smitty1110
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2013
- Posts
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- 111
Why the heck are you writing this?
Compared to a lot of people here, I'm fairly new to serious audio. I've only been seriously investing in gear for the past year and a half, and I really was just jumping around to a lot of flavor of the month stuff in the beginning. Eventually I stumbled upon a good deal for the HD 800s, which is what got me to start focusing on really improving my whole system. Back then, all I had was a Bifrost Uber and a Project Ember, and it took me over a month of tube hoarding to find something that would give me some good synergy with that amp and the picky HD 800s. This made me realize that these headphones were really great when you got a great pairing, and I started to suspect that I needed something a bit more sophisticated to get the most out of them. Now, over one year, hundreds of albums, thousands of hours of listening, and several amps later I've decided to sit down and put my experiences with high-end amps into a post to put everything in order so that I can stop re-writing this every time I answer questions about my amps.
Shout outs to @Priidik as he asked for the original comparison that eventually grew into this, and to a lot of guys her that have posted lots of great impressions and reviews of gear that got me interested in these headphones in the first place. I plan on adding amps to this review as I go along, since you can never have too many amps1 and I have no reason to stop . Finally, just keep in mind that these are my personal opinions, meant to provoke discussion and constructive criticism. Now, on with the main show!
The Amps
Schiit Ragnarok
I waited over a year for this amp to come out, and was one of the early orders. This is a class A amp2 that has tons of power for driving even the HE-6's and K1000's. The amp is solid state, and is actually the only solid state amp I have. The amp is a fully balanced cyclotron topology, and many user (myself included) believe that it performs better out of its balanced output. I personally feel that imaging and detail retrieval are better, not sure what other people say. This has been my go-to amp for a while, since I could drive my speakers with it, and through the speaker taps could drive a Woo WEE for my electrostats.
Bottlehead Mainline
The Bottlehead mainline is a very special amp, a single-state parafeed SET amp using Russian 6C45Pi triodes for gain. My amp was purchased from @Misterrogers, a long-time member and a really cool dude. He had the capacitors upgraded, and a lot of awesome cosmetic changes done that make it the second prettiest amp I own3. I recently upgraded the tubes with a matched pair of NOS 6C45Pi tubes and it sounds better than ever now that the microphonics that had started to develop in the old pair are gone.
Inspire Dragon IHA-1
A SET amp designed and Built by the legendary Dennis Had. Great for tube rolling, the amp supports most 8-pin rectifiers and all tubes in the 6sn7 and the 6bx7 families. The amp is wired so that both triods of the drivers get used in series, which makes this a 2-stage amp. This will make the amp great for testing the sound of different driver tubes, something I'll have to explore in the future. The tube output goes through output transformers, which might limit the low end a bit. I'm running this test with a Sovtek 5y3GT rectifier and a pair of Electro-Harmonix 6sn7EH's. For more information about rectifiers, see Dubstep Girl's very good thread on the subject. For more info in 6sn7's, check out the tube rolling thread dedicated to that family.
Planned additions
Since I intend to update this as I listen to more things, and when I get a new DAC, here are some planned changes:
The System
Music resides on my computer as FLAC files, mostly CD rips. Transported to my DAC via an Amazon Basics TOSLINK cable. RCA cables from the dac to the amps is shielded, but otherwise not noteworthy. I used balanced output for all listening so far, and used a Norne Draug v2. The HD 800s are stock, with a 29xxx serial. For later test where single-ended is used, I will be using the stock cable.
The Music
To make things a bit more standardized, I'm using a few pieces of music, listened to sequentially, to provide some reference points.
Bach - Cantatas: The entire album from Arkiv Produktion in CD form, a re-release of the original recording. The test for fatigue and also a good test of a large range of frequencies. This is a mono recording, so it also helps check channel balance and such.
"Why So Serious? (The Dark Knight OST): This is the bass test. Skip to 3:27 and you'll see what I mean.
