[froger]

Just ordered one. Liked the HD800 with it when auditioned in the shop, clean, neutral and engaging. Will try it with my HD800, HE1000, HE560 and ZMF Vibro II in my own system when I received it.

 

[Rayzilla]

Just ordered one. Liked the HD800 with it when auditioned in the shop, clean, neutral and engaging. Will try it with my HD800, HE1000, HE560 and ZMF Vibro II in my own system when I received it.

What amps have you tried with your HD800? Can you comment on how it compares with hose amps?

Thanks.

 

[froger]

The only amp I still own for HD800 is the Stratus. I haven't been spending much time with HD800 though, as I prefer the HE1000 with the Stratus amplifier.

 

[Andykong]

Just ordered one. Liked the HD800 with it when auditioned in the shop, clean, neutral and engaging. Will try it with my HD800, HE1000, HE560 and ZMF Vibro II in my own system when I received it.

You are ordering from Singapore? Do they have stock for you? Hope you'll receive the amp soon and share your impression of the amp with your attractive collection.

 

[froger]

Ordered from Taobao and received the amplifier on Monday after a week. After spending some time with the amplifier, I think I am ready to give a brief impression on it. I used it to drive my HD800, HE1000 and ZMF Vibro II. To me, the IHA-6 drives HD800 and HE1000 well. It is a pity I do not have a decent solid state amplifier to compare with. At the end of the day, I still preferred my DNA Stratus with HD800 and HE1000 as the tube amplifier was able to produce a seductive and liquid mid which I like. However,technically, the 2 amplifiers were pretty close despite the huge difference in price.
On the other hand, I thought the IHA-6 was an excellent match with the ZMF Vibro II. Despite not being the most technical headphone, the Vibro II with the IHA-6 was very engaging, fun and realistic. There is so much synergy that I will actually put the pair on par with my Stratus/HD800 in terms of enjoyment and the IHA-6/Vibro II pair only cost 1/4 of the other pair.
To conclude, the Cayin Iha6 is a very capable amplifier with plenty of connection and power options. The small footprint and price make it a very attractive option in my opinion. It is a keeper for me.

 

[grizzlybeast]

favorite pairings with the STACK

 

I liked the HE1000 too. 

 

[Andykong]

To keep everyone updated, the Cayin iDAC-6 and iHA-6 has started an unofficial tour in Portland and Seattle area already, for detail of this "bundled" tour, please check out the KENNERTON VALI - IMPRESSIONS, DISCUSSION, TOUR thread for details.

At the end of the Seattle section of the Kennerton Vali tour, the iDAC-6 and iHA-6 will not be included as a bundled for subsequent tour participants, I guess this is the best time to start an official iDAC-6+iHA-6 tour from there on. This is my initial thoughts:

(1) Since the tour has jumped started alongside the Kennerton Vali tour already, I probably shall adopt the rules and practice of the Vali tour for the offical iDAC-6/iHA-6 tour.
(2) Anyone at Seattle, or within driving distance from Seattle, and is willing to collect the combo in person will have priority in queuing. This will keep the logistic cost of the tour to minimum
(3) For reference, purpose, when I send the iDAC-6/iHA-6 from SoCal to Portland, I paid around US$25 on UPS Ground, so you can estimate the logistic cost roughly.
(4) In order to minimize logistic cost, the tour sequence will be geographical related instead of first come first serve, and we encourage participants to form "team" with fellow friends in local Headfi community, this will allow sharing of logistic cost, I guess if you have 2-3 persons in the same city joining the tour together, the logistic cost will not be significantly higher then that of a DAP tour.
(5) This tour will limited to US participants only. I can extend the tour to Canada if someone can propose a solution to cover the logistic and custom expenditures.
(6) The tour probably will take place from mid/late July to end of September. We would like to re-collect the combo during CanJam RMAF which is early October 2016.

Now these are my initial thought only, please do not jump on board to sign up immediately as I can't promise the tour will eventually takes place right now. I certainly wanted to see this happen, but I need to solicit opinion and evaluate the feasibility for the tour as the logistic cost is indeed on the high side when compare to a DAP/headphone tour. So the most important question is: will you sign up for a DAC/Headphone amp tour when you need to pay $25-$30 to cove the logistic cost?

For convenient sake, this post will appear in the iDAC-6 thread as well, but I shall encourage all comment and suggestions related to the tour grouped under this iHA-6 thread.

All comments are welcome.

 

[lugnut]

When will a person be able to order these online in the US ? Sorry if I have overlooked answer to this question . Thanks

 

[project86]

I for one think it's perfectly reasonable to pay the $30 or so shipping in order to demo the gear. This is on par with what you'll pay to use the Lending Library from The Cable Company, to borrow some gear for a week or so.
 
