Hi, all. I've been avid peruser of HeadFi for a long time now, and with my recent purchase of a set of ampsandsound Suolo monos, a decision aided in no small part by what I read here, I thought it was finally time to post something detailing my first impressions after a few days with the Suolos.
By way of background, I should note that I am a tube novice and the Suolos are my first time purchasing a non-solid state product, so apologies for any imprecision in what follows -- I'm still learning! Prior to the addition of the Suolos, my current setup was a set of Focal Utopias being fed from an RME-ADI 2 DAC via a Sonore Ultrarendu/Uptone 1.2 LPS and powered by an original (i.e. non-hybrid) Schitt Mjolnir. My understanding, which had been validated by my listening, was that both the RME and the Mjolnir were on the clinical end of the sound spectrum, and given that the Utopias themselves excel at detail retrieval and can be, for me, occasionally a tad bright, I was hoping to switch to a tube amp setup to bring a bit of warmth/humidity to the sound. Lately I tend to listen mostly to Qobuz FLAC/High Res stuff by way of Audirvana, which probably contributed to the slight brittleness of sound I was experiencing. On the whole I LOVED what I was getting from the Utopias, and I didn't want to sacrifice much of their speed and precision, but I hoped to find an amplification solution that would give the sound a bit more body. I should also mention that I am big fan of bass, and I came to the Utopias from the LCD 2s, whose bass I adored. But while I sometimes missed the Audeze's low frequency depth, I also understood that depth wouldn't fit in with the Utopia's overall presentation, and so I made my peace with what the Utopias offer in terms of low end. That being said, when I thought about a new amp I'd preferred not to have it diminish the bass that the Utopias do have (i.e. I was fine with the Utopias' bass I was getting, but given my affection for the LCD 2s in this area I didn't want to have settle with any less!).
Anyway, having always has solid state equipment, I thought tubes might be the direction for my next upgrade, and over the past couple of months I read as much about tube amps as I could, including deep dives on various manufacturers. Long story short, in the course of my investigations I came across ampsandsound and Justin, and very quickly I became impressed both with the design philosophy around his amps but also the fact that Justin seemed like a decent and excessively friendly/accessible/helpful member of the audiophile community. Maybe this comes across as silly, but since listening to music for me is all about the heart, finding a person who builds gear who also shares a deep passion for what music can mean was very important to me. So after reading everything I could about ampsandsound I decided to contact Justin to talk about his amps and which one might be most appropriate for me given what I was hoping to get out of my Utopias. Justin immediately responded and within a day Justin called and he kindly devoted 45 minutes of his busy day telling me all about how he designs his amps and what I could expect with them. I say it was a busy day for him because, as Justin notes on the bio section of the ampsandsound website, his full time gig is as a social worker who specializes in working with psychiatric and medical populations, and in the time of COVID, there is no short of front line care to be given by him But despite the heavy demands of his day job, he still patiently explained the nuances of his amplifier philosophy to a stranger who may or may not end up buying anything. In terms of customer care, that certainly made a stellar first impression, and by the end of the call I knew Justin was the right person with whom to start my tube journey. So I decided to go for the Sulolo monos because they seem to be best fit in terms of providing my Utopias with both the warmth and slam I was looking for. A few days later I was greeted by a couple of massive Seahorse cases -- best packing job I've yet witnessed for audio gear -- at my front door and my tube journey had begun!
In the last year or so I've done a lot of upgrading to my headphone setup, and with each change I've made I've been able to say unambiguously that what I was hearing sounded better than before. That was especially true moving from the LCD2s to the the Utopias, and it was a common occurrence here for my wife to have to listen to me rave on about how staggeringly good the Utopias sounded. Well, my first night with the Suolos, which had only just begun breaking in, and the Utopias out of the 32ohm taps was an experience of a completely different magnitude. I'm at a loss for words to describe what happened, but after 4 hours or so of listening, my decompression from a challenging week, I found myself in the middle of "Because" off of Abbey Road -- one of my go to albums when I just want to. . . lose myself in music -- when I started crying. I mean tears were rolling down my cheeks. Because, so to speak, I had NEVER heard anything approaching the beauty and sweetness and depth of what I was hearing then. I can't remember the last time I felt such an emotional connection to music. It was astounding. The music was round and deep and sweet and had such. . . authority (that's the word that kept circling in my brain). Something that was true of whatever I threw at the amps: Metallica, John Prine, 100 gecs, Miles Davis, Tame Impala, Sleigh Bells, Raekwon, The Beatles, Kraftwerk, Talk, Talk. Whatever it was, the Suolos handled it with authority and grace. I think my biggest concern about a tube amp was whether it would slam enough and have enough low end frame to keep the whole picture together. Not an issue with the Suolos. Holy God those things hit hard!!!! But hit hard with an authority that was less the efficient well-oiled machine pummeling my eardrums I got from my previous SS experiences, and more like. . . Henry VIII running around in his velvet and ermine smacking me in the head with his golden scepter (really, that's the image I had in my head as I was listening). If that makes sense/doesn't sound too unhinged.
SS=authority by way of ruthless technical precision, while the Suolos=authority by way of royal grandeur and pageantry.
I could rave on about this for a long time, but in the end that night and the several nights that followed have left me completely blown away by the size of the improvement the Suolos brought. I had NO idea the Utopias could sound as good as they do now. And this at the very start of my experience with amps and stock tubes that are still settling in! As big as the leap from the LCD2s to the Utopias was for me, the leap from the Utopias to the Utopias with the Suolos was even bigger. Still completely gobsmacked by it. Yow. So I just want to say well done -- WELL DONE -- Justin. It's clear that you are passionate about audio, and I hope it brings you a bit of happiness knowing what all your work has brought to my corner of the world. You spread love, my man.
Can't wait to see where my journey with the Suolos takes me.
Peace.
Daniel
