Cayin iHA-8: Fully Balanced "Hyper" Class-A Headphone Amplifier

[gahan]

I got my IHA-8
Built quality and finish floored me after getting it out of the box. Excellent stuff here.
Outputs we have four of the most common ones, maybe couldve squeezed the 3,5mm in there too to get nicely all four.
Operating volume knob gives a very luxury feel. I (almost) want to adjust the volume often just to feel that lol.
People have been saying that feet are bad, but these grip very well, maybe the previous guy upgraded them. Could someone tell?
On/off led is way too bright! Should be same brightness as the volume indicator.
Does get very hot on sides, tender child hands could burn.
Sound is overall good except bass weight and force is lacking a little to my preference. I used to have Violectric V200 and it had stronger bass and dynamics for my taste but IHA-8 wins elsewhere.
I might need to look into more dynamic and slammy amp later because Empyrean sounded better on V200 than on IHA-8. Any idea of a good slammy and intense amp without the drawbacks of V200 (small-ish soundstage, smearing of details, treble a little afterthought, non-3D/holographic sounding) on a 1000-1500 eur/usd range?

Schiit Mjolnir 3 it´s your best option

 

[MindBreak]

Schiit Mjolnir 3 it´s your best option

I own a Mjolnir 3 (2nd run unit) and while I enjoy it I wouldn't say that it is "the best option" for everyone. Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to sound, and until you hear it you won't know if it is "right for you". The iHA-8, Mjolnir 3, and several other Class A SS amps on the market each bring their own flavor to bare. The Headphone and DAC pairings with said Amps will heavily influence the purchasing decision (synergy is key). But what to do I know, I am a Schiit Head after all.

Happy Listening!

 

[Erick Muller]

Thankyou so much for that in detail response, I really appreciate it!
I'd much prefer a in depth response that's honest rather than a quick and easy one, and that you also gave your personal preferences and tolerance with ear gain etc is also very good information so kudos.
I completely understand now so that's great, it wouldn't be such a dilemma for me if I could actually demo the s17 which I cannot. I may have a chance to demo the Cayin but will see.
I do value a good soundstage and "holographic presentation" as it can be referred too, I also don't get the out of headphone experience but rather forget the headphones are there if I'm right in the zone of getting immersed in the music so I suppose it's actually more detail and seperation performance that's in the staging ability of the headphone.
I was comparing my Asgard 3 directly to my smsl do400 which I got as a back up which then turned into my main unit, one thing I noticed immediately on the Arya's was how congested the Asgard was in direct comparison, but the Asgard has a great midrange tonality to it which reminded me of why I want to go back to class A. I've finished upgrading my home theatre so now I want a more competent headphone amp so I can get the best of both worlds. Seems like the DAC will have a large impact on sound presentation also with these two so I may go down the r2r route I think as I probably won't have the funds, or at least be able to convince the minister of war and finance to get a proper pre amp for it lol I wonder if DAC's with pre function would also work decent. Inany case thanks a lot for your response really appreciate it again!

I'm gonna give you another impression, right now I'm in the process of really diving deep and into the trenches to try to "fix" my headphones with EQ to suit them more to my taste, almost all of this week has been dedicated now to the LCD-X 2021, I took VSG's target from squiglink, modified to suit a little bit more to my taste and have been playing around with it and yesterday I kind of manage to get them to a point that my LCD-X are not that shouty and peaky on the region between 1khz and 6khz, there's still the occasional slightly piercing shout and glare that comes here and there on certain parts of songs, but it's a lot more tolerable than before where the LCD-X was just unlisteneable for me, now I'm at a place that I can kind of enjoy them.

Another test that I did is just listening to youtube videos while I do other stuff and I didn't find any issues with my profile and I could listen to my LCD-X for several hours without fatigue setting in, which is a good sign.

