embrional impressions , note that these are very preliminar ..
..and these are after burning amp and ears up to 2 hours because before the amp sounded like a cheap solid state transistor amp , no good bass at all and some high pump - sp that it left me incredulous on the first 2-3 listening sessions
The sound situation on ears is very .. right ? I don't know how to tell it other way , palpable is a term that comes in mind - what I mean is that the the stage seems to be traced very right and quite nicely , smoothly faithful of the recording and of the source .
Overall sound is quite upfront , powerful , more clear then smooth -still smooth- and on the slow side , thing that I hope I can cure with some tubes change ; not relaxed and not lacking slam and prat .
The slam is not in the low bass region but , what I seem to hear , it is from midbass and lower mids - bit of pump/colour here.
The mids , and around mid region , are rendered very beautifully and right , and vocals are clear still soft , with no edges or shrillness causing fatigue in hearing singers' voices , just soft and clear . Vocals take easily some attention on the stage as their position is very ideal front and little up .
It's very easy to shift attention though through different parts and instruments .
Separation of frqs. , stage , separation of instruments are nothing short that superb . The combination of these qualities yet make the amp no-second tier to anything I have or have had .
It handles details with a very nice softness , and take out from the record the different parts well separated with right dimensions and good focus , and also good L R behavior and coeherence .
There's no melt among the different studio and mix record spaces .
There's clearness in the mids and upper mids in spades , it doesn't even sound as a tube amp in this regard - but with current stock tubes configuration I seem to miss the highest highs and the lower highs are bit overpronounced , and coming out little out of the picture at times .
It is not bass monster amp neither lean - but it doesn't reach and push the lowest octave out as it probably should . In this regard my vintage amp + eq. system serves better
Tube sound ?
yes, there's soft bloom across bass and mids but I don't hear it as a bass-mids bump .. the bloom is more sourrounding then inflating a part of the frqs
Another character of the amp is in the way it render notes and timbres : decay is so good that's better then real , and it's distant from being a soft-hollow kind of decay . Drums sound so well that I clearly prefer them to any headphone-amp combo I've ever tried and - this is mainly due to the excellent and clear portray of the last part of the sound .
My surprise , my recabled Hd600 sound really good with this amp , not that with other amps they sound bad but probably never sounded so good ; my eq+vintage amp ( which serves them quite daily ) finally has found a comptetitor .
The two systems in real sound different enough to say they're not comparable ; they offer different qualities ; the thing is the hp-4 is more right and respect more and better the recording dimensions ; the first system render the bass in a better way better ( more deepness , more body , more sollid bass , more texture too .. ) and for a Wadia having an amp that's able to work out well the bass is a need .
To my headphoned ears it is a reference amp , and on abolute scale for what I've heard up to now ; it is also musical and I find my ears easily happy on music .
I have some reserves at the moment on his synergy with hp-2
ps-1 are away at the moment , sigh ..
A thing that I have noticed , if I plug ICS in -to power amp- position and power amp button is off they work as source for the amp - the strange thing is that the power amp outputs - turned into inputs if power amp button off - sound better then the regular input plugs .. any hint - opinion ?
and sorry for the limited vocabulary and sintax ..I'm reading back my impressions and trying to repair ; the hp-4 just excited me and those are the results
