[George Chronis]

I’m only through page 65 of this thread and been reading for weeks I just wanted to share that I purchased the combo Arche+Stellia from headphones.com and it arrived yesterday. The Arche had some tiny nicks on the front from the factory, but enough to bother me and send an email to headphones.com. I just wanted to share that other than the 365 return policy, I was very impressed with their customer service. They were very quick to offer a replacement shipped to me right away as I’m preparing to ship the unit I have back. I am a new customer at headphones.com, but I’ll be a regular now. I’ll post impressions when I get some time with the set. I have a Mojo, Mjolnir 2/Gungnir MB and Lyr3/Biofrost MB I am planning on running the Stellia on as well as a Liquid Platinum waiting on the Cavali DAC. Just wanted to share my experience with Headphones.com for now.

 

[chaz_flhr]

Early Christmas for me Stellia currently breaking in at 48 hrs bluesound node2i and a fiio pro m11, gotta love 48 month interest free financing.
My pro ican and liquid platinum waiting to feed her some tube / tube hybrid goodness
The node 2i and the pro 11 with Tidal masters sound amazing and is even breathing new life into my old aeon closed balanced and final hope IV balanced might be time to sell the v30, black label and woo firefly since it's not balanced.

 

[XeNoNF50]

Yup, the Stellia headphones sound fantastic. I've mentioned this before, but the $1K discount on the Arche makes the device a compelling DAC/Amp purchase as the two products have natural synergy. I toggle between the voltage, hybrid and Stellia settings depending on what I want. I recently added a Bluesound node 2i, which also exceeded my expectations in terms of ease of use, functionality, and sound.

How do you use the node 2i with the Arche btw? Do you use the node 2i DAC or just as a transport?

 

[NCUS]

I use a toslink cable to send a digital signal from my node 2i (running as a transport) into the Arche. In my opinion, the toslink output sounded slightly better than coax.

 

[Ryan Cao]

@Jeweltopia

Stellia + tube amp = sweetness for days.

Just got my Stellia. Love it, but would like to try it on with some tube amps. Do you have any good recommendations? Thanks!

 

[Roasty]

Just got my Stellia. Love it, but would like to try it on with some tube amps. Do you have any good recommendations? Thanks!

I've only tried it with my wa22, but preferred it with the wa22 over the gsx mini and hpa4.

I do see feliks audio mentioned quite often! The only other tube amps that have gotten my fancy are the Citadel and DNA Stellaris.

 

[Clemmaster]

ECP T4.

 

[Jeweltopia]

Hey all, I have a small pressure mark / indentation in the leather on top of my Stellia headband. I suspect that this probably happened due to one of the snap closures on the knitted headband I have on it being pressed into the leather and leaving behind a small pressure mark. It's the only one on the headband so it must have been a one time thing. Maybe I picked it up and one of my fingers pushed the snap closure a bit too hard into the leather and it left a small dent.

Was wondering if anyone knew if it was safe to heat up the area slightly and massage it out? That's how I typically have removed pressure marks in leather before. I have several Focal headphones and am thinking of picking up the Radiance as well, and, I put these knitted headband covers on all of them to keep the leather looking fresh from hair oils and such. Was wondering in case I get any more of these on how to get them out. It's tiny and not very noticeable, especially since I always have a cover on it, but was just curious due to my OCD flaring up. Nothing is actually wrong with the leather. It's not damaged and nothing pierced it.

 

[walakalulu]

Just got my Stellia. Love it, but would like to try it on with some tube amps. Do you have any good recommendations? Thanks!

seems to work well with the Manley Absolute especially in single ended mode.

 

[rangerid]

seems to work well with the Manley Absolute especially in single ended mode.

I’m running it off the Absolute at the moment. Fantastic pairing. However I find the single end to be very noisy even with neg fb all the way applied prob because of stellias low impedance and high sensitivity combo. Push pull has no noise so I use that with no feedback, I find it to be a pretty neutral tuning but still gives the great tube bloom benefits and the middle ground in all of Absolute's settings. Gotta listen to SE again some day, you don't hear the noise when music is playing just during quiet passages it's very apparent. Maybe I'm too picky and others won't mind, it is a very very sweet and euphoric sound... still going through my collection on Push pull then gotta revisit single end again. I should have my Wywire power cord and better interconnects by then as well...

 

[Ryan Cao]

Hey folks,

Here is my current system setup. Though I like it a lot, but would like to know which part can be upgraded to make Stellia sound even better!

Source: Ipad (Apple Music/Tidal)
-> USB type c to type b cable
-> Topping D90
-> XLR cable
-> Topping A90
-> Stellia

Thanks!

 

[judomaniak57]

Hey folks,

Here is my current system setup. Though I like it a lot, but would like to know which part can be upgraded to make Stellia sound even better!

Source: Ipad (Apple Music/Tidal)
-> USB type c to type b cable
-> Topping D90
-> XLR cable
-> Topping A90
-> Stellia

Thanks!

sit back and chill playing some tunes, if you like it, dont worry about what might be better

 

[Barndoor]

Hey folks,

Here is my current system setup. Though I like it a lot, but would like to know which part can be upgraded to make Stellia sound even better!

Source: Ipad (Apple Music/Tidal)
-> USB type c to type b cable
-> Topping D90
-> XLR cable
-> Topping A90
-> Stellia

Thanks!

I don't own one myself, but in your position I would take a look into if there was a potential improvement by substituting your ipad for a Bluesound Node 2i

 

[Ryan Cao]

I don't own one myself, but in your position I would take a look into if there was a potential improvement by substituting your ipad for a Bluesound Node 2i

Thanks for the suggestion!

Actually I’m wondering the same thing. How big a difference will a dedicated source make compared with an iPad or laptop?

 

[judomaniak57]

Thanks for the suggestion!

Actually I’m wondering the same thing. How big a difference will a dedicated source make compared with an iPad or laptop?

bluesound node 2i is fantastic, should be a big step up from ipad since it is purposely built for music. will still use your ipad to control it