Listening to the Peak/Volcano combo suggests that a really good front end can do a lot to restore the highest levels sonic transparency that sometimes seem lacking in headphone-based systems. In short, this amp has an astonishing level of resolving power that shows up in its superior handling of spatial information, instrumental decays, and other low-level signals. These small signals are a key test of amplifier resolving power. This isn’t just a sporting thing; it’s the kind of difference that really matters for many kinds of music—if you care about realism.
The Peak/Volcano also expresses its superior resolution in the way it separates instruments. Many amps create a harmoniously blended sound on ensemble work (e.g., the sound of many instruments playing in a band at the same time)—a sound that is pleasantly homogenized, yet for that very reason is also inaccurate. The Peak/Volcano helps you realize that this kind of homogenized presentation is actually the result of lesser amplifiers smearing the distinct sounds of individual instruments into a wash. Once the Peak/Volcano’s much higher levels of resolution come into play, however, you instead hear more detailed contributions from each instrument in the ensemble, and in a way that doesn’t sound at all unnatural, but rather sounds more like the real thing.
