a90 can do 1.4amps and the stealth or any other HP will never ever use anywhere close to that. Bass sound great to me, I listen to everything on em. I average about 12o'clock and a bit more for classical and a bit less for modern. Its been crystal clear and smooth to me. So was the susvara. Only reason I'd ever up the gain is to have more precise volume control for quieter recordings.
I don't think I ever implied the A90 doesn't have the juice for the Stealths, I honestly don't believe they require a speaker amp. I mostly listen to dynamically compressed music and according to my calculations I'm not using more than 10mW of power so.
As @Daniel Johnston stated if your amp meets the minimum requirements stated by DCA you should be fine on quantity, after that the sound is a matter of amplifier quality.
It strikes me that, when talking about the required power in the headphone amplifier, almost nobody says at what volume (medium or peak) the music is played. This parameter is as necessary as the sensitivity or the impedance of the headphones to calculate the required power. And it is not difficult to measure, a hand-held sound level meter is sufficient; they are available with an accuracy of +/-3dB for about 30/40$.
Also it's good to mention that 110db of loudness is not necessarily that loud.
Of course it depends. 110 db in 1-3khz area and you are done. 110db of constant "noise" or and highly compressed music and you cannot handle it.
But 110db in bass area with some classical recordings (but not only) for fraction of a second during transient and you will be fine.
It will be loud but not as crazy as someone could think.
It strikes me that, when talking about the required power in the headphone amplifier, almost nobody says at what volume (medium or peak) the music is played. This parameter is as necessary as the sensitivity or the impedance of the headphones to calculate the required power. And it is not difficult to measure, a hand-held sound level meter is sufficient; they are available with an accuracy of +/-3dB for about 30/40$.
How I calculate necessary power: I let Roon normalize volume to -14 dbfs k-weighted. Because of the k-weighting the bass can still have 0 dbfs peaks, so for 80 db at 1khz average listening volume the max spl in the bass will be 94dB. Put that into a headphone power calculator given Stealth impedance and sensitivity and you get about 8 mW. You only need more power for high dynamic range music that needs a volume increase instead of decrease for normalization.
For this reason I wish sites like ASR would do more measurements in the 0.1 mW to 10 mW range, instead of showing a perfect 4V output which is very much not representative of real world conditions.
I did and found A70pro a very neutral, transparent and engaging experience but specifically with DCA Stealth I ve enjoyed it with a more organic source with a slight V shape tonality.
In my case I ve fed A70pro via Pentacon to dual XLR adapter from a Cayin N7 DAP and enjoyed that combo more than even my Holo Spring 3 KTE or Sp3k CU DAP as sources as these were too neutral for my taste.
I did and found A70pro a very neutral, transparent and engaging experience but specifically with DCA Stealth I ve enjoyed it with a more organic source with a slight V shape tonality.
In my case I ve fed A70pro via Pentacon to dual XLR adapter from a Cayin N7 DAP and enjoyed that combo more than even my Holo Spring 3 KTE or Sp3k CU DAP as sources as these were too neutral for my taste.
Looks like it was prematurely announced lol I got an email from Audio46 to purchase them but then the link stopped working and same with that HeadAmp link
I'm guessing it'll bridge the gap between the Aeons and the Stealth, but I'm really curious how it compares to the Stealth. Looks like I should be able to A/B test them at a store.
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