[iamjaymo]

...CRAZY good with headphones! Wow

 

[garbulky]

...CRAZY good with headphones! Wow

great!! Glad you are happy. When you get the chance try it bypassing the resistors. Have you tried the hd600 yet? That’s the one it will make the most difference on!

 

[iamjaymo]

great!! Glad you are happy. When you get the chance try it bypassing the resistors. Have you tried the hd600 yet? That’s the one it will make the most difference on!

Don’t have the 600s, I have the 650s. Haven’t tried anything yet other than the AKGs and speakers. I’ll get there...got caught up in listening and enjoying a Police album without analyzing it. If it makes me forget it’s there it’s a good piece of gear!

 

[ra990]

Have you done the thing with the jumpers to send the full power to the headphones? What DAC are you using and I'm assuming it has a preamp that you're using to control the volume and setting the amp to the static volume to remove channel imbalance?

EDIT: Just found it listed in your signature.

 

[garbulky]

Don’t have the 600s, I have the 650s. Haven’t tried anything yet other than the AKGs and speakers. I’ll get there...got caught up in listening and enjoying a Police album without analyzing it. If it makes menforget it’s there it’s a good piece of gear!

Nice. Let us know

 

[iamjaymo]

Have you done the thing with the jumpers to send the full power to the headphones? What DAC are you using and I'm assuming it has a preamp that you're using to control the volume and setting the amp to the static volume to remove channel imbalance?

EDIT: Just found it listed in your signature.

Haven’t touched the jumpers yet - I’ll get there. Want to listen to it both ways and make an objective decision about it. Thing is, not sure I really need all that power for my 650s anyway.

The Cal Audio DAC is a tube DAC from the mid 90s...my fav DAC. I have compared it to many, many newer DACs and nothing I have heard beats it, regardless of price. Running an Amperex Bugle Boy in it and that gives a nice liquid sound.

 

[garbulky]

Haven’t touched the jumpers yet - I’ll get there. Want to listen to it both ways and make an objective decision about it. Thing is, not sure I really need all that power for my 650s anyway.

The Cal Audio DAC is a tube DAC from the mid 90s...my fav DAC. I have compared it to many, many newer DACs and nothing I have heard beats it, regardless of price. Running an Amperex Bugle Boy in it and that gives a nice liquid sound.

That's exactly what I said when I first got the A-100. It sounded so good with the HD600 and had so much power. Try listening to Lorde's Team on Youtube. There is some serious impact.
First I've heard of the Cal Audio DAC. Sounds interesting!

 

[iamjaymo]

That's exactly what I said when I first got the A-100. It sounded so good with the HD600 and had so much power. Try listening to Lorde's Team on Youtube. There is some serious impact.
First I've heard of the Cal Audio DAC. Sounds interesting!

Thanks, will check it out. You’ll be hard pressed to find much info on the Cal nowadays. They went out of business long ago. It doesn’t do any fancy DSD or even hi rez audio but it does one thing very, very well...16/44.1

No USB, just optical from my iMac to the Cal. About the only DAC I felt sounded better was the Luxman DA-06 at many multiples the cost. I feel some of the new Multibit DACs may be closer but I would need to do an A/B comparison of those. I will compare the ladder DAC in my R2R 11 soon with the Cal but for now just going to let the Emotiva burn in.

 

[iamjaymo]

Update...

After some more burn-in...sat down to critically listen for a bit at some louder listening levels. My overall opinion hasn’t changed, this is one hell of an amp for the money. Definitely going to keep it. The A-100 is a perfect office rig for both headphones and speakers.

About the only negative I can hear is just a bit of compression when you really listen critically. Some jumbling together of sounds/instruments but the sound level was quite high when I heard this and it’s nothing that detracted from the overall music reproduction.

Bass is nice and tight, deep and not just a “thump” but has some texture to it. Treble is totally non-offensive and has a nice sparkle.

Doesn’t run hot at all and it looks great in the office. Well worth the purchase for sure.

 

[garbulky]

Update...

After some more burn-in...sat down to critically listen for a bit at some louder listening levels. My overall opinion hasn’t changed, this is one hell of an amp for the money. Definitely going to keep it. The A-100 is a perfect office rig for both headphones and speakers.

About the only negative I can hear is just a bit of compression when you really listen critically. Some jumbling together of sounds/instruments but the sound level was quite high when I heard this and it’s nothing that detracted from the overall music reproduction.

Bass is nice and tight, deep and not just a “thump” but has some texture to it. Treble is totally non-offensive and has a nice sparkle.

Doesn’t run hot at all and it looks great in the office. Well worth the purchase for sure.

Thanks for the update! I also agree with your bass comment. There is some serious extension and texture to the bass.
Interesting you mentioned compression. Your the only other person I know who mentioned it. People called me crazy but I heard it too in the default mode with the resistors still engaged. (The resistors also increase the output impedance of the amp.) I hear it as a slight smushing together of some sounds, I guess compression in a way. Hard to call it compression due to the sheer grunt and power of the amp, but yeah. With the resistors bypassed, this issue goes away, though for me, the tone did change slightly and there is a teensy increase in background noise during total silence. But the lack of compression and resulting sound quality on my HD600 more than made up for it.

 

[iamjaymo]

The compression, or blurring, was very slight but I heard it. It was a most complicated passage where I heard it in “Saint-Saens: Dance Macabre” off of Eiji Oue’s Mephisto & Co. album (FLAC). Not very many amps seem to sort it out totally. Like I said, it didn’t detract at all from the enjoyment of the piece and should not detract anyone from considering the A-100.

 

[m usicguy]

Im really looking into this amp. For tv listening at night and music. Does anyone have a review with Planar headphones. If so? Did bypassing the resistors make an improvement?

music guy

 

[peepr]

Im really looking into this amp. For tv listening at night and music. Does anyone have a review with Planar headphones. If so? Did bypassing the resistors make an improvement?

music guy

I use this with my Hifiman HE-560 and they sound amazing. Straight from the taps.

 

[iamjaymo]

Been listening today with my Fostex headphones, 25 ohm impedance and easy to drive, so I am using it with the resistors in play and the sound is big, powerful and smooth. I can literally feel the power of the amp - I can't imagine what putting in the jumpers would be like. Don't know that I really need to as my all my cans are relatively easy to drive...’cept for the HD-6XX.

 

[s2kPanda]

I hate myself for finding out about this amp.