.
I think you may be referring to gain?

Gain of Tyr: 22dB
Gain of SIT-3: 11.5dB

So, the SIT-3 is offloading a lot more "work" to the preamp/DAC in order to drive the SIT-3 properly. Based on "volume knob feel," the Tyr will always sound "louder" than the SIT-3. It does also have more power. But, Nelson's minimalist designs typically have other benefits wrt sound "quality."

I've not heard the Tyr, yet, but no doubt it's an awesome amplifier and great value.

That said, these VFET/SIT transistors are the like the holy grail of output devices for audio. It's a shame they were manufactured right before cost-cutting started to take place in the late 70's.

 

[cangle]

I think you may be referring to gain?

Probably. Wasn’t using it in a technical sense. Just to say that I can get the headphones much louder on the Tyrs.

 

[jlemaster1957]

Sounds pretty good actually. The SIT-3 is a pretty warm amp so sometimes it can be too warm based on the preamp, dac, and cabling but at the meet, from memory, the sound was pretty balanced. I've run Tungsten on SIT-3 at home but with the Serene KTE preamp and sometimes I run out of volume. But with the Kara as the preamp, it has more gain then the serene, I have plenty of headroom with the Tungsten. I also haven't run into the amp distorting or anything with the Tungsten attached. I've run it both through the Zynsonix adapter box I brought to the meet and direct to the amp through a banana to female 4 pin xlr connected to my headphone cable.

My other speaker amp that I'm familiar with is the Schiit Tyrs. Those sound pretty different to the SIT-3. With the tungsten on the SIT-3 I get a warm, thick, but smooth sound, with an emphasis on the bass and mids. The treble is soft but still detailed although lacking some air. The Tyrs with the Tungsten stage larger, sound more clear, and have a more impactful sound. However the bass feels a little lean next to the SIT-3. The Tyrs have a lot more headroom too.

@cangle - question from a non-attendee (this year, this sounds a great meet, next year maybe… hey, have you tried the Kara as a preamp to Tyrs in the headphone context and how did it cp to the Serene? . Btw I am planning to follow your path with the Tyrs to drive Susvaras. I dont have the Serene (and can’t afford to buy one as well as the Tyrs- at least on the near future ) ,but the Kara would be within reach.

 

[cangle]

Kara as a preamp to Tyrs in the headphone context and how did it cp to the Serene

I have yeah. Most of the comparison was done in the low nexus gain mode. Passive on Kara sounds the same as just feeding your dac to the amp without a preamp in between.

I prefer the Serene. It stages larger and has more detail. Serene also has more separation and texture in the bass. However it can sound a little too smooth or rolled off in the treble depending on the headphone so sometimes I like just using my dac as a preamp if I want more clarity. The kara is a great little preamp and I find it to be warm but with a fun punchy sound. However I don't think it really competes with the Serene at all. The passive mode is really nice to have though especially to use when comparing multiple dacs.

The only downside to the serene is that pairing it with a warm amp can be too much of a good thing. I like it better with the Tyrs over the SIT-3 for example. Sorry for the slow response, just getting back from Canjam.

 

[sp33ls]

Sorry for the slow response, just getting back from Canjam.

I know it's sorta off-topic in this thread, but I'd be curious to hear what your top takeaways were from CanJam.

 

[cangle]

top takeaways were from CanJam

Sure I can list a few things I liked. I should really post a more thorough post in the canjam impressions thread, I haven't done that in the past.

Stax SR-007 mk2, really enjoyed this was great on the Stax SRM-400S and on the Viva STX too. One of my favorite headphones for vocals at the moment and it impresses me each time I hear it
Diana MR, my favorite sounding Abyss headphone, just a really easy to listen to headphone
Hiby RS8, impressed by detail, texture, and imaging on this DAP vs my dx320
Canpur 622b, the most detailed IEM I've heard, reminded me of an estat in how it presents detail and treble information. Nice and controlled bass response too
ZMF Decware OTL, just a really nice amp to use, curious how it pairs with some of the sennheiser headphones though.