[ProtegeManiac]

Already did it with opamps

I used stock LCD-X, also my friend who is an audio engineer confirmed it.

So is the bas wobbly? If not you should try it with other headphones because that's an Audeze. Even with newer LCD headphones they're not exactly going to have that much treble, and if you're used to how "normal" sound has peaks in the upper midrange and treble, then it will always sound "bassy" even if the bass isn't distorting.

They also make Niimbus, their sub brands are meant for different markets. I think that Violectric is designed for people who want more colored sound and Lake people for more natural sound.

You'd be surprised at what "Natural Sound" is like to most people who use that term. Try looking for a car using DLS speakers and doesn't have a full active set up. They have a giant "Natural Sound" sticker on the back and the sound is generally what you describe as described by people listening to Focal with higher sensitivity and an upper bass peak or people listening to JBLs which scratchy treble (Focals can have that too but that's why people replace that one tweeter they used with something else).

Opamps are and can only be class A, but they are used for signal manipulation, not power amplification. From this photo of Classic's internals it looks like it's using 3 voltage regs (one per power amp) and power amps with 2 active elements which would indicate that it's class A/B, and not class A, but I'm not completely sure about that, part numbers are hard to read in that photo.

Op Amp power amps have been around since last decade and they're used on the amplification stage. Yes, that's not what they're originally designed for. But that's what those amps use them for, like the LM3886 amplifiers for speakers that jump started a lot of this.

Used that way they're sometimes wired up to have more Class A bias, which is what Meier does. It's not full Class A as with discrete components (ie why I say "running in Class A" as opposed to calling it a Class A amplifier outright), but they won't call it Class A/B either because it takes more to get it to switch over to Class A/B. In some cases, like with Meier, it's properly implemented and therefore works. In other cases like Class A biased op-amp kits for people who roll op-amps like they roll power tubes, not really...most of these kits actually increase the noise and the tonality changes too much in some amps with some kits, which basically torpedoes the whole point in using Class A in the first place.

 

[Sebastian.Athea]

So is the bas wobbly? If not you should try it with other headphones because that's an Audeze. Even with newer LCD headphones they're not exactly going to have that much treble, and if you're used to how "normal" sound has peaks in the upper midrange and treble, then it will always sound "bassy" even if the bass isn't distorting.

No nothing was wobbly, it just felt like someone turned the bass knob from 12 to 3 o'clock.
LCD-X are supposed to be reference for mastering, and that is what I mostly use them for, but to be honest I enjoy the Elears more, they sound more resolving than Focal Clear (the irony), and LCD-X to me, and elears have better imaging, maybe "better" isn't the right word, Elears place sounds above and below instead of just left and right, so I guess weird is a better word to describe them.

Op Amp power amps have been around since last decade and they're used on the amplification stage. Yes, that's not what they're originally designed for. But that's what those amps use them for, like the LM3886 amplifiers for speakers that jump started a lot of this.

Used that way they're sometimes wired up to have more Class A bias, which is what Meier does. It's not full Class A as with discrete components (ie why I say "running in Class A" as opposed to calling it a Class A amplifier outright), but they won't call it Class A/B either because it takes more to get it to switch over to Class A/B. In some cases, like with Meier, it's properly implemented and therefore works. In other cases like Class A biased op-amp kits for people who roll op-amps like they roll power tubes, not really...most of these kits actually increase the noise and the tonality changes too much in some amps with some kits, which basically torpedoes the whole point in using Class A in the first place.

Like I said I don't have a lot of experience with analog, actually the only analog thing I have worked on was modding retro video game consoles to output RGB video. But opamps are just high precision, high gain differential amps, they have multiple class A amps inside them, and they are very power inefficient even when compared with class A, most of power put into them will be converted to heat instead of usable power output, that makes them great for signal amplification and manipulation, but not so great for power amplification, But like I said I'm new to analog and there might have been a new developments in the tech that I'm not aware of.
Also just because amp isn't class A doesn't mean that ti's not excellent, a lot of class A/B amps are, and class D amps are getting better and better by the year.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

No nothing was wobbly, it just felt like someone turned the bass knob from 12 to 3 o'clock.
LCD-X are supposed to be reference for mastering, and that is what I mostly use them for...

I didn't get it that severely on even the HD650 on the V281, which has an even more skewed 1000hz up vs 50hz to 800hz than the LCD-X (then again, I wear my headphones kind of loose). It's more like the pre-Fazor LCD-2, except it rolls off earlier.

