[preproman]

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the more and more I read your impressions, the more I feel my purchase of the ef6 this week was maybe a bad idea. I should receive the amp next week.
 
maybe I should have gone the speaker amp route. I bought the ef6 because I felt I was not ready for a speaker amp setup and I wanted something that could drive both my he 6 and my hd 800 and was single ended and class a solid state.
 
speaking of hd 800, if you could try it with your ef6 and post impressions, that would be greatly appreciated. I am a bit anxious.
 
anyway most of the reviews I read on the net, the people were very satisfied with the ef6 performance soundwise.
 
we also have to remember that this amp is about 1600 bucks new. not 3000 to 4000 bucks like some of its competitor some even costing upward of 6000 bucks.
 
to me it is a bargain. a lot of amplifier for the money.

 
I don't know why you think the EF-6 is not a good enough amp for the HE-6?  
 
It was compared to a speaker amp first, a current drive speaker amp at that.   Not a fair fight.  I just wanted to see for my self.  Then it compared to another pretty damn good headphone amp.  Which I still would take the EF-6 over if I only had the HE-6 to use.
 
IMO you can't go wrong with the HE-6 and the EF-6 combo.  I also just put my Mad Dogs on the EF-6.  The EF-6 opened the Mad Dogs up pretty good and made them sound not so dark anymore.
 
Did you read where I said the EF-6 did better than any other headphone amp that I've tried?  That includes:
 
Mjolnir
BHA-1
Burson 160D - I'm sure no other Burson can keep up with the EF-6/HE-6 paring.
Balanced M3
Balanced CK2III
Emotiva a-100
Headamp GS-1
 
I'm not interested in dragging the mono blocks back out.  But if HC is interested in bringing his Rotel mono blocks over - that would be an interesting comparison as well.
 
I'm going to do a B22 vs. EF-6 with the HE-6 today - this should be very interesting..
 
Bottom line.  The EF-6 at that price is a really good deal to use with the HE-6 - if your not into venturing into speaker amps.  As far as headphone amps are concerned - It will be hard to beat it at that price point thus far to date.  Who know what going to happen when the other "newer" headphone amps come out.

 

[preproman]

Quote:

Thanks Preproman for the comparisons.
 
I compared the EF6 to my Master-6 late last year but wanted to keep my opinions to myself until your comparison was complete.
 
I will say I agree with what you said about the EF6 as being more 'laid back' amd recessed. I found the M6 to be quite a bit more dynamic and livelier with better transients and impact.
Also the M6 shows no sign of strain when the wick is turned but I did find a slight hardening of the EF6's sound when I did the same, the 40% greater power of the M6 certainly comes in handy 

 
The M6 is the better amp for the HE6's IMO unless someone wants a laid back sound.

 
 
Did you try it on the 0 setting?  It's not as laid back then.  

 

[alota]

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I'm going to do a B22 vs. EF-6 with the HE-6 today - this should be very interesting..
 

 

[magiccabbage]

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A speaker amp like the Parasound 1000A or 1500A designed by John Curl, he designed the legendary Vendetta phono preamp.
He's a Class A kind a guy.
 
His interview:  http://www.parasound.com/pdfs/JCinterview.pdf
 

Q: All the power amplifiers you have designed for Parasound run pure Class

A bias at low-to-moderate signal levels. How important is Class A bias?

 

JC: All else being equal the more Class A you have the better. We don’t need a

full Class A amplifier, because people don’t listen to full power levels all

the time. They really need only 10 Watts or so because that is where most

of our listening is done. However, getting that 10 Watts of Class A is really

quite a feat considering of the all other constraints of having 200 Watts

Class AB in reserve. The Class A portion is always smoother and better,

while the Class AB is always a bit rougher because it is against the law of

physics. It breaks the music into positive and negative cycles and then

splices them back together. Only one side is working while the other side

isn’t... it’s the nature of the beast. You can sometimes see the transition on

a scope; it may not be very much but it will be there. It will also generate

more high order harmonics. By definition, Class AB is not as linear as

Class A, but it is certainly much more efficient. So it’s better and easier to

run as much Class A as possible.

This is great reading thanks for the post. 

 

[nigeljames]

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Did you try it on the 0 setting?  It's not as laid back then.  

 
I only tried it on the 0 setting as most of my time with the EF-6 was with the HE6's.
 
However I did try it on the LCD2.2's and it was too warm for my tastes, the Master-6's greater clarity and transparency was what the LCD's needed.
 
I will admit though that the EF-6 sounded very good with my T1's.

 

[philo50]

I push my HE-6's with my EF-6 and am very pleased with the results....it also does a fine job with LCD-3,HE-800 and T1.....they all like the extra power.....

 

[preproman]

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I will admit though that the EF-6 sounded very good with my T1's.

 
It sure does..

 

[Solude]

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However I did try it on the LCD2.2's and it was too warm for my tastes, the Master-6's greater clarity and transparency was what the LCD's needed.

 
Not surprising given it's essentially a $15K Krell =)

 

[LarsHP]

What? Are you saying the Audio-gd Master-6 pre/headphone amp is a Krell copy? Does Krell make preamps with headphone output delivering 9 Watts in 40 Ohms? From what I have read so far, Audio-gd uses the same basic amp principle (ACSS ~ CAST), but their designs are so different that you can't talk about copies and originals. Kingwa does his own amps for sure with the "Diamond ..." (something, can't remember exactly the name) design.

 

[Solude]

It's not a copy, it's a Kingwa creation that just happens to be very similar circuit wise to the Krell.  Clearly different part selection, casing, feature set etc.  Similar to the B22 being very much like a Pass Labs something or other I can't remember.  That's why I said essentially and not copy.  Make sense?  In the end there are only so many ways to skin a cat

 

[khaine1711]

Quote:

What? Are you saying the Audio-gd Master-6 pre/headphone amp is a Krell copy? Does Krell make preamps with headphone output delivering 9 Watts in 40 Ohms? From what I have read so far, Audio-gd uses the same basic amp principle (ACSS ~ CAST), but their designs are so different that you can't talk about copies and originals. Kingwa does his own amps for sure with the "Diamond ..." (something, can't remember exactly the name) design.

ACSS is CAST with another type of connector instead of the expensive CAST connector. Kingwa also doesn't "invent" diamond buffer, it's been around for a long time already.
 
He used to copy some of the famous design (Krell, Mark Levinson, Marantz) back in the early audio-gd days. Now it's hard to say whether the current design is "influenced" by those or not. As long as it sounds good and is reasonably priced, who cares 

.
 
Btw Solude, what happened to your hd800? 

 

[Solude]

It turned into money overnight

 

[brunk]

Quote:

It turned into money overnight

Is there a HE-6 in your future? 

 

[Solude]

It's pretty much the last stop gap before re-entering the Mafia but stories from owners don't do much to get me excited about it.  Generally a lot of IF in the happiness factor.  If this, if that  
 
And I'd hate to get one from Justin with the idea right out of the gate that it will likely go back.  But then the dude in my other ear says... DO IT  I don't miss the HE series comfort either.  The HE-5LE was shall we say not terribly comfortable.  I'm very surprised the cable entry hasn't been brought forward to clear the shoulders overtime.  Not a difficult change to implement yet straight down it is even on newer models.

 

[elwappo99]

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It turned into money overnight

 
Ohh! A magician! 
 
I just never thought the high end dynamic headphones really competed well with the high end orthodynamic. The realism just isn't present.