Another killer amp pairing with my Tungsten DS is the Soncoz SGP1 speaker power amp. I was running my Zähl HM1 and Cayin HA-3A for now and they both do a fantastic job driving my Tungsten DS - especially with the hot output from my Wandla DAC. But both have their strength in certain areas but also areas that I know Tungsten can do better. So I set out to look for an amp that manages to combine those strength. And since I heard Tungsten on the Soncoz already earlier this year at a meet - and liked that pairing very much - I decided to give it another chance in my home setup when it went on sale a few weeks back.
And I have to say I haven't been disappointed. Going Wanlda --> Zähl HM1 as pre --> SGP1 manages to improve Tungsten in several areas. The bass gets very punchy and impactful and super controlled. Mids have a very nice tonal density to them and add an addictive tactility to the sound. The treble sounds clearer and makes it super easy to positions single elements of the music - especially in busy passages and orchestral music. Soundstage is also very wide and I'm surprised how much depth it can pull off as well. Especially compared to another XTZ A2-300 Class D power amp that I had tried with Tungsten before pulling the trigger on SGP1. That amp added tons of bass but the rest was pretty underwhelming. Thin mids, harsh highs, hardly any depth to the sound. Just very unenjoyable overall. Still happy to have tried it and have the comparison to SGP1. Because it shows that they don't just sound good on any speaker amp but profit a lot from quality amplification and the right synergy.
The only thing that I was missing compared to my other amps was a bit of warmth and a bit sweeter treble. Trying to alleviate that I hooked up a Xduoo MT-603 tube buffer I still had in a box somewhere and put it between HM1 and SGP1. Just to see what happens and also to see how SGP1 handles a single ended source (only has XLR inputs).
What followed caught me pretty off guard because it unlocked a completely new level of audio enjoyment for me. It added just the right amount of warmth and sweetness that glued the whole sound together to one organic unit. To a level that no other setup has manged for me yet.
That showed me that SGP1 + some kind of tube pre would be the way going forward. Since truly balanced preamps are far and in between and also often not very desk friendly I was happy that SGP1 doesn't really seem to care if it's fed XLR or single ended via RCA -> XLR cable. That opened up new possibilities concerning tube pre amps and I remembered a friend yielded amazing results with his Feliks Elise as tube pre. Luckily I was able to find a used Feliks Euforia that I bought pretty much on the spot. It's going to replace the little Xduoo box as tube pre as soon as it arrives. So very excited to find out what it is able to bring to the mix.
I'm aware that it's not the most conventional chain to drive headphones that I'm building here. And Tungsten don't NEED all this to sound amazing. They just have so much potential in them and have reached a level for me that at this point I wouldn't even know what other headphone I'd rather listen to music with. Even at double or triple the price. I've not owned but at least listened to most of the TOTL headphones and none have caused an emotional reaction like Tungsten do in this setup. And that's what it's all about in the end - right?
I'll report back once Euforia was added to the chain