[HereticArchitect]

Does it feel cheap physically? Light weight?

 

[c3po]

Does it feel cheap physically? Light weight?

The Cayin Ha-1mk2 is substantial chunk of equipment, very heavy and the Real wood panels are beautiful

 

[HereticArchitect]

The Cayin Ha-1mk2 is substantial chunk of equipment, very heavy and the Real wood panels are beautiful

Oh i see, thanks. Im still a bit skeptic about brands that have an official store in aliexpress, hehe

 

[TheThingGoesSkrrr]

how is this amp holding up in 2020?

 

[c3po]

Oh i see, thanks. Im still a bit skeptic about brands that have an official store in aliexpress, hehe

I bought mine through a UK HIFI dealer where I was able to listen to it, they even offered Home Trial but it was so good I just bought it. They deal in really High End products like MBL, Acoustic Signature, No LoFI there. Check their Website “AudioEmotion”

 

[c3po]

how is this amp holding up in 2020?

I bought mine in February this year and as far as I was concerned an Valve Amp is old School and unlikely to suffer from latest fad dac problems.
Quite a few of the newest Valve amps contain DACs so they have built in obsolescence this one doesn’t.

 

[SHADRICK]

Greetings fellas,

I just got a preowned HA1A MK2 for a steal price ($250) . It's on stock tubes. I had planned on upgrading the stock 12AU7 to Gold Lions but sadly they are unavailable in India. My only options are Mullard and Telefunken. Will there be a sonic difference if I upgrade the stock tubes to either the Mullard or Telefunken or would it be better sourcing the Gold Lions from overseas ?

Regards,
Sanket

Hi Sanket,

Firstly congrats on owning one and I am also curious to know the place where you got this pre-owned from india.

 

[iFi audio]

Valve Amp is old School and unlikely to suffer from latest fad dac problems.

A good DAC is relevant for many years, but yes, they eventually become obsolete for some tasks and valve amps don't

 

[Andykong]

A good DAC is relevant for many years, but yes, they eventually become obsolete for some tasks and valve amps don't

Thank you, given the strong commitment of iFi on DAC and headphone amplifier products, this is a very good statement to tube headphone amplifier customers.

 

[iFi audio]

Thank you, given the strong commitment of iFi on DAC and headphone amplifier products, this is a very good statement to tube headphone amplifier customers.

@Andykong

 

[Lubak]

Hi guys, I'm new here (first post actually) so apologies in advance. But I have some questions and I hope that's the right place to ask. I read the whole thread but ended up a little more confused than before and also it's my first tube amp so I have no reference point.

I got the Cayin HA-1A Mk2 about a month ago and so far I'm loving it. I changed the stock 12au7 tubes to the Genalex Gold Lion as suggested earlier in the thread. I do however hear an audible albeit rather faint hiss when the amp is idle. And it increases with increasing the impedance selection, does not change when turning the volume knob. So is this the normal noise associated with tube amps, or is that the 'something's wrong with my unit' kinda noise? Oddly enough it is most prominent with my highest impedance headphones - the Beyerdynamic T1 2nd (600 ohm), while it's virtually undetectable with the Ananda for example, which have impedance of 25 Ohms I think. So, is this normal? If not, is it fixable? I should say I use one wall socket for the amp, another one for the dac (topping e30) and my laptop is on battery mode, no power cable plugged anywhere. Should I change the power tubes as well in order to fix that?

PS: I also hear the ringing noise decaying when the amp is turned off and a slam on the desk would produce such ringing as well, as described by other users earlier in the thread. I don't know if that's an important detail.

Anyways, thanks for reading and any help would be much appreciated!
Cheers

 

[adorno]

Hi guys, I'm new here (first post actually) so apologies in advance. But I have some questions and I hope that's the right place to ask. I read the whole thread but ended up a little more confused than before and also it's my first tube amp so I have no reference point.

