[Dixter]

Hi, has someone been running an Hifiman HE-6 or Susvara on the big little thing?
I'm curious how it sounds out of it. Besides, is there any review/comparison of this amp? I'd be more than glad to read it because it seems like Centrance is kind of a rare entry on the internet. More of a pro kind of thing.

@TheDecline01 At the Dallas Camjam I took the Ampersand Amp and tested it out with the Susvara and the new Mod House Tungsten... I also use my harder to drive headphones being the Hifiman He6sev2 and the Audeze LCD-4...with the ampersand.... at the camjam the ampersand drove the Susvara and the Tungsten to high levels of volume but there was little headroom left on the volume knob... with the HE6sev2 it drives those fine and the LCD-4 is also fine.... most people wouldn't listen to any of those headphones at the volume level I was pushing them to... so its a viable option for the Susvara and HE6 and of course the HE6sev2 and LCD-4.... its really sweat with the LCD-X21

 

[Dixter]

Diablo vs Ampersand. Would appreciate your impressions. I have the Diablo and am thinking about the Ampersand. Thanks.

@SCBob ... sorry for the delayed response here.... these are two different use cases.... the Diablo is a DAC/AMP.... Ifi originally set their units up for iphones.. thus the strange USb port on the bottom... as they evolved the designs they for some reason stayed away from balanced outputs... so with the diablo it is a ifi unit with balanced output... and not the SBalanced ifi has on the other portable units. So if you like the sound signature of the Burr Brown Dac and the Amp stage then the Diablo is a great portable Dac/Amp.... with the Ampersand being a Amp only option it will have more options for controlling how your music sounds and is pretty much dependent on what source you pair with it... it has plenty of power, a nice size/shape and is fully balanced... its nice to have the XLR outputs too if you have those kinds of cables... the Ampersand is pretty much a portable desktop Amp solution.... there is a option that is very important with the Ampersand that needs mentioned... when you connect the source, I'm using the fiio M15s, you have the option to control the volume from the source and set the Ampersand volume to fixed output or you have the option to control the volume from the Ampersand and use the source output at fixed or adjustable..... so what that means is if you want to use the volume wheel with the Ampersand you also get the display of the left/right digital volume display so you can adjust the input so its not sending the input voltage to make the indicators go RED (clipping zone).... and this at first sounds like a cool idea... the problem is that most DAPs don't have auto level output (Apple does) so if you play song after song or album after album then most of the music choices would require you to adjust the input voltage to max out the input before the indicators turn RED.... this is more of a hassle than it should/could be simply because there is no auto level output on the source end... so the input varies.... so for me I just set the Volume output to max on the Ampersand and I use the volume wheel on the M15s to control the output volume to the headphones... and thats really the way it should be setup... and you get more options on how the source outputs the volume and other enhancements to the sound signature because your just feeding it all to an amp.... I set up the M15s to use the Wavelet app and that auto tunes the headphones to the Harmon curve and several other options to fine tune the headphone sound signature... my iphone is not the new one with the USB C so I use the fiio BTR7 that allows me to use an iphone via blue tooth... but I'm sure if I had one of the new iphones it would connect fine with a short USBC cable.... both the Diablo and the Ampersand are great options but the Ampersand gives you more options in the end...

 

[TheDecline01]

@TheDecline01 At the Dallas Camjam I took the Ampersand Amp and tested it out with the Susvara and the new Mod House Tungsten... I also use my harder to drive headphones being the Hifiman He6sev2 and the Audeze LCD-4...with the ampersand.... at the camjam the ampersand drove the Susvara and the Tungsten to high levels of volume but there was little headroom left on the volume knob... with the HE6sev2 it drives those fine and the LCD-4 is also fine.... most people wouldn't listen to any of those headphones at the volume level I was pushing them to... so its a viable option for the Susvara and HE6 and of course the HE6sev2 and LCD-4.... its really sweat with the LCD-X21

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated.

 

[mgoodman]

Both of those headphones work just fine with the ampersand.

 

[Capunk]

Went to canjam in singapore recently and bought Ampersand straight away after short demo with Raal immanis and Michael is a great guy to talk with, but i’ve just realized I don’t have 4.4mm IC cable

 

[Dixter]

Went to canjam in singapore recently and bought Ampersand straight away after short demo with Raal immanis and Michael is a great guy to talk with, but i’ve just realized I don’t have 4.4mm IC cable

if you get the protector cover for it then you can put a strip of velcro on the bottom then get a Fiio BTR5 and put some velcro on it too so you can mount the BTR5 to the Ampersand... then get a short 4.4mm to 4.4mm cable and you turn the Ampersand into a portable wireless amp with XLR outs... it works great like that... its a very nice sounding amp

 

[AudioAndCoffee]

Went to canjam in singapore recently and bought Ampersand straight away after short demo with Raal immanis and Michael is a great guy to talk with, but i’ve just realized I don’t have 4.4mm IC cable

Me 2. Immediately trash the ak pa10 i had w me.