As promised the full review. First of all its worth mentioning that neither amp is bad and these comments are in comparison to each other and not a global truth.
For those who just want the jist of it... the HeadAmp Reference is the better amp by a good margin besting the Dynahi PP in every category.
The amps were compared using the following:
Monster AVS2000
Volex 14AWG Shielded
HT Pro Silway MKIII
Senn 650/Cardas
MF Tri-Vista 21
Emu 1212m
WW SuperNova 3+
Its worth noting that my Reference is single ended, no balanced capability, has a dact ct2, silver wiring and black gate caps running at unity gain.
Review process I follow is simple. I build a playlist of varying music doubled up. Ie Pipeline, Pipeline, Doin' Time, Doin' Time... On the first pass through a song I just listen, on the second pass I take notes. I repeat this for as many songs as are in the list then I swap out the amps and go again. The second amp was kept on throughout the test to keep it warm, the interconnect was given 10 minutes to restablize after the swap. Both amps are calibrated to 70dB.
With that out of the way here are my unaltered listening notes:
srv - pipeline
headamp: integrated, slight crackle, dry overall, background easily
heard, quick start/stop, bassline has good speed/separation
sft: top heavy, same crackle, bright presentation, less control over
start/stop, bottom end lacking, presence but not engaging, low level mia
vh - doin' time
headamp: excellent blackground, good shimmer, way LOW, integrated no
forefront, good buildup, skinning spot on
sft: less void, shouty, bottom end lacking, forward, good shimmer
hc - i told him
headamp: clean, excellent banjo work, very well integrated, immersive
sft: leans towards piercing vocal intro, banjo smearing, piano good
measure louder, bottom end recessed
apc - blue 70dB@2:50
headamp: very smooth intro, deep bass/low tone, good impact, full not
lightweight, involving
sft: forward intro, lowest bass tipped up not as deep, low midrange
emphasis, punchy but dry, smearing, disconnected
Reading over my notes I keep coming up with the same characteristics thoughout the comparison. The HeadAmp Reference has an incredibly low noise floor, low level retrieval is impressive, its speed and control is unmatched. The presentation is even with excellent extention and a real connection to the heart of the music.
The Dynahi PP in comparison is slower with a tendancy to smear during fast passages. It is quite a bit drier with a clear preference for the top end lacking bottom end weight. Its also more disconnected from the music. Low level detail is dropped outright taking away a lot of the melody out of some music.
The negatives of the Dynahi PP are lessened to an extent by SFT's SilverLine headphone cable that has a more pronouced bottom end in comparison to the Cardas.
Ignoring sound for a minute, both amps are well built with excellent workmanship. The Reference is the prettier of the two but the PP was built to reach a price point that casework would have likely overshot. The Reference is luke warm and as has been mentioned before the Dynahi is
HOT!
Overall I'm glad I took the time to compare the two. I would have always wondered what I was missing and as it turns out what I'm missing is... nothing at all
There is a silver lining here though. SFT's SilverLine cable is quite good and he's now building Dynalo and M3 amps so HeadAmp now has solid competition in the East.
