[Adol Won]

It is Sundara that ship by UPS.
I already got Sundara on July.
HPA is ship from Poland.
When you get tracking No. from Poland, You must wait about 10 days.
I got HPA on 28th July but can not turn on HPA that's why I can not test then I returned HPA to Mytek.
I wait new HPA but longtime wait again.

https://blog.naver.com/wytaek/222465969331

 

[AlanHell]

It is Sundara that ship by UPS.
I already got Sundara on July.
HPA is ship from Poland.
When you get tracking No. from Poland, You must wait about 10 days.
I got HPA on 28th July but can not turn on HPA that's why I can not test then I returned HPA to Mytek.
I wait new HPA but longtime wait again.

https://blog.naver.com/wytaek/222465969331

My dealer says they ship directly from New York, so I guess it depends on the region. I assume I am getting the second batch as it is just been shipped yesterday. Hope mine arrived without any issue.

 

[kwansheungchi]

I did have a Mytek DAC did not power up which I brought new directly from them, they did respond quickly and arrange a replacement.

 

[AlanHell]

Just got the amp today.

The initial impression is pretty good. The amp have plenty of power to drive most all my phones. Will give it a little bit of time to open up. This is a very space efficient amp and I can just it to my rack

 

[kwansheungchi]

Congratulations! Strange that I still got no update on the tracking info, I will have to contact them to see what happen.

 

[elrom]

Caveat emptor: I'm very much an "amateur" audiophile.

Just got mine yesterday. First impression (after maybe 3 hours of listening): impressed. My setup at least for right now is: schiit modi multibit -> liberty amp -> mrspeakers / dan clark Aeon 2 closed. Comparing to my previous amp (first gen Schiit Jotunheim), I feel like I'm hearing _so_ many more sounds that were going unnoticed before. Everything just sounds way punchier / livelier. Maybe this is more about moving away from the polarizing schiit "vailed" sound? Either way, this definitely feels like a huge upgrade (the liberty is ~3x the price of the jot after all).

I'm replacing the modi by Mytek's liberty dac 2, whenever that actually ships.

Edit:
Also holy bass. Listening to Ramin Djawadi's Wicked Games is almost overwhelming at times now. Again, this might be more that the jot was weak in this area, but the difference is undeniable.

 

[AlanHell]

Caveat emptor: I'm very much an "amateur" audiophile.

Just got mine yesterday. First impression (after maybe 3 hours of listening): impressed. My setup at least for right now is: schiit modi multibit -> liberty amp -> mrspeakers / dan clark Aeon 2 closed. Comparing to my previous amp (first gen Schiit Jotunheim), I feel like I'm hearing _so_ many more sounds that were going unnoticed before. Everything just sounds way punchier / livelier. Maybe this is more about moving away from the polarizing schiit "vailed" sound? Either way, this definitely feels like a huge upgrade (the liberty is ~3x the price of the jot after all).

I'm replacing the modi by Mytek's liberty dac 2, whenever that actually ships.

Edit:
Also holy bass. Listening to Ramin Djawadi's Wicked Games is almost overwhelming at times now. Again, this might be more that the jot was weak in this area, but the difference is undeniable.

I also felt the upgrade in power does make the bass better for both my T1 and HE6 in terms of quntatiy and quality. Glade you also liking yours~

 

[AlanHell]

OK, some initial impressions:

Even though it has an IEM port and market to have low noise floor for efficient IEMs. The truth is, it is not very good for highly sensitive multi-driver custom IEMs. When plug in my UM mentor, the noise floor is quite high, and even with -12dB, I think the gain is still too much. I can just use 5% of the volume nob, and any thing above that is already too loud. For the less sensitive Sony EX1000, it is much better in terms of noise, but I still would not say this amp is really usable for IEM. I have many classic music that has very high dynamic range, and the noise floor is just too visible for me to enjoy those music.

On the flip side, this amp does work well with a large range of full size headphones. With the correct gain setting, this amp performs very well with my HE6 and AD7200. The HE6 has good sound stage and very controlled bass which is quite hard to achieve with an under powered amp. And the AD7200 also sound much smoother on -12dB gain. Most of the time, I am getting slightly harsher tones when powered my AD7200 through desktop amps. I think most of the amp are too powerful for theAD7200, and end up over drive it. It is good to know that the -12dB attenuation matches with headphone well. Although the amp is very linear, but the T1 gains much more bass presence out of it due to the massive power head room. I prefer the T1 on this amp much more to my HDVD800. The warm Empyrean also benefit a lot from the clean and linear output. Compare to the warmer RPX-35, this amp tights up the bass more, which makes the mid-range revels detail more easily. I think the HD800 and HD800s are the only pairs that do not show clear benefit from this amp. However, I think it is because the HDVD800 is a very good amp and matches with these phones very well. Hence, having similar sound quality is not actually a bad thing.

overall, I think I have reached my goal of purchasing this amp. It is as clean as the HDVD800, as powerful as the NFB-1AMP, and can drive portable cans as well as the RPX-35. I will have no problem to keep this amp as my only daily driver from now on.

 

[alekc]

Is there anyone who has Benchmark HPA4 at hand to do some side by side testing?

 

[AlanHell]

Is there anyone who has Benchmark HPA4 at hand to do some side by side testing?

