[paradoxper]

Not everyone has to love the Susvara. For me personally, I don't get the hype. They are too soft sounding and lack bass. I use a Simaudio 600i V2 speaker amp as well as a CFA3 amp and I still did not care for the Susvara. If I was going to spend that much money I would go with a 1266 TC anyway. I'll bet the Silver Fox and the 1266 TC would be a good pairing.

Come back.

 

[ken6217]

Come back.

Hey Cory, besides the Elite, I stepped out of my comfort zone and threw caution to the wind and got a D8000 without auditioning first. I like it!!

 

[paradoxper]

Hey Cory, besides the Elite, I stepped out of my comfort zone and threw caution to the wind and got a D8000 without auditioning first. I like it!!

Good choices for your preference. The Solitaire would also be a great fit. Glad you've found a winning formula!

 

[ckhirnigs113]

Is the current output similar in Parallel versus BTL? I know low impedance planar headphones are usually hungry for current. I find myself listening in Parallel mode most often with my Elite.

 

[ken6217]

I didn't find it heavy at all. It is nicely balanced. To me the ZMF VC in the harder woods feel heavier than the TC.

 

[Loquah]

I just picked up a Silver Fox secondhand and I'm very impressed! Here are some thoughts I just typed out for the original owner while we were chatting about the amp:

I am a huge fan of the Enleum AMP-23R - it has a sound that I find engaging and enjoyable, but the Silver Fox, to my ears, goes one better. It manages to make the AMP-23R sound tonally off-balance and a little bit brittle in the upper mids/treble. There's a consistency of tone from the Silver Fox from top to bottom that's incredibly natural. I know some refer to the Silver Fox as dark, but I'm not sure I agree because there's still plenty of texture and air - I think it just has equivalent weight and presence through the mid-range. Something like the Soloist 3X GT is great, but it has a slight treble emphasis which can help with the staging, but robs it of some weight and presence in the lower mids sometimes. This is where I am really enjoying the Silver Fox from my very early listening. It's like it brings just the right tonal balance to the Elites, Calderas, HEKSE, Atriums, etc.

I'm keen to try the different impedance modes with high impedance cans like the Atrium to see what magic they can make together.

I can't stress enough that these are very early impressions (listening from M-Scaler and TT2 via XLR) so my final review might vary a bit and bring some greater nuance, but I don't expect to lose my appreciation for the amp and expect it might even grow.

@cengrand are you able to share the output impedances for each impedance mode or is this already available somewhere?

 

[Yifang]

I just picked up a Silver Fox secondhand and I'm very impressed! Here are some thoughts I just typed out for the original owner while we were chatting about the amp:

I am a huge fan of the Enleum AMP-23R - it has a sound that I find engaging and enjoyable, but the Silver Fox, to my ears, goes one better. It manages to make the AMP-23R sound tonally off-balance and a little bit brittle in the upper mids/treble. There's a consistency of tone from the Silver Fox from top to bottom that's incredibly natural. I know some refer to the Silver Fox as dark, but I'm not sure I agree because there's still plenty of texture and air - I think it just has equivalent weight and presence through the mid-range. Something like the Soloist 3X GT is great, but it has a slight treble emphasis which can help with the staging, but robs it of some weight and presence in the lower mids sometimes. This is where I am really enjoying the Silver Fox from my very early listening. It's like it brings just the right tonal balance to the Elites, Calderas, HEKSE, Atriums, etc.

I'm keen to try the different impedance modes with high impedance cans like the Atrium to see what magic they can make together.

I can't stress enough that these are very early impressions (listening from M-Scaler and TT2 via XLR) so my final review might vary a bit and bring some greater nuance, but I don't expect to lose my appreciation for the amp and expect it might even grow.

@cengrand are you able to share the output impedances for each impedance mode or is this already available somewhere?

Glad you are enjoying it!

Each setting adds a 50 Ohm resistor into the chain, so <1, 50, 100, 150 Ohm I believe.

 

[Loquah]

Glad you are enjoying it!

Each setting adds a 50 Ohm resistor into the chain, so <1, 50, 100, 150 Ohm I believe.

Brilliant - thanks for the info

 

[Loquah]

There's always someone out there who says Susvara needs 1200W monoblocs to really come alive. I've tried quite a few speaker amps and my conclusion is that they really aren't the magic bullet some people make them out to be. Does the combo sometimes sound wonderful? Sure. But is it better than top tier, high power headphone amps like this? Imho no.

It also drives me crazy that people tend to lump "speaker amps" together as a monolithic product. Folks around here will argue about the tiniest differences between different variations of the same amplifier, but then also hold that "speaker amps=good". Despite speaker amps having extreme variability in everything from topology to output (even more so than headphone amplifiers imho).

Thank you for saying this. I'm forever pushing back on this and also the more general belief that planars need more power because they're planars when it's often dynamic driver headphones with high impedance swings that present more difficult loads than a moderately sensitive planar with it's consistent resistance.

Like you, I've tried speaker amps, powerful headphone amps and modestly powered headphone amps with Susvaras and what matters is the tonality of the amp, not it's power output (assuming sufficient power with headroom remaining). For me, something like the less powerful Sparkos Labs Aries was preferable than the more powerful Soloist GT with the Susvara. I do kind of wish I still owned them to try with the Silver Fox. I imagine that would be special.

