Had an awesome day over with
@xtiva at
@UntilThen's place. Thanks to his generousity we had a chance to check out a wide range of headphones and amps. Here are my two cents:
The wooden Ultimate was my pick of the day, and I gotta say, it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Sure, it's got that tube character to the sound, but it's not the overly warm and enveloping kind. Instead, it's very clear, full, and dynamic. I wouldn't say it's overly coloured - though you can surely feel that blissful tube harmonic distortion in the sound. It drives both my LCD-5 and his Susvara for the sound to open up. There's a good amount of gain and I only needed the volume pot at around 10-11am (I believe it's using 12AX/5751 for the pre-stage, so it could be lowered using a 12AU or 12AT? Do correct me if I'm wrong). What surprised me was that even with sensitive cans like the Grado RS1X, there was no hiss. I also enjoyed the Grados with it, as the tubes gave the Grados an extra kick in the bass.
Now, I've had a few tube amps before, but I'm far from an expert. It's a rabbit hole I'm a bit scared of - so deep and I'm not fully ready to dive in just yet. I've known Matt for a long time and I know his tube amps are legit. Out of all the amps I've tried from him, this one is probably my favourite so far. I may need to rethink my collection of 6as7 and 5998...
Great experience report and experience where you wrote.
If you have followed the topic a bit.
I can tell you when I decided to choose this amp in terms of tubes.
Spent about 300-350€ which is about 500 Au $ for a couple of 6y6,12At7,6bw4,Ez 80.
Especially with 12At7 I got 2-3 tubes cheap where Matt himself has.
6sn7 and 6v6 I already have in stock.
It's true that the rabbit hole can be big, but it doesn't have to be worth it.
And for the most part not overly expensive either.
I can't say much about the sound because mine has to be built and delivered first.
Your impressions seem to me that it could sound a bit German with the Mundorf capacitors.
And what you mostly read about the Mundorf Silver gold is true.
You still have the possibility to try out other capacitors later.
The Duel and Coppper paper in oil are close to the Vcaps from what you read.
And at a much lower price.
Or you can jump straight to the Vcap CuTF, which will probably give you peace of mind.
I did a Vcap mod on the Feliks Euforia although it was expensive it was worth it and I don't want to go back.
It has also brought a 6as7g Svetlana to life, which I thought was bad.
It's not like that, it's 50:50, part of it is the choice of components which also makes the tubes sound wonderful.
The standard industrial Mundorf caps that Feliks used were not my personal preference.
Nevertheless, in terms of neutrality they fulfilled the expectation.
But there was simply something missing, and it was predominantly afflicted with many disadvantages.
Here is a link to it:
https://www.mundorf.com/audio/en/shop/Capacitors/Audio_Caps_Classic/MCap_400V/
The gentleman who installed the Vcap Odam for me at the time also said that it was one of the less good capacitors and that there are better ones.
These here are a lot better where Eric built in at extra cost. I hope it is the right capacitor.
https://www.mundorf.com/audio/en/shop/Capacitors/Audio_Caps_Classic/MCap_Supreme_SGO/
I have read that this one is not quite the same as the Vcap or Duelund.
But it is not bad either, it will certainly meet the expectations and the step to the Duelund will probably be a little better in certain areas here and there.
But it won't make a 30% difference.
With the Vcap mod I had to completely re-evaluate all my tubes because it was something completely different.
What used to be warm was more neutral, what was really thick was actually warmer.
Some tubes came across more organic where I thought they were missing something.
But we are still talking about capacitors that differ in price and also in production.
That's why the Silver/Gold will show you where it should go.
Is it enough to change the tube or the capacitor?
I think the former will probably always be enough with the nice selection and availability on the market.
I think that with Eric's amp it probably won't be necessary to change capacitors.
His amps are very component based with a lot more experience than what you find in the industrial amp market.
Apart from that, his component selection, circuitry and also technical knowledge is the advantage.
This is where the industry again makes compromises and trade-offs at the expense of the amplifier.
Eric is probably also one of the last generation who grew up with the basics and principles and knows what tubes mean and how to drive them best to make them sing.
The modern tech industries don't know that, probably not even Cayin, who once didn't do bad things.
But end up messing it up again because of the low cost principle.
That's what a lot of companies do, unfortunately.
Back to the amplifier:
Matt and I have almost the same amp the only difference will be that he has the Silk and I have the TimE transformer.
Otherwise, we have the same configuration and visually mine will be slightly different.
I'm also glad to hear that the UltimatE can drive hard driving headphones, especially planar headphones.
That's certainly another advantage of Eric and his great background knowledge.
I still have a Lcd 2C that no one wants to buy, I will test it and if I like it, maybe keep it, who knows.
Shall let you know how they sound but it's got to be close to their metal base cousins.
Jewelry !
