I guess it comes down to how much transparency means to you. I use the Hugo 2 as my DAC since it can’t power the Susvara’s alone. I’m sure there’s a lose of transparency and details but I can’t really tell to be honest. Maybe with the DAVE those loses become more obvious when used in this manner.I have been reading more about driving the Susvara from a speaker amp and there are always concerns about the risk of blowing a driver with the higher power and the need to turn volume down to zero for each use. Yet some folks even drive the headphone directly without a resistor box. When it comes to microdetail and transparency, Rob Watts has often mentioned that the DAVE sounds best driving headphones direct without an amp. I am now wondering how the additional resistors impact the transparency and what is lost by improved dynamics using a speaker amp and the trade offs. Some of the dedicated headphone amps have been praised for their straight wire transparency. For those who have compared speaker amps to the best headphone amps under $5K with DAVE and Susvara, what are the best choices? Or will an inexpensive speaker amp with intervening resistors still beat any headphone amp out there at any price and worth all the fuss using resistors and adapters??
I would love to experience a DAVE one day. It would be even better to listen to one in my setup to see if I could hear any sonic differences when used as a DAC. For now what I do know is the Susvara’s need power. Driving them straight from a DAC headphone output is unsatisfying to my ears. I would love to hear how the owners with a Chord Hugo TT2 feel about driving the Susvara’s out of the TT2’s amp outputs. If the results are satisfactory that’s one less item in the chain and ultimate transparency and details are maintained.
The HE-Adapter is a resistance box. Old receivers and integrated amps use a resistor on its headphone output to limit the power being feed to the headphones. I guess this is what the HE-Adapter is mimicking. I’m not sure what the actual resistance is on the HE-Adapter but it does provide some protection against blowing up what ever is connected to it. So it is an option, but once again there might be some signal lose by doing so. Going straight from speaker taps is the only way to maintain signal integrity I suppose.