 

[Slim1970]

Thank you for saying this. I'm forever pushing back on this and also the more general belief that planars need more power because they're planars when it's often dynamic driver headphones with high impedance swings that present more difficult loads than a moderately sensitive planar with it's consistent resistance.

Like you, I've tried speaker amps, powerful headphone amps and modestly powered headphone amps with Susvaras and what matters is the tonality of the amp, not it's power output (assuming sufficient power with headroom remaining). For me, something like the less powerful Sparkos Labs Aries was preferable than the more powerful Soloist GT with the Susvara. I do kind of wish I still owned them to try with the Silver Fox. I imagine that would be special.

This has been my stance as well. The Susvara's do perform good with power, but they need tone more than anything. I too wish I still owned the Susvara's. I think they would pair wonderfully with the Silver Fox

 

[Yifang]

Thank you for saying this. I'm forever pushing back on this and also the more general belief that planars need more power because they're planars when it's often dynamic driver headphones with high impedance swings that present more difficult loads than a moderately sensitive planar with it's consistent resistance.

Like you, I've tried speaker amps, powerful headphone amps and modestly powered headphone amps with Susvaras and what matters is the tonality of the amp, not it's power output (assuming sufficient power with headroom remaining). For me, something like the less powerful Sparkos Labs Aries was preferable than the more powerful Soloist GT with the Susvara. I do kind of wish I still owned them to try with the Silver Fox. I imagine that would be special.

This has been my stance as well. The Susvara's do perform good with power, but they need tone more than anything. I too wish I still owned the Susvara's. I think they would pair wonderfully with the Silver Fox

They most definitely do! Easily the best form I've heard Susvara in that's for sure.

 

[Loquah]

@project86 I've been struggling overnight to come to terms with your experience of not hearing hiss when connecting your U18ts to the Silver Fox. I've got a pair of Soundz Avant IEMs in for review and they have similar sensitivity and higher impedance, but they sound like you're standing next to a waterfall when connected to the Silver Fox. I'm trying to work out if the 64Audio linear impedance design has something to do with your experience or if there's some variation between your unit and others. Any thoughts? I'm not really looking for the Silver Fox to be an IEM amp (TT2 is great for that), but it raised an interesting contrast that has me curious.

Also, @cengrand is there any way to update firmware on the Silver Fox to fix things like the display saying "Paralle" instead of Parallel?

 

[project86]

My experience with IEMs is that sometimes a model will hiss more than others despite their specs being quite similar. Not sure what that's all about, but I've consistently heard it for many years.

The most hiss prone model I have on hand is my old Empire Ears Spartan customs, which I believe is rated at 112dB so - totally normal in the IEM world, and similar to many of my others including the 64 Audio A18t. Yet the Spartans hiss far more than anything else in my collection. They hiss with the Silver Fox, hiss with quiet portable DAC/amps, hiss with most DAPs... there's almost no avoiding it.

But with my A18t the Silver Fox is silent. I'm using 1/4" output, "high impedance", and can cycle through all modes without any issue. When I get a chance I'll try a balanced cable to see if that makes a difference.

 

[Loquah]

My experience with IEMs is that sometimes a model will hiss more than others despite their specs being quite similar. Not sure what that's all about, but I've consistently heard it for many years.

The most hiss prone model I have on hand is my old Empire Ears Spartan customs, which I believe is rated at 112dB so - totally normal in the IEM world, and similar to many of my others including the 64 Audio A18t. Yet the Spartans hiss far more than anything else in my collection. They hiss with the Silver Fox, hiss with quiet portable DAC/amps, hiss with most DAPs... there's almost no avoiding it.

But with my A18t the Silver Fox is silent. I'm using 1/4" output, "high impedance", and can cycle through all modes without any issue. When I get a chance I'll try a balanced cable to see if that makes a difference.

Thanks for this. That's actually a really good point. Now that you mention it, I've got similarly spec'ed IEMs where some hiss and some don't too.

 

[project86]

Just had a chance to try my A18t again, still using a single-ended cable (an older Effect Audio pure silver 8-wire design) because I can't find my balanced cables at the moment. It's particularly quiet because nobody else is home right now, so I shut off my AC and listened really carefully.

I still would have said it sounded completely silent, until I switched between the modes and discovered parallel is actually truly silent. Normal, active-g, and BTS modes have just the faintest, barely perceptible noise floor, that honestly is just about impossible to detect - until you hear the comparison with parallel mode.

To put it another way: listening with full size open headphones, the ambient room noise (even in my quiet neighborhood) is significantly louder than this hiss. The excellent isolation of a perfect fitting custom is the only thing that helps kill that ambient noise to where I can hear the hiss. Also hiss probably isn't the right word... it's so slight as to require careful back and forth switching to be sure it even exists.

Certainly some others IEMs will have louder hiss, like the previously mentioned Empire Ears, and others will be completely silent like my AME Radioso customs. So it really is a case by case basis but there's a decent chance it will be just fine for your IEMs.


You mentioned the display issue where the word parallel gets truncated to "paralle", and I realized that the Little Silver Fox actually has the advantage there: