[ericx85]

I honestly dont think the Bliss really gets that hot? Its definitely less hot than the Soloist was in my opinion.

 

[JooLoo]

I honestly dont think the Bliss really gets that hot? Its definitely less hot than the Soloist was in my opinion.

Ahh I havent revieved mine yet and was under the impression it ran hot. Im also just a sucker for the appearance of heatsinks so I might just do it for that if thats the case.

 

[XVampireX]

How is treble on bliss? Im a bit sensitive on treble either too much energy or peaks and i know oor ferrum doesnt have any problem with this

I would say the Treble is very much extended, if the track has a problem with treble, it will show.
Otherwise it's great for Treble, shimmering and beautiful.

 

[HC1205]

I would say the Treble is very much extended, if the track has a problem with treble, it will show.
Otherwise it's great for Treble, shimmering and beautiful.

Thank you. I listen to some japanese, kpop songs that are somtimes piercing treble and i know i should blame the recording not the amp/dac

 

[brianfromspace]

Mine also didnt get that hot, only the bottom. So DAC on top would not be a problem if you ask me. Not advised though.

 

[CSX142857]

Been having lots of fun with the Susvara and Utopia on the Bliss. I'm coming from a Topping A90. Sound is generally more lively and fast compared to the A90. However, I don't really have a high impedance headphone to try out outside of a HD600. It might be the Christmas Eve wine but I don't really sense any difference between Lo-Z and Hi-Z. Guess that means it's best to leave it in Lo-Z mode.

 

[ericx85]

Still getting a grip of the Expanse/Stealth with the Bliss. This amp is ridiculously good at separation. Even in congested music, videos, games etc I can hear specific things so well compared to even the soloist gt where the same little nuances are buried in everything going on.

 

[mortcola]

I have the Bliss for three days now. I had a Burson GT Soloist for a while recently, and while it was strong and clear, it felt aggressive, brash, with a bit of assertive sameness among several distinct recordings. I make no claim that you will hear it the same way. It must be popular for good reasons. I don't have a history of turning up my nose at hi-fi gear - That amp was one of the few obviously high-quality pieces of gear I've ever just given back, ultimately, saying, no thanks. And then the long-rumored, possibly-an-urban-messianic-legend Bliss arrived.

I'm using Roon on an M1 iMac, with Qobuz streaming and hard-drive-sourced files, cd through highest res DXD and DSD, Holo May KTE connected to the Bliss KTE by Audioquest Fire ICs, AQ Niagara power conditioners, AQ NRG and Cullen power cables. The Susvara, 3.5mm connector, is being fed by a beautiful new Double Helix Chimera cable. Although the Bliss, I'm told, is electrically optimized and musically voiced for the Susvara, I'm comparing its performance through the latter with its handling of Dan Clark Expanse with their own Vivo cable and a Prion4 borrowed gratefully from Peter B. at Double Helix Cables; The Utopia 2022 with stock and Arctic Ingens cables,; Grado GS3000x with Grado cable; and Abyss 1266TC with the upgraded and dedicated JPS cables. I'm only using balanced 4-pin XLR connections.

The Susvara is clearly in its natural habitat here, optimized and idyllic. The Abyss responds to Bliss-juice as though it has found fulfillment. Something not quite frequency-range dependent is happening here, in that, on recording after recording, the characteristic deep bass control, holy mother of slam factor, and electron microscope level of clarity is evident.... but now the midrange and the whole harmonic envelope of acoustic instruments and voices is more fleshed out, almost devoid of the hardness these industrial-cyberpunk Uber-cans can bring. Whereas the Woo WA5-LE, a refined and powerful 300B SET tube amp well matched to the Abyss and good for the Susvara, can bring its 2nd-harmonic rich but still transparent virtues to the Big Abyss, it can still feel a little brash in the upper-mids/lower treble. The Bliss produced nothing but nourishment through the 1266TC. preternaturally detailed, yet with just enough subcutaneous fat to be healthy. There is no sense at all of euphony or tube bloat; to the contrary, the music is highly objective in the information it consists of, and yet the amp seems to offer ideal support for the unique needs of each headphone, across their dynamic and frequency ranges. Zhu states, in the manual, that the way he uses multiple paired transistors brings all the advantages of both solid state and tubes. Without any so-called tubey characteristics, there is also nothing characteristic of solid-state, except with respect to sheer clarity. Such simplistic binaries are far transcended at this level, with this design. It is providing the diet each headphone thrives on. Two hours of jazz, hard and progressive rock, and chamber music, and I have no listening fatigue through the Abyss.

