[Rolandmangrove]

I have the Aune for almost a week now. I find the soundquality is on a very high level. All the superlatives are already said: Warm, meat on the bones, spacious and 3D and incredible layering. I used to have a litte dot MK3 and it was okay but nothing special. Then I bought the Singrex SA1 which is pretty good but it lacks the imaging and layering and is sounds much smaller. I am going the sell the SA1.

Temperature does not seem to be a problem with my Beyer DT770 pro 250 Ohm. I am burning in with this headphone. Studio temperature is about 20 degrees C and the Aune stays around 52 at 100ma G-H. But when I switch to my Denon D9200 (my main headphones), 24 Ohm XLR 4 pin, temperature rises quickly to about 65 degrees C. I bought a fan to place underneath the unit and this works very well (temperature goes down more than 10 degrees and fan is very quiet). But I don't like the looks. Later I saw the forum posts suggesting to use a laptop cooler and today I ordered one.

I seems like a lot of hassle but for me the sound is most important and my Denon really shines withe the Aune!

 

[Musiccc]

I have the Aune for almost a week now. I find the soundquality is on a very high level. All the superlatives are already said: Warm, meat on the bones, spacious and 3D and incredible layering. I used to have a litte dot MK3 and it was okay but nothing special. Then I bought the Singrex SA1 which is pretty good but it lacks the imaging and layering and is sounds much smaller. I am going the sell the SA1.

Temperature does not seem to be a problem with my Beyer DT770 pro 250 Ohm. I am burning in with this headphone. Studio temperature is about 20 degrees C and the Aune stays around 52 at 100ma G-H. But when I switch to my Denon D9200 (my main headphones), 24 Ohm XLR 4 pin, temperature rises quickly to about 65 degrees C. I bought a fan to place underneath the unit and this works very well (temperature goes down more than 10 degrees and fan is very quiet). But I don't like the looks. Later I saw the forum posts suggesting to use a laptop cooler and today I ordered one.

I seems like a lot of hassle but for me the sound is most important and my Denon really shines withe the Aune!

The laptop cooler is quick, easy, looks fine with the amp, but that Noctua fan you used would do a better job at cooling tho.

 

[hakunamakaka]

I have the Aune for almost a week now. I find the soundquality is on a very high level. All the superlatives are already said: Warm, meat on the bones, spacious and 3D and incredible layering. I used to have a litte dot MK3 and it was okay but nothing special. Then I bought the Singrex SA1 which is pretty good but it lacks the imaging and layering and is sounds much smaller. I am going the sell the SA1.

Temperature does not seem to be a problem with my Beyer DT770 pro 250 Ohm. I am burning in with this headphone. Studio temperature is about 20 degrees C and the Aune stays around 52 at 100ma G-H. But when I switch to my Denon D9200 (my main headphones), 24 Ohm XLR 4 pin, temperature rises quickly to about 65 degrees C. I bought a fan to place underneath the unit and this works very well (temperature goes down more than 10 degrees and fan is very quiet). But I don't like the looks. Later I saw the forum posts suggesting to use a laptop cooler and today I ordered one.

I seems like a lot of hassle but for me the sound is most important and my Denon really shines withe the Aune!

Sound quality wise Aune's amps are tier above against usual ASR suspects. I had their smaller models to compare X7S vs L30II and Aune simply outshined L30II with more natural presentation. A very good match for brighter headphones like D9200/Clear, etc... It shows that good amps can be possible on budget.

The only issue I had was uneven volume control thus not very usable for sensitive IEM's. Bit unfortunate that temperature issues exists here, but Aune is on the right track

 

[Musiccc]

I have strong suspicions that this is an assembly defect. There's a powerful radiator inside that dissipates heat. And it seems that some of the copies are "screwed" somehow wrong.

On my device, the temperature rise stopped at 57 degrees after three hours of use.
After I added the 25mm feet, the temperature stops at 54 degrees.

P.S. Another version is the influence of low-impedance headphones. As far as I remember, the manufacturer recommends using headphones from 30 ohms and above. If you use, for example, 16-ohm Hifiman Arya Organic headphones, you may go beyond the limits recommended by the manufacturer and additional heating may appear.
But this is just a rough guess.

What is your ambient/room temperature? Since that is crucial to the max temp of the amp.

 

[quawn0418]

Aune has done something that’s never been done before and for that, i applaud them. However, when breaking boundaries there are often drawbacks, in this case it happens to be temperature control (even volume curve for some). The sad truth is that if aune had a solution, these things simply wouldn’t be an issue. As S17 owners this is something we have to either live with or not. The S17 provides a sound that competes with amps double and even triple its price, but at $700 they just aren’t able to do it all. So in return, some improv may be required. Now if you don’t wish to improvise then be ready to spend alot more for the same quality of sound. I have a Mjolnir 3 on order and i can only hope it sounds as good (even if different) than the S17, I’m choosing to spend the extra +500 for heat control and the 5 year warranty. Sadly the S17 will be sent back, there’s just too much going on with it at the moment, i may even pick another one up down the line somewhere, who knows.

