[ubs28]

It's a fantastic SS amp if you want a SS amp to sound like a tube amp. Tyll keeps calling it his reference amp. In my opinion a reference SS amp should have the best SS can offer. The 430HA doesn't do this. It is rather flawed.
At the time I had it, my tube amp had more treble detail. That is unheard of. A tube amp beating a SS amp in detail. What!
We were using a special test track and certain detail was missing from the 430 HA.
Then we did a speed test. Geez the 430HA was slow and sloppy. It fell apart. The 430HA is primarily designed to sound like a tube amp. If you want a tube amp without the hassle of tubes then it's a good option. I would rather have a SS amp that showed the benefits of SS and a tube amp for when you want to mellow things down. That's what I ended up doing.

At the time we had the 430HA, 230HA, Auralic Taurus, Violectric V281 and Oppo HA-1 we ranked the amps like this (best to worse)

Violectric V281*, 230HA (it's design is not flawed and better than the 430HA), Auralic Taurus (a little cold sounding), 430HA and then the Oppo HA-1 (geez that was bad and miles behind). All amps being runned off one DAC the Auralic Vega.

*tested on the XLR output where it uses 4 amps to drive the headphones. Purely brilliant stuff. The single end is not as good.

A legendary mastering engineer called the 430 fake tubey and soft sounding also. So I'm quite confused also why Tyll calls it a reference amp.

 

[Badas]

You are most certainly entitled to your opinion but there are a ton of awards and thrilled owners out there who would disagree....the 430 is one of the very best reviewed products i have ever seen....

Of course there will be fans. There are masses of amounts of HP listeners that like tubes. I'm one of them. However a SS amp that destroys detail is entry level rubbish and should not be used to review HP's. A amp that provides full spectrum sound should be used.

I'm not saying the 430HA sounded awful. It was nice sounding. However if you own a tube amp don't bother. If you want the best SS can offer then it's not the amp and there is no way it is reference or should be used to evaluate.

A legendary mastering engineer called the 430 fake tubey and soft sounding also. So I'm quite confused also why Tyll calls it a reference amp.

Exactly.

 

[RCBinTN]

Personally, when I read Tyll's review of the Ether Flow C, I thought the Focal Utopia kept getting in the way of his impressions of the Flow C.  

 

[musicday]

Very interesting... Tyll basically just wrote a mini retraction about the Ether C Flows not making it to the wall of fame:

http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/i-made-bad-call-mrspeakers-ether-c-flow-makes-wall-fame

As stated by Mr Speakers itself both Ether Flow and Ether C Flow benefit troumendously from the burn in effect, Tyll mentioned nothing about that,but he said the older model was a better one in his opinion, which I think is wrong.
Maybe he rushed with the review and didn't spent enough time with it.

 

[sunneebear]

A public apology. Man Tyll, that must have hertsome...

Sorry, someone had to do it. Way to man up to a mistake Tyll.

 

[mrspeakers]

Well, we certainly appreciate Tyll's reconsideration on the Wall of Fame; it's really great that he thought so hard about this! 
 
Also, I'm pleased to say our new employees have really come on strong; we've been working 6 days a week, some of the team has been putting in overtime, and we've been relentlessly improving our production processes so not only are we pretty much finally caught up to back log, but all orders will ship in time for Christmas and Hannukah. 
 
As a result, we are all setup for upgrades in volume starting next month, we may even ship notices to the first group starting this month. 

 

[heliosphann]

  Well, we certainly appreciate Tyll's reconsideration on the Wall of Fame; it's really great that he thought so hard about this! 
 
Also, I'm pleased to say our new employees have really come on strong; we've been working 6 days a week, some of the team has been putting in overtime, and we've been relentlessly improving our production processes so not only are we pretty much finally caught up to back log, but all orders will ship in time for Christmas and Hannukah. 
 
As a result, we are all setup for upgrades in volume starting next month, we may even ship notices to the first group starting this month. 

 
Woo hoo! Great news for the holidays.

 

[MattTCG]

A public apology. Man Tyll, that must have hertsome...

Sorry, someone had to do it. Way to man up to a mistake Tyll.

 
IMO this was a very classy act. Many people are too prideful to ever admit being less than perfect or even revising their opinion on something they've declared. Big props to Tyll. 

 

[Middy]

Would that include Mark's Electro Mod Batch?
With a premium product it as much attitude as aptitude....
Setting up product lines is a nightmare at times but new workers have fresh eyes and hopefully ask questions you didn't see ..or just lived with.....
Cutting corners on time doesnt always mean cutting standards... Getting the best out of suppliers trading skills to help the common good....
Boms drawings work flows...machine skills...I hope people realise the effort just to turn the lights on in a company and design make things....
7 years in manufacturing Engineering makes me regret all the it's them fools statements from being an machinist ..assembler tester ...Soldering tech..
Running the whole show.. I can't get my head around that..I like my little corner of the world.....

 

[Sonic Defender]

   
IMO this was a very classy act. Many people are too prideful to ever admit being less than perfect or even revising their opinion on something they've declared. Big props to Tyll. 

I'm not so sure, he didn't really retract what he said, he softened it just a hair at best. What I read is that he created a new "criterion" for WOF inclusion, but beyond that I don't read any substantive retraction.

 

[mrspeakers]

Would that include Mark's Electro Mod Batch?
With a premium product it as much attitude as aptitude....
Setting up product lines is a nightmare at times but new workers have fresh eyes and hopefully ask questions you didn't see ..or just lived with.....
Cutting corners on time doesnt always mean cutting standards... Getting the best out of suppliers trading skills to help the common good....
Boms drawings work flows...machine skills...I hope people realise the effort just to turn the lights on in a company and design make things....
7 years in manufacturing Engineering makes me regret all the it's them fools statements from being an machinist ..assembler tester ...Soldering tech..
Running the whole show.. I can't get my head around that..I like my little corner of the world.....

Yes, his large order shipped and should be there shortly if not already.
 
Nice summary, you captured a lot of it!  It's really hard to grow staff and suppliers and improve quality and yield at the same time.  
 
Of course you also have to include personal emergencies, turnover, cashflow management, accounting and taxes, HR issues, unexpected equipment downtime, it's pretty never ending.   
 
OK, off to go see Rogue One.  
 

 

 

[heliosphann]

  I'm not so sure, he didn't really retract what he said, he softened it just a hair at best. What I read is that he created a new "criterion" for WOF inclusion, but beyond that I don't read any substantive retraction.

Tyll's hitting that Egg Nog reallhy hard this time of year. 

 

[Sonic Defender]

  Tyll's hitting that Egg Nog reallhy hard this time of year. 

I'm still thinking the beard has a part to play in all of this.

 

[GU1DO]

Hi all ..
 
I have one question ..
 
How is the ETHER C Flow (sound stage) and (bass) compare to :
 
Fostex TH-900 ?
 
And ETHER  Flow ?
 
Thanks in advance ..

 

[doraymon]

Hi all ..

I have one question ..

How is the ETHER C Flow (sound stage) and (bass) compare to :

Fostex TH-900 ?

And ETHER  Flow ?

Thanks in advance ..

Can I add the Beyerdynamic T5p 2nd gen to the list, in case anyone had the chance to do a direct comparison?