The Expanse retains its deeply detailed, spatially expansive and harmonically refined qualities. Some folk complain the Expanse lacks lateral space and image. Nope, not here. Not to my ears. I'm sure most reviewers are sincere, and some people have awesome ears. But I hear what some say is not there. The Utopia '22 is the least minutely revealing headphone in my current roster, though this is not a deficit; it is relative to three other cans known for end-game resolution and one, the Grado, which at 28 - 50% the cost of the others, may lack the surreal spatial verisimilitudes and end-game timbal and dynamic refinement of the others, but is both stunningly good in absolute terms, and actually conveys small details at near-Susvara levels. The Utopia has a fully-fleshed, communicative and impactful quality. It is NOT as immediately impressive with respect to intricate resolution and transparency, but a strength of the Utopia, in bold relief in this combination, is a sense that Focal accomplished exactly what they meant to. It is not deficient in any absolute sense; it is, after all, a flagship item, but one which reflects a particular set of priorities.

But the Bliss KTE.... among other virtues, offers a fleshed-out sense of space way beyond my head and the limits of the Susvara. I've never heard that so consistently or clearly. Lyrics are more intelligible, complex arrangements have a great sense of wholeness with all the clarity to allow the attention to drift along with and away from individual voices. It's beautifully voiced, if it's OK to say that, in that along with the Susvara-ready power, the amp has remarkable timbral clarity and glow, depth and dimension, with textured and fast transients. And I'm just getting the feel for it. It is a special amp, just warming up.

Jeff Zhu at Holo not only has a clear sense of what reproduced music should sound like, but his innovative designs manage to channel that aesthetic sense into extremely authentic/organic-sounding, impactful and nuanced, user-friendly electronic devices which somehow look cool (2001-monolith-black with copper sides and accents and a Kitsune fox emblem) and also measure extraordinarily well... and I am firmly in the my-multi-million-year-ear/brain/gut knows far more than your puny 21-st century measurements will ever measure. But this stuff is accurate as can be, and tastes great. And Bliss is clearly a consistent, masterful engineering expression of the same musical vision as is the May DAC. If it serves a wide range of headphones this well, with such ergonomic ease, while bringing out the very best in the Susvara (folks like to assign percentage-of-potential an amp achieves with the Susvara - I'll call this 98.6%, to indicate a sign of optimal health, with room for diminishing returns from some gizmo advances by future humans), then, well, if this ain't good enough for ya, I can no longer relate. I've been in and around the business for decades, with friends and relatives at the highest-end, with the taste and ears to justify it. This is as high as I need to go.

I know there's more expensive and possibly "better" gear out there for a system like this. But while I know what the far end of hi-fi consists of, what it can cost, and the refinement and caché which contribute to the listening experience. But, beyond some optimizing of the source setup - using, say, a Roon Nucleus for SS-data control, a giant indestructible bulk hard drive in a Faraday cage which doubles as a listening room and sofa, plus some improvements in ethernet and streaming - I'll say that there's not much further to meaningfully go in the headphone-audio quest. "Better" than this? A dedicated digital data and control source and electrical system... that'd be nice. There's always new flavors and hues to be found in high-end gear, and there's stuff I still like to stare at. Bakoon. Mola Mola. SDome 80K thingie out there which is pretty, but... I don't feel it. These would be fun to have around. They're fun to say. Beyond that, spend all the plutocratic audio bucks you wish. Your diminishing returns are yours to enjoy as you wish. I just don't think "better" means anything at this point. The Bliss has been worth the wait. It is phenomenally good (this after a few days), it is at home, in ideal company with its sister DAC. And while it ain't cheap, the Holo gear are "are you sh-tt-n' me?" reasonable for endgame gear which seems to inspire data streams and head-speakers to be be their best selves.