What I'm trying to say is that at that moment, with spoken word youtube content, the LCD-X disappear on the iHA-8, I still don't have them right at that point where my LCD-X just doesn't occasionally takes me out of a smooth listening experience, specially if there are vocalist on the track, this means that despite being feed by a warm source like the serenade on pre-amp mode, the iHA-8 is going to be really revealing and if something is not right, it's going to show it to you without any doctoring of the sound, which some people are going to like that, other's might find it kind of grating, I'm in between right now, but I have to admit that I'm getting a little bit frustrated because I still haven't found what I'm looking for completely and that satisfies sufficiently my taste. The iHA-8 is not a warm and lush amp that's going to smooth over any rough edges on your music, it's an honest amp that has a slight coloration with and without hyper mode and that can be further tilt in a certain direction with it's pre-amp mode, it has plenty of power to drive all of my headphones reallly, really well, but I don't have any particularly and notoriously difficult to drive headphones like the susvara or tungsten to test out the limits of this amp, it handle my DT880 600ohm headphone quite well which is probably the most difficult to drive headphone I have, even with some EQ, so unless you have or a planning to get one of those headphones that are really power hungry, I wouldn't worry about this amp not powering any headphone sufficiently well.

Compare to what I remember when the S17 was working fine for me, the IHA-8 seems to sound a little bit more open and revealing and it does have a quality of being a little bit more 3D sounding, it's defenitively a little bit more enveloping and the sound does wrap around your head a little bit better and it also probably sounds a little bit cleaner, specially on line mode controlling the volume directly on the amp, which as I stated before I really didn't like, I prefer the coloration that the serenade has with it's pre-amp which although not as clean and revealing, it's a lot smoother and weightier in comparison.

 

[Matti J]

I'm gonna give you another impression, right now I'm in the process of really diving deep and into the trenches to try to "fix" my headphones with EQ to suit them more to my taste, almost all of this week has been dedicated now to the LCD-X 2021, I took VSG's target from squiglink, modified to suit a little bit more to my taste and have been playing around with it and yesterday I kind of manage to get them to a point that my LCD-X are not that shouty and peaky on the region between 1khz and 6khz, there's still the occasional slightly piercing shout and glare that comes here and there on certain parts of songs, but it's a lot more tolerable than before where the LCD-X was just unlisteneable for me, now I'm at a place that I can kind of enjoy them.

Another test that I did is just listening to youtube videos while I do other stuff and I didn't find any issues with my profile and I could listen to my LCD-X for several hours without fatigue setting in, which is a good sign.

What I'm trying to say is that at that moment, with spoken word youtube content, the LCD-X disappear on the iHA-8, I still don't have them right at that point where my LCD-X just doesn't occasionally takes me out of a smooth listening experience, specially if there are vocalist on the track, this means that despite being feed by a warm source like the serenade on pre-amp mode, the iHA-8 is going to be really revealing and if something is not right, it's going to show it to you without any doctoring of the sound, which some people are going to like that, other's might find it kind of grating, I'm in between right now, but I have to admit that I'm getting a little bit frustrated because I still haven't found what I'm looking for completely and that satisfies sufficiently my taste. The iHA-8 is not a warm and lush amp that's going to smooth over any rough edges on your music, it's an honest amp that has a slight coloration with and without hyper mode and that can be further tilt in a certain direction with it's pre-amp mode, it has plenty of power to drive all of my headphones reallly, really well, but I don't have any particularly and notoriously difficult to drive headphones like the susvara or tungsten to test out the limits of this amp, it handle my DT880 600ohm headphone quite well which is probably the most difficult to drive headphone I have, even with some EQ, so unless you have or a planning to get one of those headphones that are really power hungry, I wouldn't worry about this amp not powering any headphone sufficiently well.

Compare to what I remember when the S17 was working fine for me, the IHA-8 seems to sound a little bit more open and revealing and it does have a quality of being a little bit more 3D sounding, it's defenitively a little bit more enveloping and the sound does wrap around your head a little bit better and it also probably sounds a little bit cleaner, specially on line mode controlling the volume directly on the amp, which as I stated before I really didn't like, I prefer the coloration that the serenade has with it's pre-amp which although not as clean and revealing, it's a lot smoother and weightier in comparison.

