[LCMusicLover]

How much is it retail in America? I bought it for £1500 and I see on ZMF's website its listed at $1600 which equates to just over £1300.

https://shop.zmfheadphones.com/collections/amps-dacs/products/cayin-ha-3a-amp

Yep, retail is $1599, plus shipping and tax if applicable (no sales tax in Oregon). So if you were in a state w/ 9% sales tax and had to pay shipping (say $75), that would come out to a bit over $1800, so $1200 seemed like a good discount to me. I was pretty tempted myself, but remained strong

 

[Pashmeister]

Unsurprisingly, the new ZMF Atrium closed and HA-3A are an excellent pairing. It really ups the holographic sound for these cans which already sound lifelike to begin with. The ACs have a wonderful sub bass which the HA-3A tubes can really play off on. I’m excited more people will hear them as the ACs get released this month.

 

[Wes S]

Unsurprisingly, the new ZMF Atrium closed and HA-3A are an excellent pairing. It really ups the holographic sound for these cans which already sound lifelike to begin with. The ACs have a wonderful sub bass which the HA-3A tubes can really play off on. I’m excited more people will hear them as the ACs get released this month.

Wow! That's a gorgeous pair of AC's!

 

[Pashmeister]

Wow! That's a gorgeous pair of AC's!

Thanks, I was fortunate to have been able to purchase the limited edition olive wood version as it sounds really good

 

[Leto Dal]

Small update regarding pairing Caldera with HA-3A. My first experience was rather lackluster with stock tubes and other combination of tubes I tried. Especially compared to Holo Bliss solid state amp. My assumption was that HA-3A simply lacked the power to drive this plannar.

Thats not the case, its all seems to be about the tube combination. Currently I am running warm Fivre 6v6G with rather punchy Mazda 12au7 and a japanese rectifier which adds quite a bit of punch and clarity too compared to the stock one. The amp sounds like a tubey version of Bliss with this combination with Caldera. Maybe its slgithly less punchy and a small amount of detail gets lost, but its rather close. The gain is the enveloping tube wamth and stronger sense of 3d space with Caldera. Highly recommend this roll.

I still prefer Bliss for metal and rock and faster elecronic music, but for jazzy and other slower stuff HA-3A is far more fun right now
I do think HA-3A perform great with faster gernes with this tube roll, its just a bit behind a solid state powerhouse like Bliss.

 

[zach915m]

Small update regarding pairing Caldera with HA-3A. My first experience was rather lackluster with stock tubes and other combination of tubes I tried. Especially compared to Holo Bliss solid state amp. My assumption was that HA-3A simply lacked the power to drive this plannar.

Thats not the case, its all seems to be about the tube combination. Currently I am running warm Fivre 6v6G with rather punchy Mazda 12au7 and a japanese rectifier which adds quite a bit of punch and clarity too compared to the stock one. The amp sounds like a tubey version of Bliss with this combination with Caldera. Maybe its slgithly less punchy and a small amount of detail gets lost, but its rather close. The gain is the enveloping tube wamth and stronger sense of 3d space with Caldera. Highly recommend this roll.

I still prefer Bliss for metal and rock and faster elecronic music, but for jazzy and other slower stuff HA-3A is far more fun right now
I do think HA-3A perform great with faster gernes with this tube roll, its just a bit behind a solid state powerhouse like Bliss.

Oh the joy of tube rolling! Factor in that some tubes need to burn in or "wake up" and it really gets crazy, but that's part of the fun I guess.

 

[Andykong]

Small update regarding pairing Caldera with HA-3A. My first experience was rather lackluster with stock tubes and other combination of tubes I tried. Especially compared to Holo Bliss solid state amp. My assumption was that HA-3A simply lacked the power to drive this plannar.

Thats not the case, its all seems to be about the tube combination. Currently I am running warm Fivre 6v6G with rather punchy Mazda 12au7 and a japanese rectifier which adds quite a bit of punch and clarity too compared to the stock one. The amp sounds like a tubey version of Bliss with this combination with Caldera. Maybe its slgithly less punchy and a small amount of detail gets lost, but its rather close. The gain is the enveloping tube wamth and stronger sense of 3d space with Caldera. Highly recommend this roll.

I still prefer Bliss for metal and rock and faster elecronic music, but for jazzy and other slower stuff HA-3A is far more fun right now
I do think HA-3A perform great with faster gernes with this tube roll, its just a bit behind a solid state powerhouse like Bliss.

Just one small tip regarding tube rolling, if you have gone through a lengthy tube rolling journey and find a combo that works very well, maybe it is not a bad idea to revisit the stock tubes for the sake of "recap", this will give you a better impression of how much you have achieved after a long and winding tube rolling journey.

 

[Leto Dal]

Just one small tip regarding tube rolling, if you have gone through a lengthy tube rolling journey and find a combo that works very well, maybe it is not a bad idea to revisit the stock tubes for the sake of "recap", this will give you a better impression of how much you have achieved after a long and winding tube rolling journey.

Yep as stated in the post, I tested Caldera with stock tubes and quite a few different rolls comparing it to Bliss. While I think, the stock sounded really underwhelming compared to Bliss, the roll option I described above elevates the amp to be more than a worthy Bliss competitor.

 

[betula]

Yep as stated in the post, I tested Caldera with stock tubes and quite a few different rolls comparing it to Bliss. While I think, the stock sounded really underwhelming compared to Bliss, the roll option I described above elevates the amp to be more than a worthy Bliss competitor.

I agree. With a good NOS combination it is quite a step up. The basic pleasant and clear character remains, but you can gain bass extension, impact, body, weight, more space and even more naturalness.

 

[killermax]

Has anyone tried the fivre 6v6gt? How does it compare to the fivre 6v6g. The GT version seems a bit cheaper.

 

[joseG86]

I was playing with valves this evening and noticed one of my E80CC producing a buzz when passing fingers over it, switched from right to left side and still the buzzing, very noticeable until I placed the cage and it disappeared. Thanks to it now I know one of my E80CC is not working correctly

If you have any hiss/hum/buzz and you like your HA-3A without the cage try to put it back as it is doing more things than just protecting the valves

By the way, RCA 6V6GT are impressive

 

[AudioPowerHead]

I was playing with valves this evening and noticed one of my E80CC producing a buzz when passing fingers over it, switched from right to left side and still the buzzing, very noticeable until I placed the cage and it disappeared. Thanks to it now I know one of my E80CC is not working correctly

If you have any hiss/hum/buzz and you like your HA-3A without the cage try to put it back as it is doing more things than just protecting the valves

By the way, RCA 6V6GT are impressive

Interesting observation. Wonder if there is any scientific explanation behind this cage on/off phenomenon.

 

[Leto Dal]

Interesting observation. Wonder if there is any scientific explanation behind this cage on/off phenomenon.

Electromagnetic shielding probably.

 

[joseG86]

Interesting observation. Wonder if there is any scientific explanation behind this cage on/off phenomenon.

There's dedicated ground to my audio gear and when I touch any metal while passing my hand over the valve the buzzing disappears I guess it is related to grounding design and the cage making contact with its banana plugs

 

[Pashmeister]

I experienced some fluttering hum most audible at the high impedance setting this week. The fluttering would disappear when I touched a specific corner of the cage. I realized this fluttering sound began around the time I installed a router in my room to improve my work zoom calls. I looked at the wires and saw that one of the router cables were touching a few other wires connected to my audio system. Did a little re-organization of the router wires and the fluttering disappeared.