charley phogg
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2007
- Posts
- 109
- Likes
- 10
My Solo shipped out 1/28 and I received it 2/1, pretty impressive from across the pond to the midwest I'd say, I wasn't expecting it for at least another week.
It's very well built, nicely constructed and solid feeling.
My setup is as follows.... AuzenTech X-Plosion w/ rolled Burr-Brown opamps, forget which ones > stock rca splitter for 2 channel into stock rca IC's > Solo > HD580's.
It came appropriately packaged for such a journey, even took me a minute or two to figure out where to cut the tape to open the box. Smaller then I expected, it's roughly the size of two harddrives, give or take a little here and there. A little longer then a hd and a little narrower, but not quiet as tall as two hd's sitting on top of each other.
I was really surrpised with the way this thing sounds right out of the box, jaw dropping surprised. I was expecting some rough edges at least, which, over time I am sure I will look back and notice them. But I gotta tell you, I've been listening to this little jewel for over 2 1/2 hours now and the sound this soon is amazing. Right off the bat it had everything and lacking nothing. The first thing I did when I hooked it up was to check for noise without any music playing. I had to crank the vol up to the 3 o'clock position before I heard the slightest bit of hiss ( 7 o'clock is vol all the way down ).
In hindsight, after the first hour, through 1 1/2 hours my ears got a bit fatigued. Some of which may of been to me getting into the music to loudly right off the bat while getting caught up in posting in Graham's forum (
GSPAudio Support Community ( in case any one is interested in his forum ) )
about my thoughts out of the box. And I'm also sure due to the newness and it wasn't noticeable at the time. Like it was so subtle it snuck up on me.
This is my first serious headphone amp, and yes, from the way this little beast performs right out of the box, I would call it serious. To think that it has this amount of detail and clearity this soon amazes me. Not to mention evertything is there even at this early stage. Highs, Mids, bass and soundstage. I devirginized it with some Grateful Dead, and right off the bat I could distinguish the two different drummers completely. I never thought the soundstage would be so good so soon. I'm sure those that have heard high end gear before would recongnize whatever it is that I thought I'd hear but don't. I mean it's gotta be there, right?
Right now I'm giving it a serious dose of drums vie The Royal Drummers of Burundi, Mickey Harts Global Drum Project. I can literally hear the reverberation of the skins of those monster kettle drums.
I can't wait for it to burn in and I can feed it the fuel that it clearly can handle ( meaning IC's and a quality DAC ). To think it's only going to get better. Me very happy
It's very well built, nicely constructed and solid feeling.
My setup is as follows.... AuzenTech X-Plosion w/ rolled Burr-Brown opamps, forget which ones > stock rca splitter for 2 channel into stock rca IC's > Solo > HD580's.
It came appropriately packaged for such a journey, even took me a minute or two to figure out where to cut the tape to open the box. Smaller then I expected, it's roughly the size of two harddrives, give or take a little here and there. A little longer then a hd and a little narrower, but not quiet as tall as two hd's sitting on top of each other.
I was really surrpised with the way this thing sounds right out of the box, jaw dropping surprised. I was expecting some rough edges at least, which, over time I am sure I will look back and notice them. But I gotta tell you, I've been listening to this little jewel for over 2 1/2 hours now and the sound this soon is amazing. Right off the bat it had everything and lacking nothing. The first thing I did when I hooked it up was to check for noise without any music playing. I had to crank the vol up to the 3 o'clock position before I heard the slightest bit of hiss ( 7 o'clock is vol all the way down ).
In hindsight, after the first hour, through 1 1/2 hours my ears got a bit fatigued. Some of which may of been to me getting into the music to loudly right off the bat while getting caught up in posting in Graham's forum (
GSPAudio Support Community ( in case any one is interested in his forum ) )
about my thoughts out of the box. And I'm also sure due to the newness and it wasn't noticeable at the time. Like it was so subtle it snuck up on me.
This is my first serious headphone amp, and yes, from the way this little beast performs right out of the box, I would call it serious. To think that it has this amount of detail and clearity this soon amazes me. Not to mention evertything is there even at this early stage. Highs, Mids, bass and soundstage. I devirginized it with some Grateful Dead, and right off the bat I could distinguish the two different drummers completely. I never thought the soundstage would be so good so soon. I'm sure those that have heard high end gear before would recongnize whatever it is that I thought I'd hear but don't. I mean it's gotta be there, right?
Right now I'm giving it a serious dose of drums vie The Royal Drummers of Burundi, Mickey Harts Global Drum Project. I can literally hear the reverberation of the skins of those monster kettle drums.
I can't wait for it to burn in and I can feed it the fuel that it clearly can handle ( meaning IC's and a quality DAC ). To think it's only going to get better. Me very happy