 

[Erick Muller]

Aune has done something that’s never been done before and for that, i applaud them. However, when breaking boundaries there are often drawbacks, in this case it happens to be temperature control (even volume curve for some). The sad truth is that if aune had a solution, these things simply wouldn’t be an issue. As S17 owners this is something we have to either live with or not. The S17 provides a sound that competes with amps double and even triple its price, but at $700 they just aren’t able to do it all. So in return, some improv may be required. Now if you don’t wish to improvise then be ready to spend alot more for the same quality of sound. I have a Mjolnir 3 on order and i can only hope it sounds as good (even if different) than the S17, I’m choosing to spend the extra +500 for heat control and the 5 year warranty. Sadly the S17 will be sent back, there’s just too much going on with it at the moment, i may even pick another one up down the line somewhere, who knows.

I'm also considering the Mjolnir 3, no so much because I had a lot of issues with the S17, but because it seems this amp can really power ModHouse Tungsten's to their full extend, if I ever get the Mjolnir 3, you can bet I'll be preamping it with my S17 to get some of it's sound characteristics into the MJ3, for the impressiong that I read about this amp sound, it seems to be a lot more resolving and cleaner that the S17 in comparison, but still has some warmth to it.

 

[Musiccc]

Follow up to my post:



Aune replied today.
Pretty unclear statement, but hints in the direction of "not ok". Another problem occured yesterday. Theres a 50hz buzz on the left chanel. Came out of nowhere. No source connected, no signal. XLR output. Still there. Didnt test the other outputs. I had enough and didnt want to test anything further, switched it off, packaged it and shipped it back the next day after i issued a return with the seller.

There is more to the story wich i will eventually share after things are worked through.

Conversation attatched.

The buzz could have caused by your ac outlet/extension/other items that are plugged in. I plugged my S17 into an extension with other power adapters and there was buzzing noise out of the headphones. Plugged the S17 into another extension with no other stuff and no interference noise.

 

[slsmaster]

I hope I don’t get those overheating issues with my Utopia, can’t wait for my S17 to be delivered from France.

Will report back on the sound/heat once it arrives.

 

[Erick Muller]

I hope I don’t get those overheating issues with my Utopia, can’t wait for my S17 to be delivered from France.

Will report back on the sound/heat once it arrives.

I have a set of focal clear's and I know the utopias are a little bit higher impedance than my clear's but my S17 doesn't overheat at all... unless I use the 3m xlr cable, there's something weird going on there with focal stock cables, so better have some good after-market cables set and ready for your utopia's, just in case

 

[Musiccc]

- Noise Issues -

I have encountered noise issues when I first got my unit and was thinking the possibility of of a defective unit. I have since conducted more troubleshooting and this is what I found.
No input source (DAC) connected. Volume set to zero. Headphones (55ohms) connected via XLR connection.
There's constant pink noise emitting from the headphones when in G-H mode. In G-L mode, dead silent. 50mA or 100mA does not matter.
With music playing = constant pink noise plus music.
I switched to an oem xlr cable and the noise went away.
So, the issue was with this aftermarket xlr cable/S17 in G-H combo. Never encounter issues with other amp (less powerful) paired with this cable before. It was an OCC pure copper XLR braided cables. Hmmm?
So, if you encounter noise issues, check your cables, ac, etc...

 

[Erick Muller]

- Noise Issues -

I have encountered noise issues when I first got my unit and was thinking the possibility of of a defective unit. I have since conducted more troubleshooting and this is what I found.
No input source (DAC) connected. Volume set to zero. Headphones (55ohms) connected via XLR connection.
There's constant pink noise emitting from the headphones when in G-H mode. In G-L mode, dead silent. 50mA or 100mA does not matter.
With music playing = constant pink noise plus music.
I switched to an oem xlr cable and the noise went away.
So, the issue was with this aftermarket xlr cable/S17 in G-H combo. Never encounter issues with other amp (less powerful) paired with this cable before. It was an OCC pure copper XLR cables. Hmmm?

I haven't noticed any pink noise coming from my S17 in the couple of months I had it, but I have noticed that when I used the 3m long xlr from the focal clear connected to this amp, temps got high fast in 100ma, change to another cable and it has never gone beyond 65, so there's something weird going on with the amp for sure.

 

[leoxdebois]

Could you suggest some working cables above 2.5 meters which are not making the noise ? Because I have got the problem with mine.

 

[Simon Patten]

Another addition to the heat discussion. Sorry if you're bored of hearing about it.

