[TonyNewman]

  There is enormous headroom to how much the HE-6s can scale. I am quite convinced a lot of people, even in this thread, do not quite realize the breadth of this... until they hear it that is (as some of us did). I don't want to thread much more on this, but until the HE-6 are not sounding significantly more linear, transparent, open and "live" than Utopia, there is more to this story. Some will have different priorities in the sound they prefer and I get that too. I do really enjoy the Utopia, and they are not going anywhere soon. All imo.

The Utopia scales too. Running it from an Oppo HA-1 is not, frankly, getting the best out of it. My audio buddy had one, recently sold and upgraded to a V281. Dreadful amp IMHO.
 
If your MSB V DAC has a volume control that would be ideal to drive the Utopia direct. Then would get you the Utopia at a much higher level of performance than you will be getting from the Oppo. The SQ leap from doing this is not small - it far outweighs any previous benefits I have obtained by upgrading my headphone amps.
 
HE6 is not the only amp that can scale. I have an excellent pre-amp / power amp combination to drive the HE6 - and yes, it is awesome, but the Utopia is better when direct driven from an uber DAC.

 

[negura]

I found that funny. I thought the Vioelectric is awful with the HE-6s. I am using the Oppo temporarily, while moving between things, and it is not the only amp I have exposure to. See my profile for more info. 
 
Indeed I did use headphones directly on my DAC V (and the Select 2 for that matter), including HE-6s. It has a lot of voltage swing, even more so if increased in the settings. For the HE-6s the DAC direct connection is more useful to get an idea of what the source sounds like with these headphones, rather than for very high performance. I think a dedicated amplifier is needed for hungry planars.
 
And yes this exercise of using the source directly tells a great story about how transparent amplifiers actually are or aren't. Right know I am on the merry-go-round of trying amplifiers, both headphones and speaker ones. 

 

[TonyNewman]

YMMV and all that. Glad you are using the DAC direct drive. For me there is no going back - my V281 gets very little use anymore - just don't see the point with the direct drive from the DAC being so much better for me.

 

[bosiemoncrieff]

I'm curious for some Utopia/Orpheus comparisons. 

 

[negura]

Wrong thread?
 
Not similar in sound signatures imo. The Utopia are rather more similar with SR-009s or HE-6s than Orpheus, if that's what you're after.

 

[musicinmymind]

 

  There is enormous headroom to how much the HE-6s can scale. I am quite convinced a lot of people, even in this thread, do not quite realize the breadth of this... until they hear it that is (as some of us did). I don't want to thread much more on this, but until the HE-6 are not sounding significantly more linear, transparent, open and "live" than Utopia, there is more to this story. Some will have different priorities in the sound they prefer and I get that too. I do really enjoy the Utopia, and they are not going anywhere soon. All imo.

The Utopia scales too. Running it from an Oppo HA-1 is not, frankly, getting the best out of it. My audio buddy had one, recently sold and upgraded to a V281. Dreadful amp IMHO.
 
If your MSB V DAC has a volume control that would be ideal to drive the Utopia direct. Then would get you the Utopia at a much higher level of performance than you will be getting from the Oppo. The SQ leap from doing this is not small - it far outweighs any previous benefits I have obtained by upgrading my headphone amps.
 
HE6 is not the only amp that can scale. I have an excellent pre-amp / power amp combination to drive the HE6 - and yes, it is awesome, but the Utopia is better when direct driven from an uber DAC.

 
The motive for getting HE-6 for me, was have one AMP that will drive both headphone and Speakers. I did save ton of money by having one setup. If people is looking only for headphone setup then I think HE-6 would not be right choice now.

 

[ohhgourami]

Having heard the Utopia on my rig during a meet, I can say the Utopia is not an upgrade. They don't scale the same way the HE-6 does through the right chain.
 

 

[bosiemoncrieff]

Having heard the Utopia on my rig during a meet, I can say the Utopia is not an upgrade. They don't scale the same way the HE-6 does through the right chain.

How much do you need to spend on chain for he6 to surpass utopia?

 

[Hansotek]

How much do you need to spend on chain for he6 to surpass utopia?

4 Utopias.

 

[negura]

How much do you need to spend on chain for he6 to surpass utopia?

 
In my case I need to spend nothing on the chain for HE-6s to surpass Utopia, because I use my existing speaker gear. The only reason I'm toying around with headamps is out of hobby interest and maybe for other headphones, but I am not even sure I need one long term.

 

[jelt2359]

Having heard the Utopia on my rig during a meet, I can say the Utopia is not an upgrade. They don't scale the same way the HE-6 does through the right chain.

Is that laptop to rednet to yggy to preamp to krell, powering both a he6 and a utopia?

 

[Clemmaster]

Yes

 

[Armaegis]

That's a down payment for a house right there folks

 

[Takeanidea]

I'm happy with my F6 HE-6 setup but would like to give that a listen

 

[Armaegis]

That's a super fancy preamp too. Silver wound transformer based volume control, the only truly balanced passive way to go.