W1000: A great offering by AT that actually seems to get the critical area in the midrange better than the W2002 (although it's long enough since I had W2002 that my opinion should not be taken all that seriously about it). The W1000 was good, but not great, with the tube amps I tried, but seemed to lock into focus on Grado HPA-1. AT Headphones seem to thrive on solid state...something I'm lacking a lot of these days. Still, I think the W1000 is as good or better than any other AT headphone I've heard (I've owned W2002, W100, and A100Ti).
Grado SR-80: A truly pleasant suprise. Yes, the bigger Grado's provide more information and get a bit deeper in...but not by all that much. This was loads of fun to listen to on the portable table.
JMT CHA47: This is the first JMT-built amp I've heard, but it won't the last. I was seriously impressed with the sound, even with the Supermini and Meta's present. There's something very right with this particular circuit. My wallet starts to throb when a component hits me this way.
Tangent META: I'm picking out the Tangent because it was the first one I heard, and I'm not sure I remember the provenance of the others. This is as clean a portable amp as I've heard. It's a very different sound than the HPA-1, my favorite battery powered amp. However, I'm starting to appreciate the form factor of the smaller amps, and IMO the META loses nothing to the Grado, and may gain in the low end of the frequency response. Another component that may wind up costing me. I want one.
RIO Riot (Did I get this right?). There have been many words said about MP3 as a lossy compression system...but they're words. The thing that hit me about this player is that even if there is information lost, it doesn't distract from musical content. Crimes of commission (artifact, distortion) can kill a format for me. Crime of omission (that last level of detail, a rolloff at frequency extremes) are much less bothersome. One of the successes of the lower models of Grado phono cartridges over the years is the way the lower end models sacrifice information that isn't critical to musical enjoyment. So, you can listen to vinyl with them, not hearing the last word in resolution, but still having a very high fidelity experience. Or think of the difference between Music Hall MMF-7 table and VPI Scout. The Scout is undoubtedly a better playback system, which means that vinyl playback is losing something with the Music Hall...which is still a very fine table and deserves all of the recommendations it gets. So, here we have another example of lossy analog playback that still honors the music. The Rio did that for redbook. Even in MP3 format, it was very pleasant to listen to. I want one of these too. I'm tired of carrying around CD wallets...
Melos v. Melos: I'm waiting for more impressions from others before I speak to this one.
Mapletree EAR+ A great tube amp for low-impedance cans. I was truly impressed at the level of performance that this amp was able to deliver, particularly at the price range. I'm going to start recommending this to people looking for an intro to tubes. BDA_ABAT had finished construction the previous afternoon, so burn-in was still in its future, but the sound was already there. For a first DIY attempt, it's an even greater accomplishment. (One of my early DIY attempts, a modded DI/O expired during the session
)
AudioValve RKV. I wasn't sure where this amp fitted into my system. I moved things around for the meet, and several amps wound up with different sources. This was one of them...and revealed flaws in the DI/O (hey, they were my first soldering in more time than many readers here have been alive, OK?
) In any event, using the NS500V and 9000ES, this amp came into its own. Driving an HD-600 through a drum solo, the power was unbelievable (The DI/O simply couldn't deliver this). Further, when Fisher 400 and RKV were run from 9000ES, the RKV distanced itself from the Fisher much more than it did using DI/O. I'm only now starting to appreciate the accomplishment of this amp.
Creek CD53: The best redbook player I've owned...and possibly the bottleneck on the system it was in. The two amps hooked to it sounded very good indeed...to the point I wanted to hook up a turntable and see just how good they could be. There's got to be a way to get more out of redbook, and I suspect I'd hit the same wall with the Arcam FMJ23T. How much are those Tri-Vista players again?
Supra amp. The cleanest tube amp present. Take most headphones, and listen to another amp. Then take it to the Supra. It's as though a layer of distortion or veiling is peeled away. It beats the EAR out with HP-1, IMO. R10 is closer, but I'm working on it
. Absolutely wonderful with HD-600. Gets rid of bass "bloom" almost entirely, and puts the music together with this headphone better than any other amp I've heard (although I want a rematch with the Blockhead before committing completely). Still, my early impression that this was the most transparent amp I've got is still what I believe to be true.
EAR HP4: completely smooth and detailed. Astonishing liquidity, and great power. Do the transformers color the sound to the poing where it's distracting? This question didn't even occur to me until hearing the Supra. The comparison between these amps is a comparison between champions. One is one of the best transformer-coupled ams around, while the other is an astonishing OTL amp, running single-ended. Maybe the HP4 needs a better cable than the Cardas Golden Reference
Denon DCP-150: Back at the "portables" table, this player fills the gap between portable and stand-alone. It's basically a small stand-alone that's easy to move about. When using internal batteries, it doesn't run the amplifier full out, and there's a loss of gain even at the line output. This amp needs batteries to run it's best. I use an external 6v battery pack, and it sings. Perhaps a highly regulated 6v wall supply would work. The adapter it comes with adds too much noise.
