jonathan c
Headphoneus Supremus
Is the rebel rebelling by lying flat rather than on its side?
so this came in
Rebel Amp
- Thread starter FullBright1
- Start date
it frustrates me to no end that it's too damn wide to hang with the schiits
Just received mine in black. Amazing amp. running this with a bifrost2 and it's pure magic with my ZMF VC. It really does have some tube magic without the tubes. Best way i can describe it. plenty of slam for me.
yeah man, at first i thought it was harsh but once it burned in its smooth as butter, more tubey than my tube amp (if i had to guess which sounded more "colored" and tube powered). Its bass is very strong.
So this has been a trip but after nearly a week I think I can have a take on this.
First off, build quality is great. From Kharkiv, Ukraine, a city in part known its tank factory, this thing looks like its built there. Its surprisingly not as heavy as I thought, but it's nonetheless a solid, minimalist industrial piece of kit. The Back in Black paintjob is nice, has a bit of metallic flake in it and fits well on my desk. Do I regret not getting the sexy green? Eh, not really. It's big, that it blends is probably a good thing.
Knob feels good and weighty, pot is smoother than anything I own but there's a slight scratchiness to it which you dont notice it in the actual sound. Its satisfying to roll. Pre-out switch is a bit stiff and honestly would have preferred something else for switches if I *have* to nitpick but it all does the job just fine and for a minimalist build it works.
As for sound, this thing needs burn in. It craves it. It's straight up not good out the box. Let it settle. At first I thought it was harsh and had typed out some thoughts finding it had an uncomfortable tone on the highs to the point of being a no go for longer listening sessions. The bass was stronger than my tube amp but it was ultimately sounding like a poor-man's version of my Schiit Valhalla where it just wasn't doing anything better or meaningfully different. Buyers remorse set in. 24 hours later it was a total 180 and having given it the weekend to just play with and enjoy I can confidently say everything I hated about it is gone.
This is a tubey sounding amp. It's warm, it's buttery, it has powerful bass and smooth highs. The bass can be a bit blown out at times with my current EQ settings (which I'm trying not to change so I can A/B test a bit at the moment), and its a bit deep but without definition. Without my EQs going if I had to pick I think this is the best 'stock' amp I have right now. On the whole playing with this has had me listening to and rediscovering music like I just bought the weirdest set of vintage tubes. I mean really, this thing is not natural or neutral, it's *very* flavored, it makes my Valhalla (with 50s Brimar tubes) sound neutral.
Percussive drums & guitars cut through bass like a machine gun into a mountain of Jell-O. It's a flavor, it's not neutral, but it's ultra satisfying. Longer listening sessions are very nice. Put on some heavy metal and the smoothness means I can crank the volume higher without blowing my ears out (see: volume scaling below) or put on some electronic music to zone out to and let the bass and rich lower tones wash me away.
Volume scales nicely with this mix, and I find myself using high gain on older (pre loudness war) tracks, and it plays nice on recordings with deep dynamic range. The whole "use high gain for planars and low for Sennheisers" or whatever lines I hear from some reviews is nonsense. Low gain is too low to listen to on my 300ohm headphones for a lot of tracks, so I'm usually on medium the majority of the time.
**Anyway, enough rambling. Amp good. Amp smooth. Fake super tube in metal box from tank town.**
(all thoughts based on an HD800 w/ Bifrost 2 & Lokius and impressions were in contrast to set tuning and performance of my retubed Valhalla which I deem to be 'ideal'. Nothing was done neutrally or analytically)
First off, build quality is great. From Kharkiv, Ukraine, a city in part known its tank factory, this thing looks like its built there. Its surprisingly not as heavy as I thought, but it's nonetheless a solid, minimalist industrial piece of kit. The Back in Black paintjob is nice, has a bit of metallic flake in it and fits well on my desk. Do I regret not getting the sexy green? Eh, not really. It's big, that it blends is probably a good thing.
Knob feels good and weighty, pot is smoother than anything I own but there's a slight scratchiness to it which you dont notice it in the actual sound. Its satisfying to roll. Pre-out switch is a bit stiff and honestly would have preferred something else for switches if I *have* to nitpick but it all does the job just fine and for a minimalist build it works.
As for sound, this thing needs burn in. It craves it. It's straight up not good out the box. Let it settle. At first I thought it was harsh and had typed out some thoughts finding it had an uncomfortable tone on the highs to the point of being a no go for longer listening sessions. The bass was stronger than my tube amp but it was ultimately sounding like a poor-man's version of my Schiit Valhalla where it just wasn't doing anything better or meaningfully different. Buyers remorse set in. 24 hours later it was a total 180 and having given it the weekend to just play with and enjoy I can confidently say everything I hated about it is gone.
This is a tubey sounding amp. It's warm, it's buttery, it has powerful bass and smooth highs. The bass can be a bit blown out at times with my current EQ settings (which I'm trying not to change so I can A/B test a bit at the moment), and its a bit deep but without definition. Without my EQs going if I had to pick I think this is the best 'stock' amp I have right now. On the whole playing with this has had me listening to and rediscovering music like I just bought the weirdest set of vintage tubes. I mean really, this thing is not natural or neutral, it's *very* flavored, it makes my Valhalla (with 50s Brimar tubes) sound neutral.