I'm using my S17 in single ended mode (haven't got around to buying XLR cables) and my Edition XS cans with a 3.5mm SE cable. It is currently sitting on two pieces of wood 50mm high, 20mm wide and 160mm deep (2" x 3/4" x 7") to give it plenty of ventilation. I have been running it in low gain and 100ma for the last few days and it sat happily at 58-59 degrees.

Tonight I thought I'd try my IE600 IEMs with it (4.4mm balanced cable) and it shot up to 69 degrees and dropped back to 50ma within an hour (I wasn't watching). I let it cool to 56 degrees in 50ma mode, put an old 4.4mm balanced cable on the XS, set it back to 100ma, and the temperature slowly rose to 59 and settled.

Edition XS - Impedance: 18Ω, Sensitivity: 92dB
IE600 - Impedance: 18Ω, Sensitivity: 118dB
The XS 3.5mm and IE600 4.4mm cables are both Null Audio.

Why does it struggle with the IE600s but not the XS? I would have expected it to be the other way around. There appears to be no temperature difference between the SE and balanced outputs of the S17, so that's interesting, but why would a more sensitive, single driver IEM draw more power than a planar-magnetic headphone?

 

[Erick Muller]

Another addition to the heat discussion. Sorry if you're bored of hearing about it.

I'm using my S17 in single ended mode (haven't got around to buying XLR cables) and my Edition XS cans with a 3.5mm SE cable. It is currently sitting on two pieces of wood 50mm high, 20mm wide and 160mm deep (2" x 3/4" x 7") to give it plenty of ventilation. I have been running it in low gain and 100ma for the last few days and it sat happily at 58-59 degrees.

Tonight I thought I'd try my IE600 IEMs with it (4.4mm balanced cable) and it shot up to 69 degrees and dropped back to 50ma within an hour (I wasn't watching). I let it cool to 56 degrees in 50ma mode, put an old 4.4mm balanced cable on the XS, set it back to 100ma, and the temperature slowly rose to 59 and settled.

Edition XS - Impedance: 18Ω, Sensitivity: 92dB
IE600 - Impedance: 18Ω, Sensitivity: 118dB
The XS 3.5mm and IE600 4.4mm cables are both Null Audio.

Why does it struggle with the IE600s but not the XS? I would have expected it to be the other way around. There appears to be no temperature difference between the SE and balanced outputs of the S17, so that's interesting, but why would a more sensitive, single driver IEM draw more power than a planar-magnetic headphone?

Glad to hear somebody else is having issues with this amp with very efficient transducers.

I have a similar problem with my koss kph40's, those are 60ohm, 111dB and I have run them with a balance 4.4mm cable into either the 4.4 jack or the 4 pin xlr jack, mine also in less than an hour, depending on the initial temp of the amp, gets to 69 really quick and goes back to 50ma mode. So it seems that this amp with very efficient dynamic drivers gives them a lot of juice and that drives up the temps really quickly.

I have a slight suspicion that maybe it is the cable I'm using with my kph40s, that's why I ordered today a hart audio cables that works with the Y-split connection of the koss utility series to rule that out, if after getting that cable on my koss on the S17 I'm still having issue with temps rising up really quickly then I think this will confirm that really efficient dynamic drivers are creating issues with this amp.

 

[dl95]

Another addition to the heat discussion. Sorry if you're bored of hearing about it.

I'm using my S17 in single ended mode (haven't got around to buying XLR cables) and my Edition XS cans with a 3.5mm SE cable. It is currently sitting on two pieces of wood 50mm high, 20mm wide and 160mm deep (2" x 3/4" x 7") to give it plenty of ventilation. I have been running it in low gain and 100ma for the last few days and it sat happily at 58-59 degrees.

Tonight I thought I'd try my IE600 IEMs with it (4.4mm balanced cable) and it shot up to 69 degrees and dropped back to 50ma within an hour (I wasn't watching). I let it cool to 56 degrees in 50ma mode, put an old 4.4mm balanced cable on the XS, set it back to 100ma, and the temperature slowly rose to 59 and settled.

Edition XS - Impedance: 18Ω, Sensitivity: 92dB
IE600 - Impedance: 18Ω, Sensitivity: 118dB
The XS 3.5mm and IE600 4.4mm cables are both Null Audio.

Why does it struggle with the IE600s but not the XS? I would have expected it to be the other way around. There appears to be no temperature difference between the SE and balanced outputs of the S17, so that's interesting, but why would a more sensitive, single driver IEM draw more power than a planar-magnetic headphone?

Class A amps are very inefficient. They draw the same amount of power regardless of load. When you have a larger load, there is less excess power that gets converted into heat, leading to lower temperatures than with a smaller load.

That said, I'm surprised the difference is that big between the XS and IE600.