[Lokust]

If this was intended as a response to my post above thanks.But if i will be interested in getting the CA1 at all, I would need a more portable amp. The Milo is good but too heavy and bulky to fit in my carry-on backpack.
Searching further the Centrance Ampersand battery powered smallish portable headphone amp looks like it has enough power for CA1 .Some even use it with Susvara. Milo is a desktop amp.
Grüss Gott.
Christer

Servus

Make a decision already regarding a portable amp?

 

[adrianm]

Servus

Make a decision already regarding a portable amp?

I think the Oor is the most obvious choice

 

[Kiats]

@Aleksandar R. Would you happen to know what these two switches do? I looked at the manual but it does not explain what these are for.

 

[Kiats]

Happy days! I promised myself to get the 10 foot Star8 cable (never mind that I have now also picked up the 6 foot cable for use with TI-1b as well… ) and the HSA-1c for my birthday in early June. Well, we are a couple of weeks early. But hey! That is fine!

Kudos to Wilson at Jaben SG and Dragan at SAEQ for making it possible.

 

[Kiats]

I decided to give the Hifiman HE-6 a run out with the HSA-1c. It is one of those HPs that people used to connect to speaker amps to drive. Because, if not properly driven, it will sound bright and thin.

I am on 10/23 on the HSA-1c. Gosh! The body, texture and richness of the music coming out from the HE-6! I am sure there will be ways to drive the HE-6 better. But the HSA-1c is not something to sniff at for sure!

 

[jlbrach]

you're right. I just tried it with the abyss too.



Lol!

I suppose it's down to preference then. perhaps I should have gone with the free trial with the hang loose convolver before plonking down the cash.

If I have time this weekend, I'll swap back to the stock vm1a tubes and try it all over again. Will give it a go with the ti1b box as well.

this discussion really is quite remarkable given that this situation has existed for as long as the filters have been out in the wild and they have been raved about by everyone who has heard them....the same thing holds for all of the filters for all of the different HP's..I happen to have the filters for abyss and susvara as well and with all of them I always noticed that at higher bit rates the tap count was higher and with lower bit rates the taps were lower...I personally make no assertion of my knowledge of or insight into anything associated with the calculations etc...only that this has existed all the way along not just now so all of the listening and raves were done with this being a fact good or bad

 

[ardbeg1975]

Finally got my adapter cable situation corrected to properly connect the new TI-1c to my integrated tube amp. Doing some quick A/B between the TI-1b and 1c with the SR1a and using "Black Grease" and "Manipulation" by the Black Angels as test tracks, I'm preferring the 1c over the 1b. They are close but the 1c seems to have a bit more clarity particularly in the vocals and highs, the mids are slightly more forward (even when trying to level match) with those two tracks, but most notably I'd swear the transients / speed are slightly faster. Subtle but audible improvement for my sonic preferences. There is also the convenience of keeping the TI-1c permanently connected to the speaker taps and using my amp’s headphone / speaker out toggle versus having to plug and unplug the TI-1b from the XLR jack when I want to listen to the Raal.

 

[Aleksandar R.]

Finally got my adapter cable situation corrected to properly connect the new TI-1c to my integrated tube amp. Doing some quick A/B between the TI-1b and 1c with the SR1a and using "Black Grease" and "Manipulation" by the Black Angels as test tracks, I'm preferring the 1c over the 1b. They are close but the 1c seems to have a bit more clarity particularly in the vocals and highs, the mids are slightly more forward (even when trying to level match) with those two tracks, but most notably I'd swear the transients / speed are slightly faster. Subtle but audible improvement for my sonic preferences. There is also the convenience of keeping the TI-1c permanently connected to the speaker taps and using my amp’s headphone / speaker out toggle versus having to plug and unplug the TI-1b from the XLR jack when I want to listen to the Raal.

I don't think that the difference in clarity is due to any specific difference in transformers, rather that it comes from proper loading of the tube OPT.

If the OPT is made to work with 8 Ohms, it won't work optimally if it's loaded with double that impedance and the anodes will see twice the loading impedance, skewing the whole amp setup.

For similar reasons, I'm very strict in recommending only 6ft cables for the TI box output to headphones, as they load the transformer properly.

Parasitic capacitance and inductance are correctly damped only with correct loading.
Also, the bandwidth of the OPT is better with the right load .