Thanks for the additional insight man. I typically don't do too much EQ with my headphones, besides the LCD which is almost necessary lol Audeze should sell their headphones with a EQ guide haha still love them.
Really unfortunate for you that you have some poor hearing tolerances in certain frequencies, definitely not ideal in this hobby and I do hope you find a set up where your happy and don't end up having to refinance to get there lol! Problem I find these days is there's too many options and so much more competition it makes it hard to make decisions where your 100% happy.
When I get around to it I believe There's a audio shop about an hour drive from me that has the Cayin so I should be able to demo that. I'm in no rush, have been stuck at work away from home for a few weeks so I've had some time to do a lot of research which is good. I sold alot of my headphones trying to simplify things I found I could never just settle with music when I get the chance, too many options wondering what would sound better, so I narrowed them down and will only ever have 2 or 3 now plus some iems for travelling to work. I don't have a desk set up anymore, well I do where our main computer is but rarely gets used, my main spot is in my theatre room which I'm using a streamer to feed my DAC using tidal connect. Where just about to change couches I'm now thinking where my amp will be may be more convenient using a remote so keeping that in consideration with the Aune.

 

[Erick Muller]

Thanks for the additional insight man. I typically don't do too much EQ with my headphones, besides the LCD which is almost necessary lol Audeze should sell their headphones with a EQ guide haha still love them.
Really unfortunate for you that you have some poor hearing tolerances in certain frequencies, definitely not ideal in this hobby and I do hope you find a set up where your happy and don't end up having to refinance to get there lol! Problem I find these days is there's too many options and so much more competition it makes it hard to make decisions where your 100% happy.
When I get around to it I believe There's a audio shop about an hour drive from me that has the Cayin so I should be able to demo that. I'm in no rush, have been stuck at work away from home for a few weeks so I've had some time to do a lot of research which is good. I sold alot of my headphones trying to simplify things I found I could never just settle with music when I get the chance, too many options wondering what would sound better, so I narrowed them down and will only ever have 2 or 3 now plus some iems for travelling to work. I don't have a desk set up anymore, well I do where our main computer is but rarely gets used, my main spot is in my theatre room which I'm using a streamer to feed my DAC using tidal connect. Where just about to change couches I'm now thinking where my amp will be may be more convenient using a remote so keeping that in consideration with the Aune.

I recently went and took a hearing test and apparently everything is within normal ranges, so clinically speaking, there's nothing wrong with my hearing, I do have a kind of strange ear canal where it's like very narrow in it's opening, so I suspect that that may be causing me to be specially sensitive to some regions of the ear gain and presence regions of the FR.

Well there's a reason why Audeze has the reveal presets for their headphones, they know they have issues, I'm not a particular fan of their presets btw, they overdone the places where there's a huge dip in the FR to the point that for many, including me, its preferable to stick with the stock tuning and maybe just do a bass shelf than what Audeze offers as a solution to their tuning problems.

A very cheap option if you want to dip your toes into R2R DACs would be to get the Fiio K11 R2R, I have one in the office and I run some headphones and my new favorite IEM, the meze alba and it sounds pretty good, for back ground music listening or podcasting, it has a very relaxed sound that it's pretty inoffensive and it's something that can blend well in an office environment if you turn off the led lights.

If you need a remote and want to try out class A amps, the new S17 evo should be a better fit for you, maybe we should wait for a couple more reviews of that amp before pulling the trigger and maybe checking out the S17 thread to see if there are not any issues with that amp, and it has plenty of power to drive pretty much every headphone on the market.

 

[Matti J]

Thanks for the tip. Do you have as bad of sensitivity when using iems?
I work away from home for work ( as in a 2 hour flight) so I just use iems and a Questyle M15 dongle. But the the K11 is definitely portable, hmm maybe a worth while try actually, like I need another excuse to buy more stuff lol

I'd probably just straight out but a denafrips to be honest, once my renovations are done or I'd be very interested if hifiman got into the DAC game (standalone)which I'm really surprised that they haven't already given their success over the last few years with their Himalaya range.

Any who I don't want to de rail the thread please post any updates or new pairings you find with the iha-8 I'm still very interested!

Thanks again

 

[Erick Muller]

Thanks for the tip. Do you have as bad of sensitivity when using iems?

If they fit and seal correctly, not really, but it has been really hard for me to find an IEM that fits me well and it's also comfortable to wear for an extended period of time, like it has been an extremely long and arduous journey if I'm being honest. The Meze Alba fits the bill, but it's also not the most resolving and clear IEM on the planet by any stretch of the imagination and it's kind of relaxed on it's sound signature.

