jlangholzj
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2015
- Posts
- 42
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- 84
Thank you for the follow up and additional info. Nice to see the Bimby + Vali 2+ HD-650 make a great team. Been drooling over the Schiit multibits for a while now.
Re: The Vali 2 and hum/noise.
My Vali 2 does have a hum when you use low z 'phones and have the gain on high. For example my Grado SR80i will have a hum when on high gain mode. IMO, this hum sounds like an electrical hum of sorts. It does not change volume with the amp and disappears completely in low gain mode. Additionally, with my HD-650, I cannot hear the hum with either gain mode.
The hum is hardly noticeable to me, and I actually didn't notice it at all until another forum member pointed it out and I went back to listen for it. Sure enough, it's there, but it's far from a deal breaker, and if it really annoys you, you can always use the low gain mode.
Like some others here, I too feel there is a better bass presence and more dynamics when in high gain mode. Almost all of my listening is through my 650 though, so no hum at all when using them. YMMV...
All of my listening has been exclusively with the stock tube as I have no others to roll at the moment. Sounds fine IMO, and I love the power this amp has on tap. I think Schiit created a winner here folks. I was wondering if the hybrid design would give me enough "tube flavor" to be happy. I can say that it absolutely does. It definitely sounds different than my SS Emotiva DC-1's HP amp, but there's no distortion (even at high volume levels) like I had expected there to be. My expectations were exceeded, to be honest.
I do really want to try some rolling, and will as soon as my budget allows. For now though, I am enjoying the schiit out of this amp!
You can make sand sound like tubes, actually quite easily. The drive and authority is going to come from the output stage and I doubt I'll ever know the answer to this one but if they (schiit) are using a global NFB loop it stands to reason that's why you're loosing a bit of the punch and dynamics along with eliminating noise noise in low Z mode. It's kind of one of those "can't have your cake and eat it too" moments.
As with most audio equipment the first few stages (tube) are going to dictate more of the tonal shaping than the output. Note i I said *more* not all....OTL tube is a whole nother bear in itself but you'll notice there's not a whole many of them around....for a reason...they (tube) have relatively horrible drive capability. That's why the hybrid design is so rad, I'm part-way through a hybrid design of my own with some mini novals that will be pretty cool to see how it turns out.