[AMKAM]

never had thx AAA 789 but i hear Cayin - iHA-6 is close or better than 789. so what is Cayin - iHA-6 sound like and how does it do now when A90 and A90d or even Singxer - SA-1 are available.
i know i am throwing everything which are different in sound but i am curious and also thinking about fiio K9 (all in one) which is loved by dms and z reviews, they never like the same thing!!!.
iHA-6 has something called power and it makes warm sound so i am into it

 

[thecrow]

never had thx AAA 789 but i hear Cayin - iHA-6 is close or better than 789. so what is Cayin - iHA-6 sound like and how does it do now when A90 and A90d or even Singxer - SA-1 are available.
i know i am throwing everything which are different in sound but i am curious and also thinking about fiio K9 (all in one) which is loved by dms and z reviews, they never like the same thing!!!.
iHA-6 has something called power and it makes warm sound so i am into it

Iha6 does not make warm sound

i owned for about a year

the good and bad:

It has heaps of power and is great value!!!

i used to think it was on the lively side of neutral. It almost is.
But when I bought the auralic taurus mk ii and had them both I realised, in comparison, the iha6 had a bit more energy up top than what i thought.
It was great with my focal elears…back then
I also found, in comparison that the iha 6 was a little grainy/rough up top. I did not think so till i bought the auralic so (again) in comparison

But these “short comings” are only in comparison with the Taurus which used to sell for 2-3 times the price

from memory i think the iha7 was a fuller bodied souind, at least i do not remember it ever as thin

so again the iha6 is great value

Note: the iha6 also has a high output impedance unless you are using the balanced hp connections where it is a great 0.3 ohm

i have not heard any of the other amps you listed

Hope that helps

 

[ishmaelk]

I have had the Cayin IHA-6 for four months now and I can only compare it to the Soloist 3X, Jotunheim 2, Lyr 3.
The separation and depth are so good. I had a Jotunheim 2 when I bought the IHA-6 and after comparing them, I realized how much deeper the sound was with the IHA-6, to the point I couldn't listen to the Jot2 anymore. As much as I liked it before, I was simply hooked on the IHA-6 detail, separation and depth. The difference wasn't subtle.
It is true that the single ended outputs, specially the one for high impedance, is stupidly high impedance. Maybe they were thinking of the Sennheiser HD800S or something like that, and they thought adding a 150 ohm resistance would improve the sound. But for the HD6XX, it just bloats the sound so much that I can only use the balanced output.
This is a fantastic amp that I hope I can enjoy for many years.

 

[Polky74]

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since that distant 2016 when Cayin launched, almost silently, the iDAC-6 and iHA-6 pairing, one seemed the ideal companion for the other, but time has done what it wanted done from the beginning, consider them complementary but not necessarily and inextricably linked. The iHA-6 is still very current due to its size, value for money, general performance and versatility. I can't comment on the DAC because I've never listened to it. Thanks to the halving of the list price, the iHA-6 which already in 2016 was considered by many to be a best buy, is even more so today. Small but very heavy, very powerful, extremely refined with its double type of amplification which is a spectacle in itself and above all with a practically transparent sound. I use it with all the dongles I own (iBasso DC04PRO-L&P W1/W4-Questyle M15-CayinRU6/RU7) and thanks to it I can finally enjoy my beloved Sennheiser HD800S to their maximum potential. Its best feature (besides the power to drive anything) is that it is simply transparent and that doesn't mean being aseptic, sterile or soulless as you might think but rather it welcomes the sound of the DAC it is amplifying and makes it the " its sound" (what every amplifier should do in my opinion, but almost no one does) allowing the listener to grasp all the nuances and differences of the dac/dongle to which it is connected, even the most hidden and apparently insignificant ones. The sweetness of the RU6, the musicality of the RU7, the precision of the DC04PRO, the power of the M15, the analytical nature of the W1/W4... everything will be revealed without possible misunderstandings. The HD800S, which if not driven well seem too bright and with very timid bass, become floorstanding speakers as sharp as razors but as musical as real wooden speakers, and it is not just a question of quantity of current but above all of intensity, cleanliness, fullness and quality to work the miracle. For lovers of planar headphones there is the current amplification mode which makes them shine even more, removing the typical veil that inadequate amplifications add to that type of headphones. In a word the iHA-6 is a stratospheric amplifier! When things are done well they are ageless and he is like that, he is ageless, also because he makes the new super-dongles sound wonderful, very far from his time but close to ours. For 600/700 euros you cannot buy any amplifier that can come close to it and most likely even by spending much more, perhaps with four times its cost we are almost there.

P.S. I always recommend everything in balance, it deserves it.