[ckhirnigs113]

Welcome to the club! You may get yours before me since I ordered through an authorized vendor that had just run out of stock before I placed my order.

@Dollar2 What headphones and DAC are you using with the Quicksilver?

 

[Pharmaboy]

I have an old NOS pair of Telefunken 12AX7s from 35 yrs ago. If I ever get this amp, I may/may not roll them in place of the stock driver tubes just to hear if anything good happens.

Then again, nearly everyone who has reviewed it or posted about this amp says (in essence), "Don't bother with tube rolling. This isn't an amp that needs NOS tubes to sound good." And that's one of the things that attracts me to the Quicksilver amp...

 

[ckhirnigs113]

Then again, nearly everyone who has reviewed it or posted about this amp says (in essence), "Don't bother with tube rolling. This isn't an amp that needs NOS tubes to sound good." And that's one of the things that attracts me to the Quicksilver amp...

This is what attracted me as well. It's the same story with the SW51+. I don't want to spend lots of money on tubes if I can help it. I know that rabbit hole goes deep!

 

[YtseJamer]

Welcome to the club! You may get yours before me since I ordered through an authorized vendor that had just run out of stock before I placed my order.

@Dollar2 What headphones and DAC are you using with the Quicksilver?

Mike said he will ship my amp in 3-4 weeks. But I'm in Canada, so you can add another week for the shipping.

 

[Pharmaboy]

Mike said he will ship my amp in 3-4 weeks. But I'm in Canada, so you can add another week for the shipping.

Canada! Hopefully Canada & US are back to being close allies again--our normal state of affairs...

I probably won't get up to Prince Edward Island this year (have been going up since '79), but if my wife's dual Canadian/US citizenship finally comes through, she'll be able to cross the border (her mom was born & raised on PEI).

I like everywhere I've been in Canada, but wouldn't want to be an audiophile or headphone collector up there--so expensive!

 

[ckhirnigs113]

Mike said he will ship my amp in 3-4 weeks. But I'm in Canada, so you can add another week for the shipping.

Mike must be busy making the next batch of amps. They seem to be getting more popular all the time, so he might have a backlog of work to catch up on.

 

[LanceSaintPaul]

I got mine in February direct from Quicksilver as they have no dealer here in Minnesota. I call it QAHA.

Love it!

Has that SET Class A magic that really heightens the perception of touch & subtlety that the musicians' styles express, the particular interpretation and technique are highlighted.

And Tube Magic, but not "Tubey Sound" which I read as excessively warm and slow. This is fast & accurate to my ears. Musically warm, but tonally neutral(ish).

I completely agree that no tube rolling is necessary to enjoy & respect its performance, but make no mistake: Tube Rolling will yield wonderful results! (It's at least half the fun of tubed gear.)

I already have on hand a very fine stash of 12AX7's, but sadly I had (past tense now...) no EL84's and it's a little late in the day to find great bargains in vintage EL84/6BQ5 's.

So I had to find some. And it would be easy to exceed the amp's reasonable cost with $$$ spent on tubes...I have done so in the past...

I have not tried changes to the output tubes yet, but have briefly done a short survey of the 12AX7's on hand (> a dozen pair). Currently I am sticking with a pair of Mazda chrome plate 12AX7's from the early 1960's which are my overall favorites to use as a default in any tubed gear that uses this tube.

Other tweaks include: Herbie's Audio Labs Ultrasonic Rx Damping Instruments - one per each of the four tubes; Nordost Pulsar Points (the original in aluminum); Nordost Blue Heaven AC Cord.

Headphones used: Sennheiser HD580, HD6XX, HD700; Focal Listen Pros, Elegia's. Cables include stock, Blue Moon Audio, Corpse Cable Gravedigger, Cardas, Nordost, and Periapt.

Source: Sony WM1A running Mr. Walkman's firmware. This amp really helped to to decide I prefer the Project Z to the Midnight/Dawn releases.

Overall this creates a desktop system of supremely good and revealing musicality. I don't have any real experience with the other available amps at this price point, but this must be a Best Buy.