I work away from home for work ( as in a 2 hour flight) so I just use iems and a Questyle M15 dongle. But the the K11 is definitely portable, hmm maybe a worth while try actually, like I need another excuse to buy more stuff lol

I'd probably just straight out but a denafrips to be honest, once my renovations are done or I'd be very interested if hifiman got into the DAC game (standalone)which I'm really surprised that they haven't already given their success over the last few years with their Himalaya range.

Any who I don't want to de rail the thread please post any updates or new pairings you find with the iha-8 I'm still very interested!

Thanks again

It would be hard and really not that useful for me to talk about headphone pairings since I EQ them to a significantly degree and I'm using a source that's it's not truly neutral, but I haven't found any particularly egregious example of a bad headphone pairing with this amp, both with DD and planars. DAC related tho, I really didn't enjoy the Cyan 2 with this amp, but this has to do again with my particular intolerance and sensitivity that I've mentioned before, the Cyan 2 tends to roll off both the really high treble and the low end and it emphasizes the parts of the FR that I really, REALLY don't like at all and it just makes listening to anything an absolute painful experience, but that's just me, there's people that absolutely loved this particular pairing, I just don't enjoy that level of clarity and insight into the music, it gets grating and irritating really quickly for me.

 

[SlydZ]

Does anyone have experience using the Cayin iHA-8 with headphones that require little power and are very sensitive, such as the Focal Clear OG?


I’m currently using the HIFIMAN EF500 and have the issue that, even on low gain, I can only set the volume to a maximum of 10% before it becomes too loud. Additionally, there is channel imbalance at low volumes. So, without digitally reducing the volume, it is not really usable with the Focal Clear OG.


Does the Cayin IHA-8 provide enough range on low gain for sensitive headphones like the Focal Clear OG or even IEMs?

 

[Erick Muller]

Does anyone have experience using the Cayin iHA-8 with headphones that require little power and are very sensitive, such as the Focal Clear OG?


I’m currently using the HIFIMAN EF500 and have the issue that, even on low gain, I can only set the volume to a maximum of 10% before it becomes too loud. Additionally, there is channel imbalance at low volumes. So, without digitally reducing the volume, it is not really usable with the Focal Clear OG.


Does the Cayin IHA-8 provide enough range on low gain for sensitive headphones like the Focal Clear OG or even IEMs?

Yes, it handles it really well, both with and without hyper mode on, in my experience, the volume range and gradual increase with the volume on the iHA-8 is pretty linear and since I think the iHA-8 is using an stepped attenuator, you don't get any channel imbalance even on the first click, perfect volume match.

When it comes to IEM's, on the 6.35mm SE jack I didn't get any noise on the meze alba, but if you run it on the 4.4mm or 4-pin XLR jacks, I did heard some background noise, not huge, but it's there and it's noticeable, even on low gain and hyper mode off, of course that's with really sensitive IEM's.

 

[SlydZ]

Yes, it handles it really well, both with and without hyper mode on, in my experience, the volume range and gradual increase with the volume on the iHA-8 is pretty linear and since I think the iHA-8 is using an stepped attenuator, you don't get any channel imbalance even on the first click, perfect volume match.

When it comes to IEM's, on the 6.35mm SE jack I didn't get any noise on the meze alba, but if you run it on the 4.4mm or 4-pin XLR jacks, I did heard some background noise, not huge, but it's there and it's noticeable, even on low gain and hyper mode off, of course that's with really sensitive IEM's.

Thank you very much, this is really helpful. In this regard, the HIFIMAN amplifiers are really quite bad.

I'm currently torn between the Aune S17 Pro, Cayin IHA-8, and Violectric V222. However, the V222 supposedly doesn't sound great with low-impedance headphones, which makes the Aune and Cayin the most interesting options for me. It's also surprising that sensitive headphones work so well with this level of power—I had some concerns about that.

IEMs always have a hard time with these kinds of power amplifiers, but it sounds really good that they can be used without any issues via 6.35mm. Was the volume control also fine with IEMs, or do you mostly stay in the lower 10% range?

