[ckhirnigs113]

@Andykong Do you know the voltage output from the balanced output of the iHA-6 at 155 ohms? I’m interested to know how the amp would do with the Mod House Tungsten, which is notoriously hard to drive (155 ohms and 78 dB/mW).

 

[RenoGu]

Is the noise situation in the channels still an issue? I saw it came on drop and really wanting to buy one but I am worried related to the noise in the channels been reported in this thread

 

[Polky74]

Is the noise situation in the channels still an issue? I saw it came on drop and really wanting to buy one but I am worried related to the noise in the channels been reported in this thread

Nothing to report here other than the fact that it's a really special amplifier and that all my dongles absolutely love it.

 

[RenoGu]

Nothing to report here other than the fact that it's a really special amplifier and that all my dongles absolutely love it.

Thank you for the report.

 

[Polky74]

@Andykong when I connect a dongle to the two rear XLR ports (balanced) of the iHA-6, what impedance does the dongle find? Thank you.

 

[Alenotta]

@Andykong Do you know the voltage output from the balanced output of the iHA-6 at 155 ohms? I’m interested to know how the amp would do with the Mod House Tungsten, which is notoriously hard to drive (155 ohms and 78 dB/mW).

I was literally just wondering this same thing and searching headfi to see if anyone talked about it. Seems like it could be a good combo.

 

[ckhirnigs113]

I was literally just wondering this same thing and searching headfi to see if anyone talked about it. Seems like it could be a good combo.

If someone wants to ship me their Tungsten, I'd be happy to test the combo!

 

[Flaze]

Now, i might be a bit biased, since iha6 fits my preff for sound, but, i think its the best amp you can currently get for sub ~1k for headphones (at least if you exclude vintage gear).
Ive tried it with hifiman arya v1/se, focal clear (og) and dt770, and it performed very nicely with all of them. (how ever, it does run out of steam and introduce a bit of distortion to the aryas if you crank the volume up high).
It adds a bit of warmth and umph to the low end, well having very solid detail and separation. The highs are well controlled, and i believe even a tiny bit rolled off on some high notes (its very minor).
The only real downside of the amp is the fact that it doesnt have that big of a stage, but really, youre not getting monster stage with out spending 4+ figures.
How ever, no built in pre-amp is a bummer.
Another thing of note, i did buy mine new, and the amp basically died after about 2weeks of use, one of the channels developed a pretty bad buzzing. how ever, i got it replaced by the seller and havent had any issues for about 2 years now.

 

[dbull12]

This is probably a dumb question, but would it cause any problems to keep a XLR to 4.4mm adapter (ddHiFi XLR44B) always plugged into the iHA-6's balanced output while I'm using one of the amp's SE outputs to listen? It would just make it easier to swap in any low impedance headphones or IEMs that I have 4.4mm cables for, but I just want to make sure it wouldn't somehow be bad for the amp

 

[leylandi]

 

[ckhirnigs113]

Those two new amps look intriguing.

 

[project86]

Agree! I don't have any concrete info but I'm going to speculate on what I hope they will end up being:


*The HA-2A appears to be a smaller version of the HA-3A. I don't know what they cut out to make it smaller (and presumably lower priced) but I wouldn't mind having it be totally different from that amp, just to mix things up and keep from being redundant. Maybe more like the circuit from the HA-1A mk2 repackaged in the more traditional form factor? Or even an OTL design? Not sure that is very likely though, it will probably end up being an HA-3A "junior".

*The iHA-8 would ideally be an updated iHA-6 with 4.4mm balanced jack (I think I see that in the pic) plus some additional refinements. The original is still a great amp and I hope they continue with a similar presentation.

*The iDAC-8 hopefully takes inspiration from the big CS-100DAC. That thing is exceptional and I'd love to see how much of that sound can be captured in a smaller/more affordable package.

*The iDAP-8 probably has the most room for improvement out of any of these devices. The original iDAP-6 actually sounded exceptional but was fairly primitive in terms of UI and capabilities, especially by todays standards. It wasn't a bad product per se (again, it still sounds very very good!) it's just that our expectations for those type of devices have evolved so much by now. Way more than our expectations for DACs or headphone amps.

