[Henrik Nordberg]

Yes. The attitude I received was one of suspicion that their tubes could possibly not be perfect. They heavily implied that I must have done something to damage the tubes

Aww, man sorry you had to go through that. Thanks for the warning.

 

[Henrik Nordberg]

Too many variables for me to make sweeping statements on what is best for you and your use case. Best, in general, is highly subjective and what might gel for me in one session might not the next.

Yeah, this looks like a great starting point for me though. Thanks a bunch!

 

[chrisnyc75]

I hear those whom are happy with the Susvara combo and I'm bewildered.

Fwiw, much to my surprise I've found Stellaris and Susvara to be an excellent match. It takes 70-80% on the volume pot to really drive Sus to its max, but at that level, despite my best efforts to confirm what the common wisdom says should be the case, I can't hear any weakness, lack of dynamics, or failure to be anything but amazing. Sure, Susvara on tubes sound *different* than a powerful solid state amp, but tubes aren't supposed to sound like solid state. To my ears, Susvara on Stellaris is crisp, dynamic, euphonic, with depth & imaging beyond anything else I've ever heard.

I heard a recent hypothesis that Stellaris's beefy output transformers may have something to do with it powering Susvara better than might be expected given its listed power ratings? This seems plausible to me, though I am no electrical engineer. But I've had a few months now to TRY to hear Stellaris driving Susvara any worse than Bliss, and for the life of me I can't buy into that.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[SalR406]

Fwiw, much to my surprise I've found Stellaris and Susvara to be an excellent match. It takes 70-80% on the volume pot to really drive Sus to its max, but at that level, despite my best efforts to confirm what the common wisdom says should be the case, I can't hear any weakness, lack of dynamics, or failure to be anything but amazing. Sure, Susvara on tubes sound *different* than a powerful solid state amp, but tubes aren't supposed to sound like solid state. To my ears, Susvara on Stellaris is crisp, dynamic, euphonic, with depth & imaging beyond anything else I've ever heard.

I heard a recent hypothesis that Stellaris's beefy output transformers may have something to do with it powering Susvara better than might be expected given its listed power ratings? This seems plausible to me, though I am no electrical engineer. But I've had a few months now to TRY to hear Stellaris driving Susvara any worse than Bliss, and for the life of me I can't buy into that.

Just my 2 cents.

Over in speaker world they say, to drive a given load, you need fewer “tube watts” than solid-state watts.

 

[smodtactical]

Fwiw, much to my surprise I've found Stellaris and Susvara to be an excellent match. It takes 70-80% on the volume pot to really drive Sus to its max, but at that level, despite my best efforts to confirm what the common wisdom says should be the case, I can't hear any weakness, lack of dynamics, or failure to be anything but amazing. Sure, Susvara on tubes sound *different* than a powerful solid state amp, but tubes aren't supposed to sound like solid state. To my ears, Susvara on Stellaris is crisp, dynamic, euphonic, with depth & imaging beyond anything else I've ever heard.

I heard a recent hypothesis that Stellaris's beefy output transformers may have something to do with it powering Susvara better than might be expected given its listed power ratings? This seems plausible to me, though I am no electrical engineer. But I've had a few months now to TRY to hear Stellaris driving Susvara any worse than Bliss, and for the life of me I can't buy into that.

Just my 2 cents.

Would be interesting if you compared stellaris on sus to a 300b amp with sus.

 

[theveterans]

Would be interesting if you compared stellaris on sus to a 300b amp with sus.

Don't forget he's also using a Holo Audio May which puts out around 5.8 volts. If you have a DAC that only puts out 2 volts single ended, you won't get the 70-80% of max volume of the Sus. Probably even at max volume, you'll lose dynamics with just a 2V input to the Stellaris when driving Susvara. You can make the Susvara loud with a preamp with lots of gain to the Stellaris and it'll drive the Sus a lot better if you don't have a DAC that puts out a lot of voltage

 

[smodtactical]

Don't forget he's also using a Holo Audio May which puts out around 5.8 volts. If you have a DAC that only puts out 2 volts single ended, you won't get the 70-80% of max volume of the Sus. Probably even at max volume, you'll lose dynamics with just a 2V input to the Stellaris when driving Susvara. You can make the Susvara loud with a preamp with lots of gain to the Stellaris and it'll drive the Sus a lot better if you don't have a DAC that puts out a lot of voltage

Good point could even put in a full tube preamp to max out the 'magic' lol

 

[theveterans]

Good point could even put in a full tube preamp to max out the 'magic' lol

Depending on how much gain that tube preamp has, it can possibly clip the Stellaris from too hot of an input, but being a SET amp, that's less likely to happen

 

[smodtactical]

If anyone interested in selling stellaris hit me up. I have a stratus V4 I would consider trading in case you want to downsize.

 

[chrisnyc75]

Don't forget he's also using a Holo Audio May which puts out around 5.8 volts. If you have a DAC that only puts out 2 volts single ended, you won't get the 70-80% of max volume of the Sus. Probably even at max volume, you'll lose dynamics with just a 2V input to the Stellaris when driving Susvara. You can make the Susvara loud with a preamp with lots of gain to the Stellaris and it'll drive the Sus a lot better if you don't have a DAC that puts out a lot of voltage

Yeah, I really can't explain it, but I'm thinking it has to do with the voltage output of my DAC plus the beefy output transformers of Stellaris? Try as I might, I can't hear anything but perfection with the pairing. Dare I say I even PREFER Susvara on Stellaris vs Bliss? Blasphemy, I know. But I think it might be true.

 

[dncnexus]

I have also used the Susvara with the Stellaris, and while it doesn't make sense that it would work, I thought it sounded pretty amazing. Didn't find anything that I thought was missing, but I never used a Susvara on totl uber high power speaker amps.

 

[dncnexus]

Side note, does anyone have recs for dacs with Stellaris? I know May seems to be used often, but any other that I should look into.

 

[pgkrish]

I have also used the Susvara with the Stellaris, and while it doesn't make sense that it would work, I thought it sounded pretty amazing. Didn't find anything that I thought was missing, but I never used a Susvara on totl uber high power speaker amps.

I saw your post on headphones.com
Are you using the 300B 2.5V EML with the Susvaras. They apparently have a slightly higher power output than regular 2A3s.

 

[dncnexus]

I saw your post on headphones.com
Are you using the 300B 2.5V EML with the Susvaras. They apparently have a slightly higher power output than regular 2A3s.

I currently am running 300B 2.5V EML, but when trying I was using Acme 2A3 and Elrog 5U4G.

My stellaris at the time though had the balanced inputs, so I was running Wavelight with balanced XLR. I am not sure on the power of that, might be higher.

 

[pgkrish]

I currently am running 300B 2.5V EML, but when trying I was using Acme 2A3 and Elrog 5U4G.

My stellaris at the time though had the balanced inputs, so I was running Wavelight with balanced XLR. I am not sure on the power of that, might be higher.

I think it comes down to personal preference at the end of the day.
I was also running balanced. My Sonic Frontiers PRO3 has hot XLR out (not as much as the Holo May though) and even then the Susvaras sounded a bit thin.