[mowgli-kun]

Ember + tube rolling- my poor wallet.

The Polaris is such a hard act to beat with how customizable it is, can only imagine how much better the Ember might be.

 

[Amish]

The Polaris actually sounds quite a lot like the Ember. You can without a doubt tell they are part of the same family. That said, the Ember is a more musical choice and can roll a plethora of tubes. This amp is very sensitive to tubes. It's a blast trying out different tubes for sure. I purchased the original Ember, sold it. Full of regret I bought the Ember II, sold it. I have regretted that sale as well. I'll pick another one up eventually but the next time I do, it will never leave my collection.

When I had the Ember I also had the Bryston BHA-1. While the BHA-1 was a solid amp, it was trumped by the Ember in musicality and I found myself not wanting to use the Bryston at all. The Ember also has a lot of power on tap for such a small footprint.

 

[Cho Worsh]

Gone fishing.

 

[Cho Worsh]

. As to the "musicality" aspect:

https://darko.audio/2018/05/musicality-talks-loud-says-nothing/

To me, the revised Topping L30 has superior sound.

 

[Amish]

I still own the Polaris as well. It is a great amp! Our preference may differ @Cho Worsh but we can both agree that both amps are enjoyable.
I have one of the early Polaris amps. #8 to be exact. Though I have sold two Embers, I still own the Polaris and doubt I'll ever sell it even if it does collect dust on the shelf 98% of the time. Back when it came out though, it received a lot of attention from me.

 

[fortunate son]

My favorite tube with the Ember when I owned it was the 6SN7. Sometimes I used the Ember/6SN7 as a tube buffer inserted into the chain in front of my solid state headamp to euphonize the somewhat discordant sound the solid state amp delivered on some recordings. Another little discussed tube in head-fi circles that I like with the Ember is 12AY7. It is a favorite of rock guitarists for certain circuits in their guitar amps. It is much lower in gain that the 12AX7, 12AT7 or 12AU7 which, with the Ember, gives you the ability to turn the volume knob up to a higher setting than you can with the higher gain tubes in the 12A tube series. Yes, the Ember has an insane amount of gain with a tube such as 12AX7. "Experts" say, volume pots sound best when set at the 11 o'clock or higher position. In any event, the Ember has sooo much gain with some tubes that things get way too loud even when the volume knob is set at just above zero.

 

[iFi audio]

I still own the Polaris as well. It is a great amp! Our preference may differ @Cho Worsh but we can both agree that both amps are enjoyable.
I have one of the early Polaris amps. #8 to be exact. Though I have sold two Embers, I still own the Polaris and doubt I'll ever sell it even if it does collect dust on the shelf 98% of the time. Back when it came out though, it received a lot of attention from me.

I'm not sure whether it's just me, but there's something strangely appealing about acrylic enclosures that show what's inside

 

[RedBull]

I'm not sure whether it's just me, but there's something strangely appealing about acrylic enclosures that show what's inside

Not just you LoL.

But I also have the CNC at the same time. I feel more secure pushing the tubes down with the thick CNC as the base.

 

[bequietjk]

I'm not sure whether it's just me, but there's something strangely appealing about acrylic enclosures that show what's inside

Yesssssss. I've always wondered what a acrylic-style Vioelectric V281 would look like.

 

[iFi audio]

Yesssssss. I've always wondered what a acrylic-style Vioelectric V281 would look like.

Probably hot

https://www.brinkmann-audio.de/bild.php?nyquist.jpg

 

[jbarrentine]

It's been a long time since I plugged this amp in, and here recently I decided to ditch objective "perfection" for a while and on playing with this little amp again I'm shocked I didn't remember how punchy it was. What a little joy. The thick aluminum "enclosure" is just glorious too. Anyone else still using it? If not what did you move to?

 

[Hyde00]

It's been a long time since I plugged this amp in, and here recently I decided to ditch objective "perfection" for a while and on playing with this little amp again I'm shocked I didn't remember how punchy it was. What a little joy. The thick aluminum "enclosure" is just glorious too. Anyone else still using it? If not what did you move to?

I sold mine but lately start to really miss it, currently using Violectric V200 and Lyr 3 (undecided which I like better yet).

But I started looking at my old Project Polaris pictures and want to give it another go. That being said, at this point I'm more interested in tubes so I might actually pick up Project Solstice instead.

 

[jbarrentine]

I sold mine but lately start to really miss it, currently using Violectric V200 and Lyr 3 (undecided which I like better yet).

But I started looking at my old Project Polaris pictures and want to give it another go. That being said, at this point I'm more interested in tubes so I might actually pick up Project Solstice instead.

Why not Ember II? For that matter, aren't Ember and Polaris supposed to sound the same? I remember something like that from years ago.

Addendum: The Qutest really seems to add a tremendous sense of space with the Polaris, much more so than with the THX 789/One.

 

[Hyde00]

Why not Ember II? For that matter, aren't Ember and Polaris supposed to sound the same? I remember something like that from years ago.

Ehhhhh since my headphone is 25 Ohm, I checked power graph and Ember would be 1W at 25 Ohm and Solstice is 0.8W at 25 Ohm so both would be plenty.

But I actually remember Polaris being too powerful for my headphone (too loud) so having less power is actually more desirable here lol. Oh and I remember now the reason I sold it was because it sounded off with attenuation module on, and with it off it sounds better but loud LOL.

As for Ember vs Polaris, I demoed my friend's Ember a long time ago so take it with grain of salt lol. But from memory I think Polaris has better bass but Ember being tube amp is a bit better at space / imaging and a little bit more pronounced treble. Different strengths.

But most importantly Solstice is $100 cheaper than Ember LOL I'm cheap these days. I want to use the $100 saved to buy tube adapters.

 

[bequietjk]

Man I wish Jeremy and Solderdude collab again and start making some stuff.