After Roys fabulous report on the Omega CAM loudspeakers i decided to order them. They arrived yesterday and I used them first with my Belles 150A V2 poweramp. Sounded OK but the mids were a bit shouty. Today I made a cable (an older DNM loudspeaker cable) with RCA-plugs and plugged it directly into the Dave (like Roy does). And even if the loudspeakers are not fully burnt-in I can say that it sounds fantastic, better than with my old system with power amp, loudspeakers and cables that cost me aboout 6000 dollar. A lot simpler and a lot better.
My room is 20m2 and I get enough power from the Dave to hear with relatively high volumes. Thank you, Roy!
Wow, Ralf. I never thought anyone else would do as I have but I'm glad someone else is hearing what I am hearing. Synergy between speakers or headphones and amplifier is so important and somehow, the Alnicos and DAVE's amp is a match made in heaven. The Alnicos have this natural warmth but also this sultry texture and wonderful bloom. I have not heard a better midrange than from this driver and it gives the impression of being driven by a tube amp even when driven by solid state amps. While I loved how these speakers sounded with the Nelson Pass First Watt J2, driving them directly with the DAVE is an experience that has been unmatched for me. The Alnicos are both extremely detailed and highly resolving while also being emotive and seductive, characteristics that are often on opposite ends of a spectrum and not present at the same time and so these speakers are like a freak of nature. The rich delectable bouquet of details that is presented is unmatched by any headphones I have heard so far but more importantly, there is this wonderful depth and so there is a much truer sense of "being there." The beauty of these drivers is they are high-efficiency and play well driven by DAVE's 2 watts, the cleanest and most transparent 2 watts a set of speakers will ever see. Even at midnight whisper levels, the details and nuanced texture is all there.
While these speakers will play loud, I would have to say this is not their strength. In a large room, they can sound shouty with the DAVE but at moderate levels in a room of your size or smaller, they can definitely rock out. While splendid with unamplified acoustical music, I find them just as compelling with rock, pop, EDM, etc as long as you pair them with a good subwoofer. After trying several, I settled on the JL Audio Fathom F110V2 which utilizes a very fast 10 inch driver. All Omegas are known for their speed as that is the hallmark of anything that Louis Chochos builds and finding a sub fast enough to keep up isn't easy but this sub, I believe, can keep up even with electrostats but still reach down to 19 Hz (+/- 6dB). With the most demanding of my organ tracks, this sub maintains all of its integrity. Another thing a sub like this adds is upper bass fill during quieter listening sessions. During the times when I prefer to listen at lower volume levels, this is generally when I switch to headphones because you simply lose too much dynamics with speakers at low volumes, especially in the lower registers. With this sub, however, you can independently increase its gain but also adjust the high pass filter from as low as 30 Hz up to about 100 Hz. Most subs I have heard don't sound good above 40 Hz but the bass quality is so good and tight that even when I start to have this sub provide fill in the 80 Hz region, I don't detect any compromise in SQ. With the DAVE's RCAs directly feeding the Alnicos and DAVE's XLRs directly feeding the sub, it's as if my DAVE was custom designed for my setup.
While my Focal Utopias are not yet broken in yet, I am enjoying them. They are the most resolving headphones I've owned and are easily a step up compared to my HD800S even though they sound more closed in than my Sennheisers. They are not as airy or as musical as my HE1000s nor do they provide the bass levels of my HE1000 or Abyss but I am hoping that with a better headphone cable and with the HFC Trinity Helix, I will grow to enjoy them even more.
One thing I am experimenting with is pairing the Utopias (and even the Abyss) with my subwoofer. When you plug a headphone into the 6.35mm headphone jack of the DAVE, DAVE automatically shuts down the output to its RCA and XLR outputs and so it isn't possible to concurrently run a subwoofer with this configuration. The current HFC prototype headphone device that I have has RCA inputs and so I can actually use my RCA interconnects to plug into this device and then plug my headphones into the other end of the device. This allows me to drive my headphones and subwoofer at the same time and with open headphones like the Utopias and Abyss, I am finding the combination to be very enjoyable because the bass that this combination provides is not just audibly of higher quality but is also "pound your chest" palpable even when listening at low or moderate levels. Having been spoiled by what I get with my subwoofer (which is one big reason I haven't had as much desire to listen to my headphones lately), I have to agree that the Abyss, in particular, isn't driven optimally by DAVE's headphone port. Midrange and treble are wonderful but there's just not enough current output to provide satisfying levels of bass for this very inefficient planar magnetic headphone and so I can better appreciate why some prefer powerful amps for their Abyss but this combination seems to provide the best of both worlds.