But then it isn't distorting either, so I won't be surprised that what you're getting is more of an imbalance from having the top end rolled off. Violectrics have a totally smooth top end that it's actually rolled off, hence my DLS example above.

...but to be honest I enjoy the Elears more, they sound more resolving than Focal Clear (the irony)...

There's no irony. It's a marketing tier. Clear can mean "clear enough for the money." Elear is a name that means "quick, lithe, etc," and it delivers on those grounds.

...and LCD-X to me, and elears have better imaging, maybe "better" isn't the right word, Elears place sounds above and below instead of just left and right, so I guess weird is a better word to describe them

There's one problem there: unless you're watching a movie, particularly on Dolby Atmos, everything needs to be at the same height.

In a speaker system if you can hear the bass drum from a lower height it's caused more by reflections on the floor as well as lower set bass drivers (due to weight/balance/stability and cabinet strength, plus the need to keep the tweeters high), which is also why when this happens the bass guitar will also get set lower than the other guitars and vocals. This is also why it's advisable to have carpet, or a large enough room where you can fit a Dynaudio that has the driver layout reversed, with the tweeter still at ear level but the midwoofer then the woofer above it; or mirrored like in the Evidence.

Like I said I don't have a lot of experience with analog, actually the only analog thing I have worked on was modding retro video game consoles to output RGB video. But opamps are just high precision, high gain differential amps, they have multiple class A amps inside them, and they are very power inefficient even when compared with class A, most of power put into them will be converted to heat instead of usable power output, that makes them great for signal amplification and manipulation, but not so great for power amplification, But like I said I'm new to analog and there might have been a new developments in the tech that I'm not aware of.

It's not really new tech in terms of the components themselves, just new circuits. Not actually that new since the LM3886 GainClones came out like 15yrs ago or something. It does around 36watts per channel or something like that. I can't remember the details anymore, it's that long ago that even the boards for it got mass manufactured in China and got sold in some cheap electronics parts mall down here near where the cheap camera retailers used to be.

Also just because amp isn't class A doesn't mean that ti's not excellent, a lot of class A/B amps are, and class D amps are getting better and better by the year.

Uh yeah that's exactly what I said...so I'm basically getting info I already know and wrote about after admitting not having much experience on analogue signals to not have even heard of the Gain Clone.

 

[Sebastian.Athea]

There's one problem there: unless you're watching a movie, particularly on Dolby Atmos, everything needs to be at the same height.

In a speaker system if you can hear the bass drum from a lower height it's caused more by reflections on the floor as well as lower set bass drivers (due to weight/balance/stability and cabinet strength, plus the need to keep the tweeters high), which is also why when this happens the bass guitar will also get set lower than the other guitars and vocals. This is also why it's advisable to have carpet, or a large enough room where you can fit a Dynaudio that has the driver layout reversed, with the tweeter still at ear level but the midwoofer then the woofer above it; or mirrored like in the Evidence.

I didn't say Elear sounded reference, they are not. And that up down effect usually doesn't happen with acoustic music, but oxygene and music like that sounds surreal and wonderful on Elears.

Uh yeah that's exactly what I said...so I'm basically being lectured on what I already know and actually wrote down by someone who admits not having much experience with analogue signals. Great.

What I wrote before made it sound like I thought that only good amp was class A amp, I wanted to say that it wasn't the case, I didn't mean to comment on anything you said about the topic. I'm sorry if it come out that way, that is not what I meant.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

I didn't say Elear sounded reference, they are not. And that up down effect usually doesn't happen with acoustic music, but oxygene and music like that sounds surreal and wonderful on Elears.

I didn't say you did, and I didn't even use the term "reference" at any point. Seriously, if you hit CTRL+F and type "Reference," the only ones that will get highlighted was your posts, until this one where I actually used the word twice.

What I said was that it was "quick," ie, high enough sensitivity and good driver control (and probably high enough impedance to steer clear of damping factor issues). Which can be why you like them, regardless of the genre.

What I wrote before made it sound like I thought that only good amp was class A amp, I wanted to say that it wasn't the case, I didn't mean to comment on anything you said about the topic. I'm sorry if it come out that way, that is not what I meant.

Thing is I already said that several times actually - even before the Meiers and Violectrics I already brushed on it in comparing how you have a good Class A/B that will only measure worse having crossover distortion compared to a badly done Class A amp same way that a good SE amp will still only really effectively sound different from a balanced amp if either power is inadequate or if they have drastically different distortion types and you manage to get them both there.