"Haitian Fight Song" by Charles Mingus: A fun song to break up the session a bit.
"Marche Funerale" (Nabucco from Decca): The soundstage test, the piece was mastered in stereo on an analog console to pan from one side to the other, exploring the extremes of the soundstage. also has pretty good instrument separation, so good for soundstage depth as well.
The Results
(4/4/2015)
Bottlehead Mainline
Man, that session really felt bad by the end of the cantatas. That was legitimately fatiguing. I've always felt that the highs weren't controlled that well, but that clinched it. Also, I tried to listen with the low output impedance, but it sounded flat, for lack of a better term. The bass test revealed a fairly substantial lack of bass and sub-bass, which I had previously noted on the old tubes as well. I'm not sure if this is a limitation of the 6C45Pis or the amp design, I might ask over on the Bottlehead forums about it. Haitian Fight Song was fun to listen to, it's a lovely up-beat song that I really get caught up in every time I listen to it, and more importantly it helped to relieve the fatigue from earlier. Finally, the soundstage on this amp is amazing. It's huge, you get this real sense of distance listening to the funeral procession, like it really is coming from the distance in the beginning. The separation from the depth is a bit disconcerting at first, things seem almost too far apart, but that might be my unconscious bias from my main amp. The only problem is that there's some details I know are in the recording that aren't quite clear though this amp, and the room echoes are a bit murky.
Schiit Ragnarok
After a bit of a break from critical listening to give my ears a break, I moved on to this amp. Another Cantata marathon was first on the list, though it ended much better. The highs are very well controlled on this amp and there's only harshness in a few rare cases, like an entire brass section hitting high notes and such. And the details it pulled out of that mono recording! it was amazing to hear when different players took breaths on long notes, something I didn't notice earlier. Moving onto the bass test, this had a much more satisfying low end, with no sag. This was also apparent in Haitian Fight Song, where the string bass became more prominent, not just an accent on the music but an important part. Hadn't really noticed it because the song is constantly changing and full of energy, but it did actually make a difference in a song that wasn't supposed to actually matter. Finally, the soundstage is wide and 3-dimensional, but it;s not as large or deep as the Mainline. This actually created a tiny bit of stuttering in the movement of the orchestra across the stage at the far ends, but it made up for that with superb detail retrieval and imaging. I felt like I was really there, the individual instruments were easy to pick up, differences between the instruments were apparent.
(4/18/2015)
Inspire Dragon IHA-1
This amp has a very interesting and intimate instrument presentation, feeling like the instruments are very close, yet at the same time feeling a bit reduced. The cathedral for the cantatas doesn't feel like a huge room that I know should be there, but I still get the sense that I'm very close to the source of the music. There was plenty of detail retirval, but some thing like breathing and minor instrument variations were a bit veiled. There was no fatigue during the cantatas, so I guess that's a good thing. The bass test was good, but not spectacular. There's no sag or slowness to the low end, but it's not exactly booming. Haitian Fight Song felt a bit tentative when the string bass was soloing at the start, but as more instruments started to join in the song was legitimately fun. It felt more like I was listening to my TH900's or my GS-1000's, it was fun and lively, but with great accuracy and detail retrieval that I've come to expect from the HD 800's. It was still a really intimate presentation, like I was sitting in a small room with the band, though again felt a bit small. It actually worked well with the jazz, which I think sounds really good this way. Finally, the soundstage test went very well. The orchestra sounded small, but they moved very smoothly across the stage, feeling like it passed mere feet in front of me. The depth of the soundstage was nothing to write home about, but it was appropriately sized considering the smaller, intimate presentation.
