[ken6217]

Indonesia. The store is good, just not the quickest.

I've done some troubleshooting. fast forward. I isolated the amp. So only the amp is directly connected to the wall to eliminate possible ground issue with power strips. and no other electronic around to avoid interference. plugging in my headphone and the noise is still there. So it's the amp yeah, not the cable not the dac. swapping the headphone cable L-R and the noise also moved to right. The only question left is wether this is just how the amp is designed. I'm sure it's quiet with susvara or tungsten.

OK. I thought maybe you were in the USA as distributor hear is excellent.

Go luck. I’m sure it’ll get sorted out for you.

 

[zaky]

It feels like I have been posting far too much in the Silver Fox thread. I have the Little Silver Fox after all! I have been using and enjoying the amp for the last week or so. I’ve been leaving it on most of the time with music being fed to it.

I’ve experimented with a variety of different combinations of inputs, output modes and impedance settings. With my Elite and Auteur I have pretty much settled on using the XLR input, 4-pin XLR output, High Impedance, and Parallel mode as my optimal settings. I occasionally switch to BTL mode, but only with the Elite. BTL mode has too much of a noise floor with the Auteur unless I switch to Low Impedance 2 or 3.

There is definitely more background noise from the amp when using the single-ended RCA inputs. The amp converts the signal to balanced, and this conversion introduces some noise. I’d personally recommend sticking to the XLR inputs. If you only have a single-ended DAC, it’s worth investing in some RCA-to-XLR adapters to avoid this noise floor issue.

The amp has been treating me to some wonderful listening sessions! It’s good enough that I have officially put my former number one, the Quicksilver Headphone Amp, up for sale. That was my plan when buying the Little Silver Fox, but I wasn’t sure if it would live up to the high expectations I set for it. Luckily for me, it is an exceptionally musical amp that pulls at my heartstrings just like a good tube amp has the ability to do.

The form factor is quite large for an amp called the Little Silver Fox. It’s by far the biggest headphone amp I’ve ever used, much less owned. I have grown to like the volume knob that I was a little critical of at first. It’s high quality in feel and looks. I’m almost positive it’s metal at this point. I’m really glad I went with the silver version over the black. While the black unit is very handsome, it is also a dust and fingerprint magnet. Silver always manages to look clean!

I believe the weakest link in my chain is my DAC at this point. I’ve always been very satisfied with my OG Bifrost 2, but this amp along with my Meze Elite has me considering an upgrade. I’m leaning towards a Yggdrasil variant, but I’m open to suggestions.

I actually wonder if I’d even be able to tell the difference between my Little Silver Fox and the full-size Silver Fox. The Meze Elite is so relatively easy-to-drive that the Little is basically overkill already as far as power output is concerned. I also think that the most important aspects of the Silver Fox’s amp design made their way into the Little version. In that regard, I believe this amp is an excellent deal for the asking price.

I do wonder how it stacks up against the other popular high-end solid-state amps, namely the V550 and Bliss. I’m not curious enough to make any more purchases though! The Little Silver Fox does everything I need it to in my setup. It’s allowed me to get out of the tube hunt for the foreseeable future, which was a constant drain on my wallet. For that I am very thankful!

I hope some more Little Silver Fox owners join the conversation soon! Thanks again to @ArthurPower and @project86 for helping me decide on this amp. The advice from both of you was very helpful along the way!

Wait a minute. Had to go back only a few page to find this. Dumb me didn't know that it's called a "noise floor" and described it with gibberish instead... Anyway this is also my experience. Kinda. As I remembered my Auteur and sennheisers has similar sensitivity so it's make sense. BTL probably just gives too much power, hence the noise. So it might not be a defect afterall. What I remembered before purchase is project86 mentioning how this amp has no noise problem with the sennys, and I just assumed myself that he means regardless of settings. So either parallel or BTL in LOW R mode is ok. BTL in low R noise is almost indistinguishable from my regular tinnitus static. Not sure about the active-g mode though. It makes noise like a CD player reading a bad disk and failed, lol.

 

[ken6217]

BTL is the most power, but you should still follow up on the noise anyway.

With that said, ZMF headphones are sensitive.

 

[lostumpire]

Is there any huge sound difference between the big Silver Fox?

 

[HeavyCn]

Removed*

 

[monkey4054]

Is there any huge sound difference between the big Silver Fox?

Definitely not a huge difference. It would only be worth it for the hard-to-drive higher-end headphones like Susvara, HE6/SE, 1266 TC, Tungsten etc. It's also HUGE in size, the LSF is way too big as well.

 

[project86]

Copy/paste from my post about this in the other Silver Fox thread:

Both the big and little Silver Fox devices sound excellent.

Obviously the big model is superior, but whether or not it is worth the extra money is a subjective thing. I would say if you have, or intend to have, a really great DAC, and high level headphones, and tend to listen to better recordings most of the time, you'll appreciate the difference enough to where the OG Silver Fox is worth the price jump.

If you listen to mainly average or low quality recordings (aka potentially great music but not always the best recording/mastering, as is the case with many many albums these days), have mostly midrange level headphones, and a good but not quite amazing DAC, the Little Silver Fox will be just as good as the OG but for significantly less money.

That said, I have used the Little Silver Fox in various $20k+ audio systems and it never disappoints. Is the big version better? Yes. But the Little gets you a huge portion of that same performance at a smaller cost.

I would add that it is indeed headphone dependent, as far as more difficult to drive models benefit more so than easier loads. The Little Silver Fox is still extremely potent so it's not underpowered in the least. It's just that an HE6 or something might still benefit from the bigger model in terms of extreme dynamic peaks etc.