Finally, the power is probably doubled now, so peaks come out clearer, as there's about 3dB more headroom.

It's a complex issue and I'm inclined to think that favorable results are due to going back to specs for which the amp was designed for.

 

[ardbeg1975]

I don't think that the difference in clarity is due to any specific difference in transformers, rather that it comes from proper loading of the tube OPT.

If the OPT is made to work with 8 Ohms, it won't work optimally if it's loaded with double that impedance and the anodes will see twice the loading impedance, skewing the whole amp setup.

For similar reasons, I'm very strict in recommending only 6ft cables for the TI box output to headphones, as they load the transformer properly.

Parasitic capacitance and inductance are correctly damped only with correct loading.
Also, the bandwidth of the OPT is better with the right load .

Finally, the power is probably doubled now, so peaks come out clearer, as there's about 3dB more headroom.

It's a complex issue and I'm inclined to think that favorable results are due to going back to specs for which the amp was designed for.

Indeed. I assume (I hope correctly) that outputting 4 ohm load from the tube OPT is more optimal than 8 ohm as my amp and its SpeakOn taps support both 4 and 8 loads and thus I wired the SpeakOn to banana adapters to connect to the 1c for 4 ohm?

 

[Aleksandar R.]

Indeed. I assume (I hope correctly) that outputting 4 ohm load from the tube OPT is more optimal than 8 ohm as my amp and its SpeakOn taps support both 4 and 8 loads and thus I wired the SpeakOn to banana adapters to connect to the 1c for 4 ohm?

I'm not sure.
Speak-On has 4 contacts, so I guess that with essentially 4 output terminals you can choose which are for 4 and which are for 8 Ohms.
I haven't seen the user manual, but you should be exact with putting a 4 ohm TI-box input to 4 ohms output.

 

[ardbeg1975]

I'm not sure.
Speak-On has 4 contacts, so I guess that with essentially 4 output terminals you can choose which are for 4 and which are for 8 Ohms.
I haven't seen the user manual, but you should be exact with putting a 4 ohm TI-box input to 4 ohms output.

Yes, I wired the SpeakOn side specifically for 4 ohm and have it jacked into the 4 ohm input on the 1c. Was just curious if it was recommended I leave it at 4 or rewire to use the 1c 8 ohm input instead.

 

[Aleksandar R.]

Nice! Either is fine, but...
The OPT has lots of windings and it's a high ratio transformer.
The parasitics in transformers are directly proportional to number of windings and the transformation ratio.
I would rather use the OPT at the lower available ratio (8 Ohms) and let the TI box use it's higer ratio, because TI box has a much lower number of windings and ratio than the OPT, so parasitics barely change.
I'm not saying that the transformer in your amp is somehow superior at 8 ohms, just that this would be a matter of principle for me.

 

[wenbinbin2010]

TI-1c arrived today BUT my amp uses SpeakOn outputs and I (stupidly) forgot my adapter is SpeakOn to banana male and the bundled Raal adapter is XLR male to banana male so now I need a banana female to female to get from the TI-1c to the amp taps. That arrives Thursday (shakes fist in the air in frustration).

Are you using the TI-1c with your Studio B? I'm curious why you're using it with the Speakon outputs instead of just the standard headphone output? I actually ordered a TI-1c for my Studio Jr, with the intention of connecting it like normal to the XLR headphone output in the front. But now I'm wondering if I should have just stuck with the 1b...

 

[Kiats]

Another excellent evening spent with the HSA-1c and the SR-1a. Neither amp nor HPs are breaking a sweat. Not a beat or nuance missed.

Later I shall plug in the CA-1a and kick back.

 

[ardbeg1975]

Are you using the TI-1c with your Studio B? I'm curious why you're using it with the Speakon outputs instead of just the standard headphone output? I actually ordered a TI-1c for my Studio Jr, with the intention of connecting it like normal to the XLR headphone output in the front. But now I'm wondering if I should have just stuck with the 1b...

Yes, with the EC Studio B. Two reasons mainly - I like not having to plug and unplug the TI from the head phone jack when I want to swap headphones and thus I leave it permanently jacked into the speaker taps and secondly, I’m driving into the TI at 4 ohms at the moment and the XLR port is spec’d for 8 ohms and above per Craig’s website while the taps can do 4 and 8.