Footnotes
Compared to a lot of people here, I'm fairly new to serious audio. I've only been seriously investing in gear for the past year and a half, and I really was just jumping around to a lot of flavor of the month stuff in the beginning. Eventually I stumbled upon a good deal for the HD 800s, which is what got me to start focusing on really improving my whole system. Back then, all I had was a Bifrost Uber and a Project Ember, and it took me over a month of tube hoarding to find something that would give me some good synergy with that amp and the picky HD 800s. This made me realize that these headphones were really great when you got a great pairing, and I started to suspect that I needed something a bit more sophisticated to get the most out of them. Now, over one year, hundreds of albums, thousands of hours of listening, and several amps later I've decided to sit down and put my experiences with high-end amps into a post to put everything in order so that I can stop re-writing this every time I answer questions about my amps.
Shout outs to @Priidik as he asked for the original comparison that eventually grew into this, and to a lot of guys her that have posted lots of great impressions and reviews of gear that got me interested in these headphones in the first place. I plan on adding amps to this review as I go along, since you can never have too many amps1 and I have no reason to stop . Finally, just keep in mind that these are my personal opinions, meant to provoke discussion and constructive criticism. Now, on with the main show!
The Amps
Schiit Ragnarok
I waited over a year for this amp to come out, and was one of the early orders. This is a class A amp2 that has tons of power for driving even the HE-6's and K1000's. The amp is solid state, and is actually the only solid state amp I have. The amp is a fully balanced cyclotron topology, and many user (myself included) believe that it performs better out of its balanced output. I personally feel that imaging and detail retrieval are better, not sure what other people say. This has been my go-to amp for a while, since I could drive my speakers with it, and through the speaker taps could drive a Woo WEE for my electrostats.
Bottlehead Mainline
The Bottlehead mainline is a very special amp, a single-state parafeed SET amp using Russian 6C45Pi triodes for gain. My amp was purchased from @Misterrogers, a long-time member and a really cool dude. He had the capacitors upgraded, and a lot of awesome cosmetic changes done that make it the second prettiest amp I own3. I recently upgraded the tubes with a matched pair of NOS 6C45Pi tubes and it sounds better than ever now that the microphonics that had started to develop in the old pair are gone.
Inspire Dragon IHA-1
A SET amp designed and Built by the legendary Dennis Had. Great for tube rolling, the amp supports most 8-pin rectifiers and all tubes in the 6sn7 and the 6bx7 families. The amp is wired so that both triods of the drivers get used in series, which makes this a 2-stage amp. This will make the amp great for testing the sound of different driver tubes, something I'll have to explore in the future. The tube output goes through output transformers, which might limit the low end a bit. I'm running this test with a Sovtek 5y3GT rectifier and a pair of Electro-Harmonix 6sn7EH's. For more information about rectifiers, see Dubstep Girl's very good thread on the subject. For more info in 6sn7's, check out the tube rolling thread dedicated to that family.
Planned additions
Since I intend to update this as I listen to more things, and when I get a new DAC, here are some planned changes:
- I plan to get my Bijou in proper working order again, some mechanic parts are broken that prevent proper operations.
- I am considering buying more gear, see footnote 1.
- I plan on getting a Yggdrasil DAC, so that will require a major re-write of this when it arrives and breaks in.
- I will eventually evaluate my Inspire LP-27a preamp as part of the system
The System
Music resides on my computer as FLAC files, mostly CD rips. Transported to my DAC via an Amazon Basics TOSLINK cable. RCA cables from the dac to the amps is shielded, but otherwise not noteworthy. I used balanced output for all listening so far, and used a Norne Draug v2. The HD 800s are stock, with a 29xxx serial. For later test where single-ended is used, I will be using the stock cable.
The Music
To make things a bit more standardized, I'm using a few pieces of music, listened to sequentially, to provide some reference points.
Bach - Cantatas: The entire album from Arkiv Produktion in CD form, a re-release of the original recording. The test for fatigue and also a good test of a large range of frequencies. This is a mono recording, so it also helps check channel balance and such.
"Why So Serious? (The Dark Knight OST): This is the bass test. Skip to 3:27 and you'll see what I mean.
"Haitian Fight Song" by Charles Mingus: A fun song to break up the session a bit.