If Cayin can implement things like Roon, Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify, plus the usual UPnP etc (but done right of course), with touch screen controls and responsive operation, and without losing the SQ of the original, it could be a great device. Something like the Eversolo A6 but just as a dedicated high-end transport rather than having a DAC on board.


@Andykong am I getting warm on anything from this list?

 

[Andykong]

Cayin will debut the following product at the 2023 China Guangzhou International Headphone Expo (16-17 December 2023). I'll be traveling to Guangzhou to check out these new products and we shall provide more information about these new products after the Guangzhou event.

iDAP-8: Android-based Network Streamer
iDAC-8: Dual Timbre DAC/Preamplifier
iHA-8: "Hyper" Class-A Solid-State Headphone Amplifier
HA-2A: Compact Transformer-Coupled Tube Headphone Amplifier

 

[Andykong]

Agree! I don't have any concrete info but I'm going to speculate on what I hope they will end up being:


*The HA-2A appears to be a smaller version of the HA-3A. I don't know what they cut out to make it smaller (and presumably lower priced) but I wouldn't mind having it be totally different from that amp, just to mix things up and keep from being redundant. Maybe more like the circuit from the HA-1A mk2 repackaged in the more traditional form factor? Or even an OTL design? Not sure that is very likely though, it will probably end up being an HA-3A "junior".

*The iHA-8 would ideally be an updated iHA-6 with 4.4mm balanced jack (I think I see that in the pic) plus some additional refinements. The original is still a great amp and I hope they continue with a similar presentation.

*The iDAC-8 hopefully takes inspiration from the big CS-100DAC. That thing is exceptional and I'd love to see how much of that sound can be captured in a smaller/more affordable package.

*The iDAP-8 probably has the most room for improvement out of any of these devices. The original iDAP-6 actually sounded exceptional but was fairly primitive in terms of UI and capabilities, especially by todays standards. It wasn't a bad product per se (again, it still sounds very very good!) it's just that our expectations for those type of devices have evolved so much by now. Way more than our expectations for DACs or headphone amps.

If Cayin can implement things like Roon, Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify, plus the usual UPnP etc (but done right of course), with touch screen controls and responsive operation, and without losing the SQ of the original, it could be a great device. Something like the Eversolo A6 but just as a dedicated high-end transport rather than having a DAC on board.


@Andykong am I getting warm on anything from this list?

You sure understand our products very well, so most of your predictions are on track.

The iDAP is completely redeveloped. The new iDAP-8 is Android 9.0 based with Google Play preinstalled, so the streaming apps are not a problem anymore. We have submitted the iDAP-8 to ROON license consideration, it probably will take a while before we sort this out but we are heading in that direction.

The iDAC-8 is armed with dual timbre and can be doubled as a preamplifier, so it does share a lot of similarities with CS-100DAC, Yes, we have to be more cost cautious but we managed to put a lot of DAC into this compact chassis.

I am sure there will be reviews comparing the iHA-8 vs iHA-6. The iHA-6 is frequently cited as the best sub-$1000 headphone amplifier since 2015, this become a milestone product in our lineup and we put in a lot of thought when we try to provide an upgrade path to existing iHA-6 users. We believe we have nailed it, but we don't have the final say on this subject, we sure hope the reviewers and users agree with us. Since you are the first reviews that bring the original iDAC-6 and iHA-6 into the public spotlight, I sure hope you can spare some time to check out the new 888 combo.

The HA-2A is indeed a junior HA-3A. The biggest challenge is to make it stackable with the new iDAP-8, iDAC-8, and iHA-8. Users have a lot of flexibility to formulate their desktop stack, They can opt between solid-state headphone amps. or tube headphone amp freely, or both at the same time. For example, they can buy an iDAC-8 with HA-2A and stack them together, using their computer as the audio source, and then add an iHA-8 after they buy more headphones. There are simply a lot of possible combinations ranging from one piece or stack of four pieces.

 

[project86]

Thanks Andy!

Nice lineup, looks great and I like the various choices Cayin has made with each model. Definitely keep us up to date next week or whenever you are recovered from the show (I know those can be very draining).