 

[Sebastian.Athea]

Unrelated question; Is it better to use crosstalk function on amp or dac with Corda stack?

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Unrelated question; Is it better to use crosstalk function on amp or dac with Corda stack?

That depends on you. Like I said it puts the cymbals span a width more proportional to the size of each musician playing in front of your head, rather than make the drummer seem like he has really long arms, which other people misinterpret as "narrowed soundstage."

Also it's Crossfeed, not crosstalk. Crosstalk is active components just bleeding the signal across both channels. Crossfeed deliberately allows only some of the frequencies to do this and at a given filter slope and gain (which can be variale, like in the several settings on newer Corda amps, or Neutron Music Player's DSP) that only tries to simulate being able to hear the most directional sounds from both channels on both ears.

 

[Sebastian.Athea]

Also it's Crossfeed, not crosstalk

Yup, that's my mistake.

That depends on you. Like I said it puts the cymbals span a width more proportional to the size of each musician playing in front of your head, rather than make the drummer seem like he has really long arms, which other people misinterpret as "narrowed soundstage."

you misunderstood my question; Both dac and amp have crossfeed function, I was asking on which of them is it better implemented?


Out of curiosity I was reading about tube amps, and apparently the difference between balanced and single ended tube amp isn't nearly as big as with solid state. And one of the features of tube amps is increased sound stage, just like with balanced solid state amp. I thought that increased sound stage with balanced solid state amps comes from better clarity, but that might not be the case. Could balanced solid state amps manipulate the signal in some way to increase the sound stage, like tube amps do?

 

[ProtegeManiac]

you misunderstood my question; Both dac and amp have crossfeed function, I was asking on which of them is it better implemented?

Oh in that case it depends.

The DAC has Crossfeed in case you want to use a different kind of amp for some other reason, like an OTL amp for high impedance headphones, or an electrostat, you can still get Crossfeed in case you're running a digital source that doesn't have the capability to run Crossfeed software like Foobar's plug in.

When you get them look at the manual, they have some kind of info there about the difference. I think the headphone mode is the same setting but there's an alternate setting on the DAC that's meant for speakers or something.

Out of curiosity I was reading about tube amps, and apparently the difference between balanced and single ended tube amp isn't nearly as big as with solid state. And one of the features of tube amps is increased sound stage, just like with balanced solid state amp. I thought that increased sound stage with balanced solid state amps comes from better clarity, but that might not be the case. Could balanced solid state amps manipulate the signal in some way to increase the sound stage, like tube amps do?

Balanced and SE work the same way either way. Other than that there's the amp topology like how some tube amps are balanced drive but are still OTL amps (liek the Little Dot flagship amp), so it still has high output impedance and is basically two OTL amps running in dual mono differential drive. You get more power like using a more powerful power supply on four Beta22 boards, but it doesn't change the power delivery profile of the OTL amp, ie, it makes peak power at 250ohms to 300ohms (and 600ohms is still higher than its 32ohm output), you just get more than double the power of the OTLs running in SE.

 

[Sebastian.Athea]

Oh in that case it depends.

The DAC has Crossfeed in case you want to use a different kind of amp for some other reason, like an OTL amp for high impedance headphones, or an electrostat, you can still get Crossfeed in case you're running a digital source that doesn't have the capability to run Crossfeed software like Foobar's plug in.

When you get them look at the manual, they have some kind of info there about the difference. I think the headphone mode is the same setting but there's an alternate setting on the DAC that's meant for speakers or something.




Balanced and SE work the same way either way. Other than that there's the amp topology like how some tube amps are balanced drive but are still OTL amps (liek the Little Dot flagship amp), so it still has high output impedance and is basically two OTL amps running in dual mono differential drive. You get more power like using a more powerful power supply on four Beta22 boards, but it doesn't change the power delivery profile of the OTL amp, ie, it makes peak power at 250ohms to 300ohms (and 600ohms is still higher than its 32ohm output), you just get more than double the power of the OTLs running in SE.

That makes sense.
Tube amps sure do sound fun, I might consider buying one, if I didn't have to worry about tubes degrading over time.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

That makes sense.
Tube amps sure do sound fun, I might consider buying one, if I didn't have to worry about tubes degrading over time.

That's not always a downside.

