[helljudgement]

Too bloomey in the mids

That's the gist of it. I also own a different 300b tube amp that is drier and less tube like than the cayin and that amp also have an underlying sense of richness or tube bloom if you will. That's just the nature of 300b tubes in general. It sounds great with the cayin but it seem a tad too rich for me when I tried it. All these are subjected to personal preference of course.

 

[llamaluv]

That's the gist of it. I also own a different 300b tube amp that is drier and less tube like than the cayin and that amp also have an underlying sense of richness or tube bloom if you will. That's just the nature of 300b tubes in general. It sounds great with the cayin but it seem a tad too rich for me when I tried it. All these are subjected to personal preference of course.

Cool, thanks.

Yea, I had that reaction with the Auteur with the HA300. It seemed to go away after a while, but of course that seems pretty unlikely, so I guess I just got used to it, lol.

What's interesting to me is that non-ZMF, lower impedance dynamic headphones I've used on the HA300 (all of which I've liked a lot) don't exhibit this kind of bloom hardly at all (Utopia, Stellia, Denon D9200).

 

[helljudgement]

What's interesting to me is that non-ZMF, lower impedance dynamic headphones I've used on the HA300 (all of which I've liked a lot) don't exhibit this kind of bloom hardly at all

I'd imagine this sort of signature synergizes better with more neutral phones like the utopia. ZMF is by nature a bit wet sounding with rounded transients so having an amp that provides more bloom is too much for my liking. It works better with a more neutral or drier sounding tube amp.

 

[llamaluv]

I'd imagine this sort of signature synergizes better with more neutral phones like the utopia. ZMF is by nature a bit wet sounding with rounded transients so having an amp that provides more bloom is too much for my liking. It works better with a more neutral or drier sounding tube amp.

This reasoning makes sense to me.

Relatedly, the Bakoon AMP-R13 (even though solid-state) is remarkably creamy-sounding, and the Auteur bringing its own "wetness" sounded really good with it. This amp also, IMO, revealed the limits to which that headphone could scale...

 

[Yggy]

Has anybody listened to both the Empyrean Meze Elite and Hifiman Susvara on the HA-300 or both the Hifiman Susvara and HE1000SE?

I read a couple of reviews saying the HE1000SE was on the same level or better than the Susvara with the HA-300 because the easier driving closes or more than closes the performance gap between the two. Reviews of the Meze Empyrean Elite vs Susvara suggest there isn’t much between them.

I haven’t got to the stage of owning two of anything in my headphones setup but was interested that reviewers thought voices on the Elite were smoother and fuller than on Susvaras because I listen to a lot of female pop. Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever and When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? in 24 bit sound amazing on my Susvaras through the HA-300.

Has anybody with Susvaras upgraded from the HA-300 to the Bakoon 13R/23R, Riviera AIC10, Wells Audio Dragon / Head Trip 2 or have or had both to be able to compare or comment on? I’m curious if more driving power would be worth the loss of sweetness with the Susvara and HA-300 combination. I’ve kinda gone all in with the HA-300 by upgrading all the tubes but still wonder about the sonic trade-offs / possible improved performance of more powerful driving to extract the last drop of performance from Susvaras.

 

[llamaluv]

Has anybody with Susvaras upgraded from the HA-300 to the Bakoon 13R/23R, Riviera AIC10, Wells Audio Dragon / Head Trip 2 or have or had both to be able to compare or comment on? I’m curious if more driving power would be worth the loss of sweetness with the Susvara and HA-300 combination. I’ve kinda gone all in with the HA-300 by upgrading all the tubes but still wonder about the sonic trade-offs / possible improved performance of more powerful driving to extract the last drop of performance from Susvaras.

The Bakoon AMP-R13 and HA-300 are my two main amps these days, and the Susvara my preferred headphone. I can only speak to my own personal experience with my own signal chain, but I found that if and in what ways the two amps differ while driving the Susvara depended a lot on the DAC in question:

With the DAVE, the HA300 brought out more meat on the bones and a little more depth in that 300B-like way which I've always found very "likeable and friendly", while the R13 was a little bit compressed actually, but easily more resolving. And also tipped a shade too far into the upper-mids, while the HA300 was I would say just a shade too warm for my liking.

With the Bartok, the HA300 now sounds much more high-resolution and also more spacious than it did with my previous DAVE setup to the point where there's very little between it and the R13. Meanwhile, the R13 sounds smoother and creamier than before, more so than the HA300. And depth now goes to the R13 over the HA300. The HA300 is still one shade warmer than the R13 but less so than with the DAVE. But overall, my changing of DACs has brought the sounds of each amp closer to each other, and with a strong net gain for both, IMO. To the point that a small group of pals who recently listened to both these amps with the Bartok and Susvara were a little struck at how similar they sounded on the whole, given the common expectations of what you'd think would be the case.

These observations are pretty signal-chain specific, but my own takeaway is that a lot depends on the DAC in terms of any resulting synergy of the Susvara with a given amp, regardless of amp topology and power ratings.

 

[Sampajanna]

for all the issues of the mk1, Cayin should offer some kind of solid trade in upgrade option, methinks.