I got the Cayin HA-1A Mk2 about a month ago and so far I'm loving it. I changed the stock 12au7 tubes to the Genalex Gold Lion as suggested earlier in the thread. I do however hear an audible albeit rather faint hiss when the amp is idle. And it increases with increasing the impedance selection, does not change when turning the volume knob. So is this the normal noise associated with tube amps, or is that the 'something's wrong with my unit' kinda noise? Oddly enough it is most prominent with my highest impedance headphones - the Beyerdynamic T1 2nd (600 ohm), while it's virtually undetectable with the Ananda for example, which have impedance of 25 Ohms I think. So, is this normal? If not, is it fixable? I should say I use one wall socket for the amp, another one for the dac (topping e30) and my laptop is on battery mode, no power cable plugged anywhere. Should I change the power tubes as well in order to fix that?

PS: I also hear the ringing noise decaying when the amp is turned off and a slam on the desk would produce such ringing as well, as described by other users earlier in the thread. I don't know if that's an important detail.

Anyways, thanks for reading and any help would be much appreciated!
Cheers

Hi, Lubak, did you get anywhere with this? I believe I have the same problem as you, cannot find what's causing it. There seems to be no damage to the amp itself, no ground loop or electrical interference

 

[Lubak]

Hi, Lubak, did you get anywhere with this? I believe I have the same problem as you, cannot find what's causing it. There seems to be no damage to the amp itself, no ground loop or electrical interference

Hi,
Well since writing this post i changed the power tubes as well - again with the Genalex Gold Lion (like Andy Kong's combination) and i think that decreased the noise a little. Now, the tubes are brand new and i don't know if they need any burn-in time (if that's even a thing with tubes) and at this point i'm not even sure it's not my mind and the psycho-acoustic effect playing tricks on me. But yeah, who knows. The thing is i also contacted another user via IM (from one of the headphone groups in FB) and asked them to share their experience with the amp and they said pretty much the same thing - with Hifiman HE1K there's no audible noise, but with their HD800s on 300Ohm selection there is an audible noise floor. Which kinda confirms my experience and i guess did set my mind at ease a little. I was concerned because some users here in the thread speak of pitch black noise floor and THX levels of noiseless-ness which is not my experience, and naturally caused me to doubt whether my unit is faulty. Like you I too don't think it is, despite the crackling sounds i hear at shut-down and the ringing if i hit the desk harder, which is still there, i think the higher noise floor is something normal. In the booklet the unit is listed as having THD of 1% at 1kHz, so distortion is present.

Another thing is that the noise changes with the impedance selector movement, at lower selected values there is virtually no audible noise, so if push came to shove i can always just roll back the knob to the left till it's quiet.
And finally, there were people in the thread who also shared the same experience - who changed a number of tubes, describing their sonic characteristics but confirming that at high impedance there still is some audible noise ( grizzlybeast ). So in the end i think nothing's really wrong with the amp; is it the same loudness and frequency as the other users - i have no way to verify, tubes are different, headphones are different, hell even people's ears are different. I wish i could have someone triple-confirm this to set my mind at ease, cause i did spend quite a chunk on the unit, but that's not possible. So yeah, i don't think there's anything wrong, at least to my understanding. I do of course, as i mentioned earlier, come from a background of no tube experience at all, so i'm just making the best of what i read...

Cheers!

 

[Andykong]

@Lubak the simple reason is, the output at 600Ω is significantly higher then 32Ω, so the noise floor is also higher, take a look at the following table.



According to the specification of HA-1AMK2, the rated power output of the amplifier at different impedance are as follows:
1400mW+1400mW (@32Ω)
850mW+850mW (@64Ω)
1200mW+1200mW (@150Ω)
2000mW+2000mW (@300Ω)
2200mW+2200mW (@600Ω)

We can convert this into rated power level, so at 32Ω, HA-1Amk2 outputs 6.69Vrms to the 6.35mm headphone port, but at 600Ω, the output is increased to 36.33Vrms. That's why when you change to a higher impedance setting, the background noise will be higher. You probably won't hear the noise at 32, 64 and 150, but it should become audible at 300Ω and 600Ω.

 

[muths66]

I just received my used ha1a i do have some ringing sound or watever it is when off /on other then that is working perfectly ok with my iems/hp. Now looking at rca clear top ecc82.