[chrisnyc75]

Would love to hear your thoughts with Stellaris! I'm assuming given my experience with DNA amps, I don't think it has enough gain for Susvara, but Bliss can easily handle the Susvara though

Yeah, Bliss drives it amazingly with room to spare (I'm at +03 of +12 and it's perfection). Will report back with first impressions on Stellaris tomorrow.

 

[Leto Dal]

Bliss is not quite there for Susvara to be honest. Envy blew it out of the water for me, Susvara sounds like a different headphone with it. More headroom, more depth, more stage, more mids and far more slam.
It sounds good on Bliss, but can get so much better :]

 

[chrisnyc75]

Bliss is not quite there for Susvara to be honest. Envy blew it out of the water for me, Susvara sounds like a different headphone with it. More headroom, more depth, more stage, more mids and far more slam.
It sounds good on Bliss, but can get so much better :]

I hear you, but going down the "what amp is best for Susvara?" rabbit hole is 200% what I do not want to do. Either Bliss will make it "perfect" or it won't. We all gotta have our limits.

 

[Frankie D]

This CanJam one of my primary goals was to spend as much time as I could with Susvara, to finally really understand what it's all about. Fortunately for me, this year there were more Sus'es on display than ever before. I listened to it on 4 or 5 different chains and came away finally feeling like I had a good grasp on what it's all about and why people love it so much. Having just recently picked up both Caldera and Holo Bliss, I kinda had it in the back of my mind that I owed it to myself to add a Susvara to my arsenal, if only to spend some quality time digging deep into what it can do. And once I get a thought in my brain, it plays over and over like an earworm. And so here we are........

It works great with the Bliss!

 

[ericx85]

Another + here for Bliss. The creator specifically made it to be able to handle Susvara. There's no way its lacking in anything to drive Susvara. If you feel it's not good enough, you're just looking for a different sound profile.

 

[Leto Dal]

Another + here for Bliss. The creator specifically made it to be able to handle Susvara. There's no way it’s lacking in anything to drive Susvara. If you feel it's not good enough, you're just looking for a different sound profile.

Could you hear Sus with higher end powerful tube amps or are you assuming?

 

[BassicScience]

Bliss is not quite there for Susvara to be honest. Envy blew it out of the water for me, Susvara sounds like a different headphone with it. More headroom, more depth, more stage, more mids and far more slam.
It sounds good on Bliss, but can get so much better :]

I just auditioned my Susvara on the Envy 25th at CanJam NYC, and it was indeed spectacular, one of the true highlights of the show. That said, I've heard Susvara sound fantastic on many far less exalted amps. Based on what I know about the Bliss, I suspect it'll do a highly credible job of driving the Sus, but I just had the chance to audition the combo in the ZMF room, and sadly didn't avail myself of it.

Anyway, big congrats to @chrisnyc75 on taking the plunge, and we're looking forward to reading your impressions.

 

[up late]

I hear you, but going down the "what amp is best for Susvara?" rabbit hole is 200% what I do not want to do. Either Bliss will make it "perfect" or it won't. We all gotta have our limits.

indeed. enjoy your bliss and susvara pairing.

 

[Leto Dal]

I just auditioned my Susvara on the Envy 25th at CanJam NYC, and it was indeed spectacular, one of the true highlights of the show. That said, I've heard Susvara sound fantastic on many far less exalted amps. Based on what I know about the Bliss, I suspect it'll do a highly credible job of driving the Sus, but I just had the chance to audition the combo in the ZMF room, and sadly didn't avail myself of it.

Anyway, big congrats to @chrisnyc75 on taking the plunge, and we're looking forward to reading your impressions.

It sounds good on Bliss. If there is zero urge to upgrade or improve / overspend (it’s 7k headphone on a 4k amp already we are talking about here), one can comfortably stop there. Saying that there is a truly big leap Susvara will do when you introduce a powerful 300b amp with something like Elrogs into your chain. Susvara has just as much heft and weight to the notes as Caldera with Envy, with superior detail, staging and seperation than on my Bliss. It’s rather bonkers tbh.

 

[walterboss]

It sounds good on Bliss. If there is zero urge to upgrade or improve / overspend (it’s 7k headphone on a 4k amp already we are talking about here), one can comfortably stop there. Saying that there is a truly big leap Susvara will do when you introduce a powerful 300b amp with something like Elrogs into your chain. Susvara has just as much heft and weight to the notes as Caldera with Envy, with superior detail, staging and seperation than on my Bliss. It’s rather bonkers tbh.

I think this is the point @chrisnyc75 is talking about by stopping at a certain point, as you just mentioned upgrading the tubes on the Envy which cost over $1000 even on used market. There's always something 'more'.

I'm still waiting on my Envy arriving, and discussions like this make me question if I'm overspending for what I 'need' to get out of the music. I remember going from an Ananda to LCD-X, and it was a huge step up, but it made me realise that I was entering into diminishing returns category even then. At a certain point, I was expecting my music to be 'transformed' (sorry, I'll stop using quotation marks now) in some way with all the talk I read online about hearing details you've never heard before. Fundamentally, with songs you know very well, it's not going to sound like an entirely different form of communication. The root music is still all there in the recording. How much you can realistically extract or shift in the music's details or tone is questionable, though the journey still fascinates me.