 

[Erick Muller]

I got the Cyan 2 back into my system now that I changed and solved some issues that I had before, well it seems now that it's sounding much, much better, need to evaluate a little bit more but right now I no longer feel that I have to sell the Cyan 2, which is a good sign, need to do more testing and this time I think I'm going to stick for a whole month with the Cyan 2 and then change back to the Serenade and have a more level playing field.

The Cyan 2 sounds a lot fuller and the bass is back!!!, I still think that the Serenade still has more bass impact than the Cyan 2, the Cyan 2 just leans a little bit more to the neutral side in comparison. Other qualities like spatial presentation seem to be better on the Cyan 2, it feels more open, the Serenade's presentation is a little bit more intimate and though you can still hear the fine grain detail, it's definitively less prominent, but it tends to be a lot more forgiving in that regard.

 

[SlydZ]

I got the Cyan 2 back into my system now that I changed and solved some issues that I had before, well it seems now that it's sounding much, much better, need to evaluate a little bit more but right now I no longer feel that I have to sell the Cyan 2, which is a good sign, need to do more testing and this time I think I'm going to stick for a whole month with the Cyan 2 and then change back to the Serenade and have a more level playing field.

The Cyan 2 sounds a lot fuller and the bass is back!!!, I still think that the Serenade still has more bass impact than the Cyan 2, the Cyan 2 just leans a little bit more to the neutral side in comparison. Other qualities like spatial presentation seem to be better on the Cyan 2, it feels more open, the Serenade's presentation is a little bit more intimate and though you can still hear the fine grain detail, it's definitively less prominent, but it tends to be a lot more forgiving in that regard.

I saw that you had the Aune S17 Pro before. How would you compare it to the Cayin IHA-8?


I've heard a lot of positive things about the Cyan 2. What issues did you have with the Cyan2?

 

[Erick Muller]

I saw that you had the Aune S17 Pro before. How would you compare it to the Cayin IHA-8?


I've heard a lot of positive things about the Cyan 2. What issues did you have with the Cyan2?

The S17 when it worked correctly for me, it's pretty similar to the iHA-8 actually, the way that I would put it is that the iHA-8 is a more refine sounding version of the S17 with a little bit more driving power, but the iHA-8 it's less versatile than the S17 in comparison so it's going to come to which amp suits your needs better and if you need some of the features that the S17 offers over the iHA-8, the iHA-8 it's the better amp when it comes to pure performance and sound quality, but there's some trade offs when it comes to creature comforts.

With the Cyan 2 the issues where more with me and my setup, something that I had installed in my computer that where screwing badly with the sound, an app called Nahimic that I wasn't aware of, it was installed on my PC, got rid of it, also some wrong settings and configuration on PEACE for EQ, changed the mains sockets where my audio setup was connected to and added again the hum suppressor on the iHA-8, so quite a bit. The digital source configuration on windows seem to have been screwing really badly with the Cyan 2 tanking the SQ significantly more than with the Serenade, I think it has to do with the fact that the Cyan 2 is a straight NOS DAC and the Serenade is using both and XMOS usb input and it's only OS, it seemed it was less affected by this.

Now I have a really nice black noise floor and pretty much no issues with my set up, it's significantly better sounding.

 

[HunterKS]

Has anyone have any experience with either THX 789, A90 Discrete, or A70 Pro?

Looking to upgrade from THX 789 and im leaning heavily towards the iHA-8, but in the mix are also the A90d and the A70.

Yes i know 3 different price points

Would love to hear from anyone who has experience with any of the above and can compare them to the iHA-8.

 

[Erick Muller]

Has anyone have any experience with either THX 789, A90 Discrete, or A70 Pro?

Looking to upgrade from THX 789 and im leaning heavily towards the iHA-8, but in the mix are also the A90d and the A70.

Yes i know 3 different price points

Would love to hear from anyone who has experience with any of the above and can compare them to the iHA-8.

Haven't listen to any of those higher end Topping amps so I cannot to speak to the sound, if you're liking the way your THX 789 is sounding and you have no problems with it, then I don't think you're going to have any issues with the topping offerings.

If I was to choose between Topping and Cayin, I would choose the A70 because it delivers the most power and because it has the most features and the UI looks pretty good. If you don't mind the lack of features of the iHA-8 and I can live with them, then I would probably go for the iHA-8.