 

[Benny-x]

What issues does the Mk1 have en masse? I've owned mine for 8 months, no issues so far. And I haven't seen any scandals running about it and it is a widely enough owned amp.

After my experience with the HiFiMAN HEKv1->HEKv2, I'm less "automatically convinced" that v2s at this level are better vs. just different. I still prefer the sound of the HEKv1s over the v2, and I've yet to hear the HEKse, but I've got to wonder whether they're "better" to my ears.

So for the HA-300 Mk2, I wouldn't be executing any trade-up offer right off the bat, even though I'm right here in mainland China and Cayin is very approachable here. I'll be waiting to get a listen at home.



Interesting notes about about the impact of the different DACs. I haven't tried that yet, I might have to look into it down the road.

 

[rmsanger]

Bump any news or impressions from the mk2?

 

[llamaluv]

I've had the Verite for a few days now. Can confirm that with the HA300, it is quite bloomey in the mids. Piano notes can sound exaggerated and un-grounded in the piano's 4th and 5th octaves. What I'm doing for this at the moment is EQ-ing in a slight, downward scoop from 500-2000hz.

The up-side is that this bloom effect mitigates the peculiar dip on this headphone which occurs at the border between the upper-mids and lower-treble which many users have opinions about (and which was quite awful for me on my first pair of Verites a couple years ago).

The medium output impedance setting is my favorite, as with the midrange bloom also comes the tube-magical soundstage-expansion and all the rest. This effect is altogether more pronounced compared to the Auteur, which I had until recently. The soundstage of the Verite with the medium impedance setting can sound huge, and that's really cool.

One other caveat, however, is that its bass is a little flaccid on the medium impedance setting to me (even though I like the bass on the HA300 otherwise).

So there're positives and negatives. I don't know however how what I described above compares to what happens with the Verite on other tube amps...

The bloom effect is a little less pronounced on low-impedance, but then you lose out on the tube magic somewhat. High impedance is pretty fun, but probably brings forth too much, IMO.

Edit: Also worth reiterating something that's been mentioned in the past is that, as a 300-ohm headphone, the Verite plays very loud with very little volume input. On medium output impedance, with a 6-volt XLR input and XLR headphone output, and with the volume knob on its very lowest position, the volume of some songs can be way too loud for "casual" listening levels (eg, right now as I'm typing this, I have the digital pre-amp set to -15dB!). As a corollary, switching between something like the Susvara and the Verite therefore requires an extra amount of caution, similar to when you're messing around with headphones and speaker amps. Presumably this behavior gets reworked with the mk2...

 

[helljudgement]

I've had the Verite for a few days now. Can confirm that with the HA300, it is quite bloomey in the mids. Piano notes can sound exaggerated and un-grounded in the piano's 4th and 5th octaves. What I'm doing for this at the moment is EQ-ing in a slight, downward scoop from 500-2000hz.

Thanks for sharing. I've had very similar experience with regards to the mids-lower mids presentation. Partially the reason why I decided not to go for it specifically for zmf headphones.

I don't know how what I described above compares to what happens with the Verite on other tube amps...
The bloom effect is a little less pronounced on low-impedance, but then you lose out on the tube magic somewhat. High impedance is pretty fun, but probably brings forth too much, IMO.

Verite works great with tube amps haven't dislike any paring yet but some synergizes better than others. Personally I pair it DNA and the EC amps. Both these amps to me are a better match for verite as they do not overly emphasize the mids-lower mids and come across as more natural without excessive bloom so to speak. Soundstage is amazing on all 3 amps but EC in particular has the deepest soundstage out of all amps I've owned and tested by a noticeable margin. Hoping to hear it with A&S 300b amp to see how it stacks against the ha300 and EC amps but it's about the price of both those amps combined so a bit beyond my means to blind buy.

 

[rmsanger]

Well it’s November and no Mk2 updates so I have to assume its a 2022 product at this point. I held out for it but likely need to go in a different direction. perhaps go wa33 or tube hybrid (pathos inpol ear or wells dragon lvl2).

I always take 10days off around Christmas so get lots of time to listen then. Was hoping The mk2 would be ready by then.

 

[ThanatosVI]

Well it’s November and no Mk2 updates so I have to assume its a 2022 product at this point. I held out for it but likely need to go in a different direction. perhaps go wa33 or tube hybrid (pathos inpol ear or wells dragon lvl2).

I always take 10days off around Christmas so get lots of time to listen then. Was hoping The mk2 would be ready by then.

Well might still be Dezember.
If you're in for a 300B Tube amp, Feliks Audio will release one this year as well.

 

[mfgillia]

Well might still be Dezember.
If you're in for a 300B Tube amp, Feliks Audio will release one this year as well.

Allegedly this November 15th but expected to be around two times the price of Euphoria AE.

 

[ThanatosVI]

Allegedly this November 15th but expected to be around two times the price of Euphoria AE.

Yeah from a price point it might be slightly above a Ha300 but still below a Wa33.

Looking forward to the Release, even though I don't need another amp