Where the point that music stops being transformed (I'm talking to meaningful degrees)...well, I guess that's part of the reason we're all on a forum like this Meaningful degrees vary so wildly for us all. It's fascinating.

 

[Leto Dal]

Yeah there must be a stopping point. The "issue" with Susvara is, you are buying a headphone with no celling apperently, I am sure there is stuff outthere that outresolves an Envy with ease with Susvara.

Just sharing how much of an eye-opening experience Envy was compared to Bliss recently for me, Susvara sounds more like a mid rich and weighty ZMF on it with all the benefits of Susvara technicalities. You are certainy in for a treat. I wouldnt say you need Elrogs, stock Envy Pefomance Edition Fullmusic tubes might even be better, due to their warmer nature and giant stage complimenting what Susvara already does best. This configuration is still few miles ahead of Bliss to my ear.

 

[walterboss]

Yeah there must be a stopping point. The "issue" with Susvara is, you are buying a headphone with no celling apperently, I am sure there is stuff outthere that outresolves an Envy with ease with Susvara.

Just sharing how much of an eye-opening experience Envy was compared to Bliss recently for me, Susvara sounds more like a mid rich and weighty ZMF on it with all the benefits of Susvara technicalities. You are certainy in for a treat. I wouldnt say you need Elrogs, stock Envy Pefomance Edition Fullmusic tubes might even be better, due to their warmer nature and giant stage complimenting what Susvara already does best. This configuration is still few miles ahead of Bliss to my ear.

My current amp sounds fine? But I don't really know Another user with experience of the XIAUDIO suggested I'm only getting about 75% out of Susvara. I'm also using stock cable, so there's plenty juice to get out of it yet. It's a good start, but as I've posted elsewhere, I'm glad I tempered expectations in advance. It's not a headphone that makes me go 'whooaa!' when I hear it. It's just all spot on and really really pleasant.

I have WE300b already here, but will listen to standard stock for a while to get adjusted. It will also give me the pleasant experience of a further upgrade even a week or two into having the Envy. If it ever escapes customs hell in Poland.

When you throw in my uncertainty of sticking with DAVE over getting a May...that's a whole other quandary

 

[Leto Dal]

Yeah Bliss sounds fine too, and yep with Bliss everything sounds "just right" too I didnt miss anything, actually it was easy to give away the Caldera to keep Sus with Bliss

Curious about your experience with Envy on Sus especially with WE tubes!

For me even the stock tubes certainly been that "whoaa" experience with Sus. GL with customs this stuff can take a while if the vendor doesnt know how to declare.

Regarding Dave to May - the flavour will certainly change, but its much smaller upgrade than going for a 300b high end amp

 

[BillinSF]

How do you know how the artist intended it to sound?

Ask him or her.

btw I saw a guy with your name win a lap bike race here in San Francisco years ago.

Here is a PBS video I ran across talking about modern music editing (and creation), in particular Classical Music. In recent research I was stunned to learn about "auto-tune" and its widespread use these days. What's the role of the artist vis-a-vis the recording engineer is discussed. Just what are we listening to? It's worth watching - artists talking about how their performances are recorded, engineered and edited.

Link to PBS music editing video

 

[chrisnyc75]

Another + here for Bliss. The creator specifically made it to be able to handle Susvara. There's no way its lacking in anything to drive Susvara. If you feel it's not good enough, you're just looking for a different sound profile.

Yeah, already I can tell that for DSD or vinyl I have to nearly max it out, but at that point it leaves nothing to be desired. With streaming/digital it's deafeningly loud and satisfyingly dynamic (and I say that as a Utopia fanboy!) at 9 notches below max.

I just auditioned my Susvara on the Envy 25th at CanJam NYC, and it was indeed spectacular, one of the true highlights of the show. That said, I've heard Susvara sound fantastic on many far less exalted amps. Based on what I know about the Bliss, I suspect it'll do a highly credible job of driving the Sus, but I just had the chance to audition the combo in the ZMF room, and sadly didn't avail myself of it.

Anyway, big congrats to @chrisnyc75 on taking the plunge, and we're looking forward to reading your impressions.

Thanks I listened to it on Envy (not the 25th) at CanJam, too, and loved it. Would be GREAT if it worked anywhere near that well on my 2A3 DNA amp (for anyone who doesn't know, 2A3 is basically a half-powered 300B), but I'm not holding my breath (taking some time to get familiar with it on Bliss before I even plug it in to Stellaris). Also heard it on DCS (excellent!) and Head Trip - the latter being quite a revelation - maybe even worth its price tag? Can't be certain as I'm a Susvara novice, but I recall the holographic imaging striking me as something I had never heard before on any other headphone/chain.

It’s rather bonkers tbh.

"Bonkers" is what we do best here, isn't it?