While there's nowhere near a set of hours that an opamp or discrete component will fail, when it does fail, the diagnosis needs multimeters and then the repair usually needs desoldering then soldering the new parts on.

With tubes you can roll the tube out, put it on a tube tester, or just assume it's dead based on what you can see physically or can assume about how long it's been on there, and then roll in the new one.

Of course in your particular case soldering isn't a problem, but to a lot of other people, this is what makes pure tube amp maintenance not a complete downside vs solid state.

 

[Sebastian.Athea]

That's not always a downside.

While there's nowhere near a set of hours that an opamp or discrete component will fail, when it does fail, the diagnosis needs multimeters and then the repair usually needs desoldering then soldering the new parts on.

With tubes you can roll the tube out, put it on a tube tester, or just assume it's dead based on what you can see physically or can assume about how long it's been on there, and then roll in the new one.

Of course in your particular case soldering isn't a problem, but to a lot of other people, this is what makes pure tube amp maintenance not a complete downside vs solid state.

In my experience with opamps and other solid state electronics do not degrade over time, and when they fail they fail completely, unlike tubes that start degrading as soon as they are powered on. I have worked on super Nintendo and sega mega drive consoles that were more than 25 years old and according to their owners used for about 1.5 hours per day on average, and some had complete capacitors failures, and even though opamps and rest of the components were connected to very dirty power supplies, they worked like new when I recaped them.
According to the internet you'll need to retube the amp once per year, that by it self wouldn't be a bad thing if tubes for lets say woo wa6 se didn't cost 300$ to replace, per year, ouch no thanks.

 

[Sebastian.Athea]

PS Audio Stellar Gain Cell DAC, looks pretty good, does anyone have experience with it?

 

[ProtegeManiac]

In my experience with opamps and other solid state electronics do not degrade over time, and when they fail they fail completely, unlike tubes that start degrading as soon as they are powered on.

When tubes are known to "degrade" it means that when you put them on a tube tester they won't measure the same.

When you measure the amp as long as the tubes are still within a very strong measurement range it wouldn't matter.

It's not like you run a tube amp now and then you need a brand new tube for every track you play otherwise the playback of the next track will suck.

in other words, even if a tube fails the 20,000 hour estimated life, it's not like 19,999 hours and 30mins left means you're already getting measurably worse noise, distortion, or drop in output, and will do so until you hit around 12,000 to 15,000 if not even closer to the 20,000 estimate.

Think of it like a knife. Sharpening a knife actually wears down the material on the blade. That doesn't mean that a knife that has good knuckle clearance when new would suddenly have knuckle clearance issues after one or even a hundred sharpenings on 400 grit, provided you do it properly anyway.

 

[Sebastian.Athea]

When tubes are known to "degrade" it means that when you put them on a tube tester they won't measure the same.

When you measure the amp as long as the tubes are still within a very strong measurement range it wouldn't matter.

It's not like you run a tube amp now and then you need a brand new tube for every track you play otherwise the playback of the next track will suck.

in other words, even if a tube fails the 20,000 hour estimated life, it's not like 19,999 hours and 30mins left means you're already getting measurably worse noise, distortion, or drop in output, and will do so until you hit around 12,000 to 15,000 if not even closer to the 20,000 estimate.

Think of it like a knife. Sharpening a knife actually wears down the material on the blade. That doesn't mean that a knife that has good knuckle clearance when new would suddenly have knuckle clearance issues after one or even a hundred sharpenings on 400 grit, provided you do it properly anyway.

Woo says that tubes last for about 5000h
"15: How long do vacuum tubes last?

No reputable tubes seller can guarantee the life of a vacuum tube. Typically, tubes in our products may run 5000 - 9000 hours depending on where they are used. Drive tubes (the smaller tubes) are generally last up to 9000 hours, and power output tubes (the larger tubes) about 5000 hours. They do not usually completely fail after this time, but gradually deteriorate as the cathode begins to lose its coating and cannot emit electronics at the maximum rate. The sound usually becomes less focused and 2D like lacking high frequencies response."
https://wooaudio.com/faq/ and I'm running my system for 6h per day on average that would be about 300$ + tax every 2 years.

On a different topic I was searching head fi for reviews of CORDA CLASSIC-ff, there aren't a lot of -ff version reviews, but there are a lot of standard version reviews, and some people have found Classic lacking when paired with low impedance (planar) phones.
I have also found a few glowing reviews of the HeadAmp Gilmore Lite Mk2, what do you think of it? Maybe it would work well with Daccord.