If you have any intention on possibly buying the Cain stack at any time now or in the future, OR if you just want to get a feel for what this particular gear can do (perhaps in comparison to your current setup), it's a great value imho. Hearing stuff in a store or at a meet is fun but nothing really compares to having it in your own home.
 
 
Quote:

  When will a person be able to order these online in the US ? Sorry if I have overlooked answer to this question . Thanks

 
That is a good question, which I hope has a good answer soon.

 

[Andykong]

When will a person be able to order these online in the US ? Sorry if I have overlooked answer to this question . Thanks

We are working on this right now. Cayin has a distributor for traditional hifi products, and they are considering bringing iDAC-6/iHA-6 to US as these are fairly related to their current business profile. You can get in touch with them if you are interested in the iDAC-6/iHA-6 and leave your contact so that they can get back to you when they have the combo in stock. I suppose more inquiry will speed up their process in bringing the combo on-board.

Steve Leung
VAS
http://vasnyinc.com/index.php
77 Cliffwood Ave.Suite:3B Cliffwood, New Jersey 07721
vasaudio@comcast.net
Tele-732-888-3288

 

[Andykong]

I for one think it's perfectly reasonable to pay the $30 or so shipping in order to demo the gear. This is on par with what you'll pay to use the Lending Library from The Cable Company, to borrow some gear for a week or so.

If you have any intention on possibly buying the Cain stack at any time now or in the future, OR if you just want to get a feel for what this particular gear can do (perhaps in comparison to your current setup), it's a great value imho. Hearing stuff in a store or at a meet is fun but nothing really compares to having it in your own home.

I see, so this is not outrageously expensive for audition arrangement, that's a relief as I was worrying that the logistic cost will put people away.

Lets hope all interested parties will consider this opportunity seriously, once we collected the demo units back to Hong Kong after RMAF, it would be difficult to arrange another tour again because sending the combo from factory at Mainland China to start a tour is very expensive.

 

[ebiscaia]

Hi,
 
Are the differences between tube and ss outputs similar to those you heard in GF Tube Dac 11?
 
Thanks

 

[project86]

I see, so this is not outrageously expensive for audition arrangement, that's a relief as I was worrying that the logistic cost will put people away.

Lets hope all interested parties will consider this opportunity seriously, once we collected the demo units back to Hong Kong after RMAF, it would be difficult to arrange another tour again because sending the combo from factory at Mainland China to start a tour is very expensive.

 
 
I can't speak for others but to me this seems perfectly fair. I've borrowed gear from friends on HeadFi and have loaned out gear plenty of times. In those cases, whoever is the recipient of the gear traditionally foots the bill for shipping. It just makes sense.
 
An audition for something small like an IEM is obviously cheaper but still, $30 is not much to borrow $2k worth of nice equipment. 
 

  Hi,
 
Are the differences between tube and ss outputs similar to those you heard in GF Tube Dac 11?
 
Thanks

 
Not exactly the same, but vaguely similar behavior. The SS out, to my ears. does have a more accurate or neutral feel to it, while adding tubes to the mix gives a slight warmth and euphonic smoothness. Very subtle but worthwhile difference between them.

 

[Andykong]

Hi,

Are the differences between tube and ss outputs similar to those you heard in GF Tube Dac 11?

Thanks

Not exactly the same, but vaguely similar behavior. The SS out, to my ears. does have a more accurate or neutral feel to it, while adding tubes to the mix gives a slight warmth and euphonic smoothness. Very subtle but worthwhile difference between them.

The GF Tube DAC? The one Grant Fidelity ODM from Yulong? Is this a dual output stage DAC that allows you to switch between Solid state and tube output? I haven't heard this DAC before, but knowing how good Yulong is with DAC, I have no doubt this is one of the high CP, best-in-class product again.

Project86 has offered a very accurate description on the different between SS and tube output stage of iDAC-6, I want to emphasis that the change is clearly audible, but not a significant day-and-night change. In my observation, the SS and tube output stage share similar sound signature, they are mean for complimenting each other, not differentiate into two different sound presentation.

 

[project86]

The GF Tube DAC? The one Grant Fidelity ODM from Yulong? Is this a dual output stage DAC that allows you to switch between Solid state and tube output? I haven't heard this DAC before, but knowing how good Yulong is with DAC, I have no doubt this is one of the high CP, best-in-class product again.

Project86 has offered a very accurate description on the different between SS and tube output stage of iDAC-6, I want to emphasis that the change is clearly audible, but not a significant day-and-night change. In my observation, the SS and tube output stage share similar sound signature, they are mean for complimenting each other, not differentiate into two different sound presentation.

 
Yep, that's the one, from Grant Fidelity (but really from Yulong). It's a great little unit but obviously built to a price and not intended to compete with something like the iDAC-6. Plus it's getting a bit long in the tooth now (USB tops out at 24/96 for example).