"Marche Funerale" (Nabucco from Decca): The soundstage test, the piece was mastered in stereo on an analog console to pan from one side to the other, exploring the extremes of the soundstage. also has pretty good instrument separation, so good for soundstage depth as well.
The Results
(4/4/2015)
Bottlehead Mainline
Man, that session really felt bad by the end of the cantatas. That was legitimately fatiguing. I've always felt that the highs weren't controlled that well, but that clinched it. Also, I tried to listen with the low output impedance, but it sounded flat, for lack of a better term. The bass test revealed a fairly substantial lack of bass and sub-bass, which I had previously noted on the old tubes as well. I'm not sure if this is a limitation of the 6C45Pis or the amp design, I might ask over on the Bottlehead forums about it. Haitian Fight Song was fun to listen to, it's a lovely up-beat song that I really get caught up in every time I listen to it, and more importantly it helped to relieve the fatigue from earlier. Finally, the soundstage on this amp is amazing. It's huge, you get this real sense of distance listening to the funeral procession, like it really is coming from the distance in the beginning. The separation from the depth is a bit disconcerting at first, things seem almost too far apart, but that might be my unconscious bias from my main amp. The only problem is that there's some details I know are in the recording that aren't quite clear though this amp, and the room echoes are a bit murky.
Schiit Ragnarok
After a bit of a break from critical listening to give my ears a break, I moved on to this amp. Another Cantata marathon was first on the list, though it ended much better. The highs are very well controlled on this amp and there's only harshness in a few rare cases, like an entire brass section hitting high notes and such. And the details it pulled out of that mono recording! it was amazing to hear when different players took breaths on long notes, something I didn't notice earlier. Moving onto the bass test, this had a much more satisfying low end, with no sag. This was also apparent in Haitian Fight Song, where the string bass became more prominent, not just an accent on the music but an important part. Hadn't really noticed it because the song is constantly changing and full of energy, but it did actually make a difference in a song that wasn't supposed to actually matter. Finally, the soundstage is wide and 3-dimensional, but it;s not as large or deep as the Mainline. This actually created a tiny bit of stuttering in the movement of the orchestra across the stage at the far ends, but it made up for that with superb detail retrieval and imaging. I felt like I was really there, the individual instruments were easy to pick up, differences between the instruments were apparent.
(4/18/2015)
Inspire Dragon IHA-1
This amp has a very interesting and intimate instrument presentation, feeling like the instruments are very close, yet at the same time feeling a bit reduced. The cathedral for the cantatas doesn't feel like a huge room that I know should be there, but I still get the sense that I'm very close to the source of the music. There was plenty of detail retirval, but some thing like breathing and minor instrument variations were a bit veiled. There was no fatigue during the cantatas, so I guess that's a good thing. The bass test was good, but not spectacular. There's no sag or slowness to the low end, but it's not exactly booming. Haitian Fight Song felt a bit tentative when the string bass was soloing at the start, but as more instruments started to join in the song was legitimately fun. It felt more like I was listening to my TH900's or my GS-1000's, it was fun and lively, but with great accuracy and detail retrieval that I've come to expect from the HD 800's. It was still a really intimate presentation, like I was sitting in a small room with the band, though again felt a bit small. It actually worked well with the jazz, which I think sounds really good this way. Finally, the soundstage test went very well. The orchestra sounded small, but they moved very smoothly across the stage, feeling like it passed mere feet in front of me. The depth of the soundstage was nothing to write home about, but it was appropriately sized considering the smaller, intimate presentation.
Footnotes
- I love swapping around amps and cans to experience interesting new combinations with my music. There are some really cool synergies I've found doing this that I might write down in a separate thread. Eventually. I will continue to buy amps for the forseable future.
- The Ragnarok is class A for the first 4 watts. If you need more than that for cans and absolutely need class A, this is not the amp for you.
- Sweet pictures of the mainline are here. My Inspire amp can be seen here. I also have a matching preamp for it, so bonus points. That car paint is just amazing.
