[gtbrown50]

Does anyone else feel that this amp needs a long warm-up (8 to 9 hours) to shine? Without the warm-up it sounds dull, too much smooth, congested and far less dynamic. After that, mid and bass become powerful, lean, clear and realistic by a large margin. When I shut the power off and rest it overnight, it becomes dull again.

Haven't noticed that...turn it on and off as needed.

 

[Zbell]

Love this amp so far, but does anyone else have an issue where the amp still produces sound when the volume pot is turned all the way down? I can still hear music (albeit at a very low volume) when the pot is turned all the way down, even at the lowest gain setting. I've never had this issue with previous amps, so I'm curious if the volume pot was just installed incorrectly or if this is a common issue.

 

[AndrewM888]

Love this amp so far, but does anyone else have an issue where the amp still produces sound when the volume pot is turned all the way down? I can still hear music (albeit at a very low volume) when the pot is turned all the way down, even at the lowest gain setting. I've never had this issue with previous amps, so I'm curious if the volume pot was just installed incorrectly or if this is a common issue.

Yes there's a tiny amount of bleed-through in the pot at nil. It's like 83 dB down. One of the unavoidable issue with analog audio.

DAC volume controls don't face this issue since the DAC can attenuate all the way down to its noise floor.

If it's still an issue for you, consider toggling the input switch or power switch to completely kill the audio. Or pause the source.

 

[Roen]

I am getting this amp and will receive at the end of December. My DAC is an audio gd r2r11. I am planning to use rca to xlr interconnect with it so that I can run my headphones(lcd2) balanced. Will it work? Will there be any issues?

The amp itself isn't fully differential balanced anyway.

Any XLR input it gets will be converted to SE within the amp and then converted back to balanced if you use the XLR output.

You might as well feed RCA into the amp and let the amp do the conversion.

If you had a DAC with a balanced out into the amp, you'll get a balanced signal in, conversion to single ended internally, then converted to balanced for XLR output.

 

[AndrewM888]

The amp itself isn't fully differential balanced anyway.

Any XLR input it gets will be converted to SE within the amp and then converted back to balanced if you use the XLR output.

You might as well feed RCA into the amp and let the amp do the conversion.

This isn't a correct analysis of the situation. Differential SE audio is handled properly within the chassis since the negative side isn't corrupted by noise currents. However SE audio on an RCA can be easily corrupted by CM noise current on the RCA shield which, multiplied by shield impedance, gives a noise voltage.
The OP's RCA to XLR will solve most of these issues by providing a preferred path for CM noise current to flow, leaving the SE negative wire unadulterated.
See my previous reply to the OP on this issue.

 

[Roen]

This isn't a correct analysis of the situation. Differential SE audio is handled properly within the chassis since the negative side isn't corrupted by noise currents. However SE audio on an RCA can be easily corrupted by CM noise current on the RCA shield which, multiplied by shield impedance, gives a noise voltage.
The OP's RCA to XLR will solve most of these issues by providing a preferred path for CM noise current to flow, leaving the SE negative wire unadulterated.
See my previous reply to the OP on this issue.

Do you have a link to such a cable?

 

[Roen]

Not impossible. With 789 it is possible to use RCA>XLR cable with this situation so long as cable is built properly (XLR pin 1 and pin 3 connect to RCA plug by separate wires). However, the R2R11 has XLR output - why not just use XLR cables?

http://www.audio-gd.com/R2R/R2R11/R2R11EN.htm

I don't see the XLR output?

 

[CoFire]

This isn't a correct analysis of the situation. Differential SE audio is handled properly within the chassis since the negative side isn't corrupted by noise currents. However SE audio on an RCA can be easily corrupted by CM noise current on the RCA shield which, multiplied by shield impedance, gives a noise voltage.
The OP's RCA to XLR will solve most of these issues by providing a preferred path for CM noise current to flow, leaving the SE negative wire unadulterated.
See my previous reply to the OP on this issue.

Seems a silly question given this amps measured performance, but is their a degradation tradeoff by not bring truly balanced throughout the architecture?

 

[Roen]

Seems a silly question given this amps measured performance, but is their a degradation tradeoff by not bring truly balanced throughout the architecture?

There's definitely a cost implication.

 

[Roen]

Not impossible. With 789 it is possible to use RCA>XLR cable with this situation so long as cable is built properly (XLR pin 1 and pin 3 connect to RCA plug by separate wires). However, the R2R11 has XLR output - why not just use XLR cables?

What does Pin 2 connect to?

 

[Roen]

this is not the product we are talking about, the dual AKM4493 dac+amp is the desktop monolith amplifier costing $479.99 excl tax....

also, the portable amp has 104dB SINAD. disregarding the usb noise for a moment, that is not bad really as far as I know, the really flawed products measure orders of magnitude worse

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/mon...pressions-thread.860046/page-19#post-14623994

FYI.

EDIT: What the hell am I doing linking you to something you've already responded to. It's a long Tuesday.

 

[swmtnbiker]

Folks, I'm currently using a Mimby+Massdrop CTH with my Clears and am wondering how this THX amp might pair with my DAC and headphones. Anyone out there using this amp with the Clear? If so how do you like it? I'd love to order the THX 789, but am worried that it's supposedly ultra-revealing sounds might be too much for the ultra-revealing Focal. I'm asking because I searched the thread and couldn't find any mention. Thanks!

 

[oqvist]

Folks, I'm currently using a Mimby+Massdrop CTH with my Clears and am wondering how this THX amp might pair with my DAC and headphones. Anyone out there using this amp with the Clear? If so how do you like it? I'd love to order the THX 789, but am worried that it's supposedly ultra-revealing sounds might be too much for the ultra-revealing Clear.

it suits the super ultra-revealing hd800s perfectly for my ears.

 

[swmtnbiker]

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Malcolm Riverside]

Folks, I'm currently using a Mimby+Massdrop CTH with my Clears and am wondering how this THX amp might pair with my DAC and headphones. Anyone out there using this amp with the Clear? If so how do you like it? I'd love to order the THX 789, but am worried that it's supposedly ultra-revealing sounds might be too much for the ultra-revealing Focal. I'm asking because I searched the thread and couldn't find any mention. Thanks!

THX 789 works great with my Utopia though I haven’t tried it with the Clear. I think it would be a case of the strong suits of the headphone and the amp complementing each other instead of being too much of a good thing. If you wanted to mitigate that super-revealing nature you might think of getting an NOS dac like something from MHDT Labs as they tend to have a very analog, easy-going sound.