[9bphillips]

I'm about to pull the trigger on the soloist and I need to know what I will need to use it with my ibasso dx300. I will be getting a chord qutest as my dac once I pay the soloist off but for now the dx300 will have to serve as my dac. This is my 1st desktop amp so I'm not really sure what I need.

 

[David222]

So after a second round of rolling, this time all 4, I ended up with this :



So Classics on the input and Sparkos on the volume. This fits my taste and setup the best atm. More body and bass, less sharp treble, a small but nice bump in midrange details and clarity without loosing the slam. But something has to give right … the casualty is the hyper imaging and sound stage Vivids have, but 1266 has great staging on its own so it’s not a huge downgrade.

Thank you for the help and inspiration guys

I'm not far behind you and going to see if I can warm it up.... I feel like the 3XP has more to give, but makes you fight for it. Also, starting to wonder if all these OpAmp swaps to boost body/richness (and reduce forward treble) could have been accomplished for $500 with a Rebel Amp? Maybe I'm being too hard on our 3XPs?

 

[qsk78]

I did one more change in my desktop application...added the streamer

 

[krude]

I'm about to pull the trigger on the soloist and I need to know what I will need to use it with my ibasso dx300. I will be getting a chord qutest as my dac once I pay the soloist off but for now the dx300 will have to serve as my dac. This is my 1st desktop amp so I'm not really sure what I need.

Depends what headphones you’ll be powering … if anything that needs current (like harder to drive planars) I would get a dac with balanced outputs. Balanced will give you 2x the current … if not you’ll be fine with RCA.

 

[krude]

I'm not far behind you and going to see if I can warm it up.... I feel like the 3XP has more to give, but makes you fight for it. Also, starting to wonder if all these OpAmp swaps to boost body/richness (and reduce forward treble) could have been accomplished for $500 with a Rebel Amp? Maybe I'm being too hard on our 3XPs?

Not sure about the Rebel, I use soloist because it has loads of power on tap so you can run 1266, Susvara, HE6 and still have headroom. If you don’t need the power then any amp could be better … or worse … it’s a matter of taste. It’s not that the Soloist is bad, it just comes with tuning that some like out of the box and some prefer to tweak it. Thankfully it has the option to fiddle with it

 

[greyforest]

just got my burson 3x with supercharger psu

did some comparison with gsx mini （both high gain）

dac： hibiki sds
headphone：adx5000 bal
streamer： EM5

i only describe the obvious difference on the same track （dune soundtrack）

soundstage： gsx mini is significantly better with better depth and width i would say size wise about 20% difference

resolution：gsx mini is clearly better as well not by a lot but enough to hear the difference at once

transparency： about the same level with gsx have better high transparency and 3x have better mids transparency

sonic density（perceived）：burson 3x have better mids density and its obvious

power：gsx seems have better power output 25% volume is enough for adx5000（450omh） while 3x requie 35%

verdict：regardless 3x does not have many edge compared to gsx mini. it does have somewhat tube like sound and sounds smoother, in another words with more coloration and distortion that it is much more tolerant for bad recording.

consider the price gap is almost 40% i would say 3x is great for a sub system that drive some warm closed headphones

hope this helps

maybe 3gt is a better match for gsx mini

 

[greyforest]

also i notice some small problem

in high gain mode without music playing

during 10～20 and 30～50 volume there is some small hissing in both channels

and the hissing is gone once move into 21 and it comes back again in 30 and gone in 51 and start in 80 again all the way to 99


dont know if its just me or the unit is faulty

 

[krude]

also i notice some small problem

in high gain mode without music playing

during 10～20 and 30～50 volume there is some small hissing in both channels

and the hissing is gone once move into 21 and it comes back again in 30 and gone in 51 and start in 80 again all the way to 99


dont know if its just me or the unit is faulty

I don't think it should change the hiss. Mine has his on medium and high gain using sensitive IEMs, but almost none on low which is made for IEMs. If you get extensive hiss that goes up and down I'd think something is not right.

 

[krude]

Just testing the stack with Classics on input and Sparkos on volume with IEMs (Empire Odins in my case), it sounds better than I expected, smooth, detailed, full bodied, wide, pretty much excellent all around, can't fault it 9/10 (only because 10/10 probably doesn't exist ).

 

[9bphillips]

Depends what headphones you’ll be powering … if anything that needs current (like harder to drive planars) I would get a dac with balanced outputs. Balanced will give you 2x the current … if not you’ll be fine with RCA.

I am planning on getting a chord qutest. For now I'm going to have to use my dx300 as my dac. I guess I will need XLR to 4.4mm.

 

[9bphillips]

I have a black dragon 4.4mm headphone cable and I will need an XLR male to 4.4mm female adapter for my soloist. Will the adapter have any effects on sound quality? I just don't want to use my $400+ Black Dragon cable with a lesser adapter and downgrade the effects the cable would make. Am I on the right track or could I get a cheaper adapter and it not really make a difference?

 

[greyforest]

I don't think it should change the hiss. Mine has his on medium and high gain using sensitive IEMs, but almost none on low which is made for IEMs. If you get extensive hiss that goes up and down I'd think something is not right.

hiss is not the probelm, many amp have hiss on high gain. what makes me wonder about the quality control here is the hiss is getting stronger during some part of the volume and that indicates faulty resistor.

 

[qsk78]

consider the price gap is almost 40%

It depends on where you are. If I order the gsx mini from the States directly (actually there is no any other way. They don't have any dealer in my country) and pay roughly 150-170 USD for shipment plus I will need to pay customs fee (15% for everything above 200 Euro) then the gap will be around 100% )

 

[greyforest]

It depends on where you are. If I order the gsx mini from the States directly (actually there is no any other way. They don't have any dealer in my country) and pay roughly 150-170 USD for shipment plus I will need to pay customs fee (15% for everything above 200 Euro) then the gap will be around 100% )

there are many used one （mini or mk2） on sale.
and you probably dont need to pay tax for second hand equipment
i once saw a mk2 selling for 1400 dollar

 

[qsk78]

I'm waiting for the Soloist GT ))