 

[incredulousity]

I have the Bliss for three days now. I had a Burson GT Soloist for a while recently, and while it was strong and clear, it felt aggressive, brash, with a bit of assertive sameness among several distinct recordings. I make no claim that you will hear it the same way. It must be popular for good reasons. I don't have a history of turning up my nose at hi-fi gear - That amp was one of the few obviously high-quality pieces of gear I've ever just given back, ultimately, saying, no thanks. And then the long-rumored, possibly-an-urban-messianic-legend Bliss arrived.

I'm using Roon on an M1 iMac, with Qobuz streaming and hard-drive-sourced files, cd through highest res DXD and DSD, Holo May KTE connected to the Bliss KTE by Audioquest Fire ICs, AQ Niagara power conditioners, AQ NRG and Cullen power cables. The Susvara, 3.5mm connector, is being fed by a beautiful new Double Helix Chimera cable. Although the Bliss, I'm told, is electrically optimized and musically voiced for the Susvara, I'm comparing its performance through the latter with its handling of Dan Clark Expanse with their own Vivo cable and a Prion4 borrowed gratefully from Peter B. at Double Helix Cables; The Utopia 2022 with stock and Arctic Ingens cables,; Grado GS3000x with Grado cable; and Abyss 1266TC with the upgraded and dedicated JPS cables. I'm only using balanced 4-pin XLR connections.

The Susvara is clearly in its natural habitat here, optimized and idyllic. The Abyss responds to Bliss-juice as though it has found fulfillment. Something not quite frequency-range dependent is happening here, in that, on recording after recording, the characteristic deep bass control, holy mother of slam factor, and electron microscope level of clarity is evident.... but now the midrange and the whole harmonic envelope of acoustic instruments and voices is more fleshed out, almost devoid of the hardness these industrial-cyberpunk Uber-cans can bring. Whereas the Woo WA5-LE, a refined and powerful 300B SET tube amp well matched to the Abyss and good for the Susvara, can bring its 2nd-harmonic rich but still transparent virtues to the Big Abyss, it can still feel a little brash in the upper-mids/lower treble. The Bliss produced nothing but nourishment through the 1266TC. preternaturally detailed, yet with just enough subcutaneous fat to be healthy. There is no sense at all of euphony or tube bloat; to the contrary, the music is highly objective in the information it consists of, and yet the amp seems to offer ideal support for the unique needs of each headphone, across their dynamic and frequency ranges. Zhu states, in the manual, that the way he uses multiple paired transistors brings all the advantages of both solid state and tubes. Without any so-called tubey characteristics, there is also nothing characteristic of solid-state, except with respect to sheer clarity. Such simplistic binaries are far transcended at this level, with this design. It is providing the diet each headphone thrives on. Two hours of jazz, hard and progressive rock, and chamber music, and I have no listening fatigue through the Abyss.

The Expanse retains its deeply detailed, spatially expansive and harmonically refined qualities. The Utopia '22 is the least minutely revealing headphone in my current roster, though this is not a deficit; it is relative to three other cans known for end-game resolution and one, the Grado, which at 28 - 50% the cost of the others, may lack the surreal spatial verisimilitudes and end-game timbal and dynamic refinement of the others, but is both stunningly good in absolute terms, and actually conveys small details at near-Susvara levels. The Utopia has a fully-fleshed, communicative and impactful qualitymmediately impressive as being intricately transparent, offering a fleshed-out sense of space way beyond my head and the limits of the Susvara. I've never heard that so consistently or clearly. Lyrics are more intelligible, complex arrangements have a great sense of wholeness with all the clarity to allow the attention to drift along with and away from individual voices. It's beautifully voiced, if it's OK to say that, in that along with the Susvara-ready power, the amp has remarkable timbral clarity and glow, depth and dimension, with textured and fast transients. And I'm just getting the feel for it. It is a special amp, just warming up.

Jeff Zhu at Holo not only has a clear sense of what reproduced music should sound like, but his innovative designs manage to channel that aesthetic sense into extremely authentic/organic-sounding, impactful and nuanced, user-friendly electronic devices which somehow look cool (2001-monolith-black with copper sides and accents and a Kitsune fox emblem) and also measure extraordinarily well... and I am firmly in the my-multi-million-year-ear/brain/gut knows far more than your puny 21-st century measurements will ever measure. But this stuff is accurate as can be, and tastes great. And Bliss is clearly a consistent, masterful engineering expression of the same musical vision as is the May DAC. If it serves a wide range of headphones this well, with such ergonomic ease, while bringing out the very best in the Susvara (folks like to assign percentage-of-potential an amp achieves with the Susvara - I'll call this 98.6%, to indicate a sign of optimal health, with room for diminishing returns from some gizmo advances by future humans.