I will keep this amp until the bitter end.

 

[YtseJamer]

I don't want to spend lots of money on tubes if I can help it. I know that rabbit hole goes deep!

I bought the SW51+ and the Quicksilver because I also don't want to end up in the tube rabbit hole.

But guess what, last week I saw a very nice deal ($600 CAD) on the Bottlehead Crack with the Speedball, so I bought the amp and I already spent $300 on extra tubes.

 

[YtseJamer]

Canada! Hopefully Canada & US are back to being close allies again--our normal state of affairs...

I probably won't get up to Prince Edward Island this year (have been going up since '79), but if my wife's dual Canadian/US citizenship finally comes through, she'll be able to cross the border (her mom was born & raised on PEI).

I like everywhere I've been in Canada, but wouldn't want to be an audiophile or headphone collector up there--so expensive!

Yes I hope too. Normally I go to Maine and Vermont 4-5 times a year with my Camper. I don't know if you ever had the chance to visit the Province of Quebec? I'm from Gaspésie. I really like Prince Edward Island, I went there 2-3 times with my family. I didn't have the chance to go everywhere on the island yet, because my kids and my wife always wanted to stay in the Cavendish area. Next time I want to go everywhere on the island apart from Cavendish

It's a pain to be an audiophile in Canada, especially when you like the ZMF headphones. I have paid $3800 for my VC and $1800 for my Aeolus.

 

[Pharmaboy]

I got mine in February direct from Quicksilver as they have no dealer here in Minnesota. I call it QAHA.

Love it!

Has that SET Class A magic that really heightens the perception of touch & subtlety that the musicians' styles express, the particular interpretation and technique are highlighted.

And Tube Magic, but not "Tubey Sound" which I read as excessively warm and slow. This is fast & accurate to my ears. Musically warm, but tonally neutral(ish).

I completely agree that no tube rolling is necessary to enjoy & respect its performance, but make no mistake: Tube Rolling will yield wonderful results! (It's at least half the fun of tubed gear.)

I already have on hand a very fine stash of 12AX7's, but sadly I had (past tense now...) no EL84's and it's a little late in the day to find great bargains in vintage EL84/6BQ5 's.

So I had to find some. And it would be easy to exceed the amp's reasonable cost with $$$ spent on tubes...I have done so in the past...

I have not tried changes to the output tubes yet, but have briefly done a short survey of the 12AX7's on hand (> a dozen pair). Currently I am sticking with a pair of Mazda chrome plate 12AX7's from the early 1960's which are my overall favorites to use as a default in any tubed gear that uses this tube.

Other tweaks include: Herbie's Audio Labs Ultrasonic Rx Damping Instruments - one per each of the four tubes; Nordost Pulsar Points (the original in aluminum); Nordost Blue Heaven AC Cord.

Headphones used: Sennheiser HD580, HD6XX, HD700; Focal Listen Pros, Elegia's. Cables include stock, Blue Moon Audio, Corpse Cable Gravedigger, Cardas, Nordost, and Periapt.

Source: Sony WM1A running Mr. Walkman's firmware. This amp really helped to to decide I prefer the Project Z to the Midnight/Dawn releases.

Overall this creates a desktop system of supremely good and revealing musicality. I don't have any real experience with the other available amps at this price point, but this must be a Best Buy.

I will keep this amp until the bitter end.

TERRIFIC POST!!

 

[Pharmaboy]

Yes I hope too. Normally I go to Maine and Vermont 4-5 times a year with my Camper. I don't know if you ever had the chance to visit the Province of Quebec? I'm from Gaspésie. I really like Prince Edward Island, I went there 2-3 times with my family. I didn't have the chance to go everywhere on the island yet, because my kids and my wife always wanted to stay in the Cavendish area. Next time I want to go everywhere on the island apart from Cavendish

It's a pain to be an audiophile in Canada, especially when you like the ZMF headphones. I have paid $3800 for my VC and $1800 for my Aeolus.

Maine & Vermont are quite beautiful. No, never had a chance to visit Quebec, though it's on my bucket list. Also never visited Toronto--have some friends there and really need to visit there (if the border even opens again).

My wife's mother was born in North Lake, PEI--across from their old house (since fallen down) is easily the prettiest harbor view I've ever seen. This is all WAY out off the beaten track, the far NE corner of the island. Our little cottage is on the Baltic Rd: at the end of our driveway take a left, go 4 miles and hit PEI's north shore; or take a right, go 4 miles and hit PEI's south shore (that's what it means to be near the tip of the island).

One of the more challenging decisions I face relating to PEI is which headphone to bring. I know, I know--I'm a tormented soul!

PS: the $$ you quote are hopefully CDN, I hope...

 

[gimmeheadroom]

You don't need headphones in PEI. You need a good boat and good fishing tackle. And lots of ice and beer

 

[YtseJamer]

Maine & Vermont are quite beautiful. No, never had a chance to visit Quebec, though it's on my bucket list. Also never visited Toronto--have some friends there and really need to visit there (if the border even opens again).

My wife's mother was born in North Lake, PEI--across from their old house (since fallen down) is easily the prettiest harbor view I've ever seen. This is all WAY out off the beaten track, the far NE corner of the island. Our little cottage is on the Baltic Rd: at the end of our driveway take a left, go 4 miles and hit PEI's north shore; or take a right, go 4 miles and hit PEI's south shore (that's what it means to be near the tip of the island).

One of the more challenging decisions I face relating to PEI is which headphone to bring. I know, I know--I'm a tormented soul!

PS: the $$ you quote are hopefully CDN, I hope...

It's funny because my wife told last week that we should go back to PEI this summer, I will add North Lake on my list of area to visit. I never went that far on that part of the Island, I'm sure it's beautiful there. You should buy the new Grado Hemp if you want something you can carry easily when you are travelling. They sound great from my phone and even if they cannot fully compete with the VC or the Aeolus, they are not that far behind. For the $$, yes it's in CND.

 

[Dollar2]

I have Focal Utopia; love them!

Right now, I am running Roon through a Meridian 218. I have a Meridian Prime HA and a Chord Hugo 2 which I need to try but those require me to run it off of my computer. That's the beauty of the hobby, so many things to try.

 

[erroneous]

Sounds like there are some people here who are waiting on SW51 and Quicksilver. I thought a quick simple comparison might help. I've lived with SW51 for awhile but just received Quicksilver today. I've listened to it for probably 4-5 hours.

SW51 is known for having a very clean, almost SS-type sound (I quite like this about it). Quicksilver has a little tube bloom and a more liquid, rounded sound (more romantic?).

It's not somewhat blurry, hazy or unfocused like ZDT Jr tends to be. Quicksilver still has great clarity/transparency, which is something that's important to me.

In short, I think they're very complimentary amps. When you want to put on your "serious" hat, it's SW51. When you want a little bit of sexy in your life, Quicksilver has it - without going overboard into warm-goo territory. Far from it. I think Quicksilver struck a nice balance here.

I stay far away from warm, gooey, mushy amps and that's not what tubes are about to me. I am definitely enjoying the Quicksilver, so no worries about gooey. It plays it relatively straight, but just adds a little bloom, a little romance, a little roundness to the presentation.

I've mainly been using the LSA HP-2 so far with the Quicksilver. The bit of bloom helps the otherwise very clean-sounding headphone have a little more character.

I did use the Aeolus a bit, and while it's close, if I had to choose the better amp for the Aeolus *so far*, it would be SW51. The Aeolus has enough flavor to begin with that I prefer to feed it a clean (with tubes) signal. The better amp for the LSA HP-2 (again, *so far*) would be the Quicksilver.

I'm sure further use will deepen my understanding of this amp, but these are my initial knee-jerk reactions after 4-5 hours of listening. Hope they help in some way.

Both amps were fed by a Gungnir Multibit A2 XLR into a Freya+ (in tube mode) to handle the balanced-to-single-ended conversion, then RCA out of Freya to the amps. Source is BNC from pi2AES.