I will wish to have that as well. I would assume the noise floor will be better given the price and my DAC1's performance.
So far this amp has no attention in the comunitiy that I can barely find any review on it.

 

[Fitski]

I've had the Mytek Liberty THX AAA for over a week now and also own a Benchmark HPA4. Two key observations:

• Mytek achieves much more powerful sub-bass than Benchmark. Still linear, perfect tonal balance, no distortion, but it underscores the power limitation of the Benchmark. The Mytek is more like listening to big speakers.
• Mytek sounds filtered (but not quite veiled) with noticeable treble roll-off compared to Benchmark. It's so significant that I have resorted to setting my DAC filter to Slow or even NOS, and it still doesn't fully compensate for the missing spaciousness.

I would say the soundstage is taller with Mytek due to the excellent sub-bass extension, but much narrower due to the lack of air. So people who are used to fully balanced amps might find the soundstage uncomfortably narrow (I still do). I found the same conclusions when comparing the Mytek to SMSL SP400. The SP400 was surprisingly more airy than Mytek, but SP400 has even less power headroom than Benchmark so quickly becomes insufficient for insensitive headphones.

Other brief (and rough) comparisons done so far, adding Violectric V280 and V281 into the mix:

• Sub-bass under load: Mytek > V280 > Benchmark >= V281 > SP400
• Tonal balance / linearity under load: Mytek > Benchmark > V280 > SP400 >= V281
• Air / spaciousness: Benchmark > V281 > SP400 > V280 > Mytek
• Midrange power: V281 > V280 > Mytek > Benchmark > SP400

"under load" means testing with Hifiman Susvara. The Mytek is the only desktop amp I have found that can adequately drive sub-bass on Susvaras and give a realistic bass decay. Lesser-powered amps seem to have all attack (blip/pop sounds) and no decay when given a heavy load. And somehow Mytek has the smallest chassis of the lot and never gets above luke warm. Impressive.

The lack of air in the Mytek isn't all bad either. Its imaging and depth still exceeds that of the Violectric amps even if I consider them more spacious in soundstage width. Thanks THX.

Mytek's build quality is stunning, really solid while also beautiful. But you could almost say the same about Benchmark and Violectric. Only SMSL misses the grade there, but for the price that's totally understandable.

The purchasing experience was slow, but that's not unheard of with small manufacturers of high-end equipment. I ordered in October, payment was accepted immediately, then got no response to any of my emails for the next month. Finally after finding the private email address of a Mytek employee I got a response from the founder Michal who said it would be sent the next day. Actually it took another 10 days to get a tracking number and then another 14 days to arrive (the final part is because I'm in Australia). Overall two months from order to delivery. And now I find my bonus Sundaras are faulty so hopefully can get that rectified after the holidays.

Overall Mytek seems to have achieved something unique - unmatched power in a THX AAA headphone amp. I only wish there was more space in this concert hall... Maybe a fully balanced (4 amplifier) design in the next model please Michal?

I hope some people found my first post useful. Obviously I've been collecting gear for a while already.

 

[alekc]

@Fitski thank you for great write up and comparison. Could you tell me more what dac/dacs have you been using with Mytek? I would suspect that amp has been designed with Mytek Liberty, Brooklyn DAC+ and Bridge in mind. Your notes about filters makes my suspicion even stronger

I didn't have a chance to listen to Mytek THX AAA amp yet unfortunately, but considering how much I like both Brooklyn Bridge and AMP+ I really would like to spent some time with it. Also the small factor is strongly appealing to me.

 

[Fitski]

Could you tell me more what dac/dacs have you been using with Mytek? I would suspect that amp has been designed with Mytek Liberty, Brooklyn DAC+ and Bridge in mind. Your notes about filters makes my suspicion even stronger

@alekc, those comparisons were done with RME ADI-2 Pro FS R.

 

[acupunk]

Fitski I am thinking of getting the Mytek thx headphone amp for a pair of hedd phones. I also was considering the Rme adi-2 pro.
That was recommended from hedd. Any thoughts? I don’t really need a dac but would be nice to listen to music off my iPad.

 

[Fitski]

Fitski I am thinking of getting the Mytek thx headphone amp for a pair of hedd phones. I also was considering the Rme adi-2 pro.
That was recommended from hedd. Any thoughts? I don’t really need a dac but would be nice to listen to music off my iPad.

@acupunk, I'm not totally sure how to answer that.

If you just need a headphone amplifier then the Mytek THX AAA is more powerful and more linear than RME ADI-2 products.

If you "don't really need a DAC" then RME's Pro products would be an expensive waste of money. Also the RME interface can be very complicated to use so you need to want all those features or else it's a pain to live with. But you do need a DAC somewhere between your iPad and headphones, using either a USB connection or Bluetooth. For a pure DAC with the best sound quality that you should be able to connect to your iPad, I would recommend the Topping D90SE (and finding the right USB cables/adapters). It's much simpler to use than RME ADI-2 products and half the price of the RME ADI-2 Pro FS R.

But you also need a headphone amplifier, and on that note I can say the Mytek Liberty THX AAA is way more capable than the RME ADI-2 Pro FS R.

I would only recommend the RME ADI-2 products if:

• You want your DAC and amplifier in one small package; or
• You want your DAC to have a huge number of features and professional options.

For pure analog headphone amplification the Mytek Liberty THX AAA is easily a better option than RME providing you already have a DAC.