I know there's more expensive and possibly "better" gear out there for a system like this. But while I know what the far end of hi-fi consists of, what it can cost, and the refinement and caché which contribute to the listening experience. But, beyond some optimizing of the source setup - using, say, a Roon Nucleus for SS-data control, some improvements in streaming - I'll say that there's not much further to meaningfully go in the headphone-audio quest. "Better" than this? A dedicated digital data and control source and electrical system... that'd be nice. There's always new flavors and hues to be found in high-end gear, and there's stuff I still like to stare at. Bacon. Mola Mola. These would be fun to have around. They're fun to say. Beyond that, spend all the plutocratic audio bucks you wish. Your diminishing returns are yours to enjoy as you wish. I just don't think "better" means anything at this point. The Bliss has been worth the wait. It is phenomenally good (this after a few days), it is at home, in ideal company with its sister DAC. And while it ain't cheap, the Holo gear are "are you sh-tt-n'me?" reasonable for endgame gear which seems to inspire data streams and head-speakers to be be their best selves.

Probably the best articulation of how and why Bliss is great, that I have seen thus far. I have the same stack, and my experience is identical, albeit with Elite and HD800S and VO. Looks like I need Expanse! All you need is Envy, and you can stop

 

[orrman]

I'm worried the Bliss with Prion4 interconnects and headphones cable to the Susvara would result in piercing highs or simply too much of a good thing listening experience. Was hoping it would be a little less neutral and more Holo house sound which from what I'm reading is not the case so much.

Any thoughts from owners on this?

 

[incredulousity]

I'm worried the Bliss with Prion4 interconnects and headphones cable to the Susvara would result in piercing highs or simply too much of a good thing listening experience. Was hoping it would be a little less neutral and more Holo house sound which from what I'm reading is not the case so much.

Any thoughts from owners on this?

I don’t think this would be an issue with Prion 4 cables, but I’d be concerned about low end SPC cables.

 

[AlbertoPN]

no

According to this statement, and since from the manual is not clear to me, is it possible to set the XLR output of the Bliss in fixed level, in order to use it as a "balanced hub" for the 2 inputs, and send the output to a Serene or another pre-amplifier ? In this way the volume knob should affect only the headphones out ?
Or maybe am I complicated the hot wather, and the Bliss must be chained as last ring on the second output of a pre-amplifier (in this case not the Serene since it got basically only 1 XLR out) ?

 

[PcChip]

According to this statement, and since from the manual is not clear to me, is it possible to set the XLR output of the Bliss in fixed level, in order to use it as a "balanced hub" for the 2 inputs, and send the output to a Serene or another pre-amplifier ? In this way the volume knob should affect only the headphones out ?
Or maybe am I complicated the hot wather, and the Bliss must be chained as last ring on the second output of a pre-amplifier (in this case not the Serene since it got basically only 1 XLR out) ?

I would lose sleep over sending the signal through an active device like that, even if that device was a Holo Bliss or Holo Serene (and I own and love both)

If you want to do that, I would buy a goldpoint xlr switcher (SW2X-I or SW2X-O, do note the difference) and be done with it

 

[AlbertoPN]

Thanks for your answer.
So, as fai as I understand, you use the Bliss as pure headphones amplifier, as last ring of the audio chain. But since you own both, have you tried to compare the Bliss with the Serene on the preamplifier section, just for curiosity, and to understand if there are audible differences between the two devices ?

 

[OneEyedHito]

Thanks for your answer.
So, as fai as I understand, you use the Bliss as pure headphones amplifier, as last ring of the audio chain. But since you own both, have you tried to compare the Bliss with the Serene on the preamplifier section, just for curiosity, and to understand if there are audible differences between the two devices ?

The Bliss is ½ to ¾ the Pre that Serene is, and this is from a Trusted Owner of both devices (the Owner of Kitsune). It is still a GREAT Pre at those numbers and his comments are as both a HP Pre and a 2.0 Channel Pre.