Percussive drums & guitars cut through bass like a machine gun into a mountain of Jell-O. It's a flavor, it's not neutral, but it's ultra satisfying. Longer listening sessions are very nice. Put on some heavy metal and the smoothness means I can crank the volume higher without blowing my ears out (see: volume scaling below) or put on some electronic music to zone out to and let the bass and rich lower tones wash me away.
Volume scales nicely with this mix, and I find myself using high gain on older (pre loudness war) tracks, and it plays nice on recordings with deep dynamic range. The whole "use high gain for planars and low for Sennheisers" or whatever lines I hear from some reviews is nonsense. Low gain is too low to listen to on my 300ohm headphones for a lot of tracks, so I'm usually on medium the majority of the time.
**Anyway, enough rambling. Amp good. Amp smooth. Fake super tube in metal box from tank town.**
(all thoughts based on an HD800 w/ Bifrost 2 & Lokius and impressions were in contrast to set tuning and performance of my retubed Valhalla which I deem to be 'ideal'. Nothing was done neutrally or analytically)
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agree with you @Lvivske except i think mine sounds great with only a few hours of use so far. I'll report back after 1 or two days if the sound improves.
The black looks really nice! If I got the RebelAmp again it would probably be in that color, as much as I like the green. Totally agree about it sounding “tubey.” It’s got a very special (and spatial) sound. Glad you’re enjoying it!So this has been a trip but after nearly a week I think I can have a take on this.
First off, build quality is great. From Kharkiv, Ukraine, a city in part known its tank factory, this thing looks like its built there. Its surprisingly not as heavy as I thought, but it's nonetheless a solid, minimalist industrial piece of kit. The Back in Black paintjob is nice, has a bit of metallic flake in it and fits well on my desk. Do I regret not getting the sexy green? Eh, not really. It's big, that it blends is probably a good thing.
Knob feels good and weighty, pot is smoother than anything I own but there's a slight scratchiness to it which you dont notice it in the actual sound. Its satisfying to roll. Pre-out switch is a bit stiff and honestly would have preferred something else for switches if I *have* to nitpick but it all does the job just fine and for a minimalist build it works.
As for sound, this thing needs burn in. It craves it. It's straight up not good out the box. Let it settle. At first I thought it was harsh and had typed out some thoughts finding it had an uncomfortable tone on the highs to the point of being a no go for longer listening sessions. The bass was stronger than my tube amp but it was ultimately sounding like a poor-man's version of my Schiit Valhalla where it just wasn't doing anything better or meaningfully different. Buyers remorse set in. 24 hours later it was a total 180 and having given it the weekend to just play with and enjoy I can confidently say everything I hated about it is gone.
This is a tubey sounding amp. It's warm, it's buttery, it has powerful bass and smooth highs. The bass can be a bit blown out at times with my current EQ settings (which I'm trying not to change so I can A/B test a bit at the moment), and its a bit deep but without definition. Without my EQs going if I had to pick I think this is the best 'stock' amp I have right now. On the whole playing with this has had me listening to and rediscovering music like I just bought the weirdest set of vintage tubes. I mean really, this thing is not natural or neutral, it's *very* flavored, it makes my Valhalla (with 50s Brimar tubes) sound neutral.
Percussive drums & guitars cut through bass like a machine gun into a mountain of Jell-O. It's a flavor, it's not neutral, but it's ultra satisfying. Longer listening sessions are very nice. Put on some heavy metal and the smoothness means I can crank the volume higher without blowing my ears out (see: volume scaling below) or put on some electronic music to zone out to and let the bass and rich lower tones wash me away.
Volume scales nicely with this mix, and I find myself using high gain on older (pre loudness war) tracks, and it plays nice on recordings with deep dynamic range. The whole "use high gain for planars and low for Sennheisers" or whatever lines I hear from some reviews is nonsense. Low gain is too low to listen to on my 300ohm headphones for a lot of tracks, so I'm usually on medium the majority of the time.
**Anyway, enough rambling. Amp good. Amp smooth. Fake super tube in metal box from tank town.**
I guess it depends what you're comparing it to, in my case I love my main amp so being comparatively 'worse' is still great compared to other stuff. The thing that got me though was how much it changed by the night and especially the next day when I sat down with it again. I dont know what the technical term is....the tone was giving me a headache, not unlike how the 'electric tone' of my Pioneer can sound harsh without tuning the treble because it's just so powerful. But all that faded away end it ended up being much more mellow.
I presume a lot of this also come down to the chain and headphones, maybe mine were bringing out certain undesirables that arent as pronounced on other cans.
arar
100+ Head-Fier
Every time I read praise for the Rebel amp I feel renewed interest in getting it over the Jot 2. Been meaning to get a Bifrost+Lokius+Jot stack, and I see you have that but with the Rebel amp, @Lvivske--does the Rebel stack neatly with the Bifrost and Lokius?
Not at all. It's like 30% wider and deeper. I'm sure you could stack things on top all that real estate but it feels like a small video game console on my desk.
yeah, the rebel amp is deceptively big. It won't be stack friendly with a bifrost, but you can still stack them if you want. So far, my rebel isn't putting off much heat even after listening for a few hours.
Mines on 24/7 and there's barely any heat at all, Bifrost 2 is much warmer
ShenaRingo326
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
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does this amp act as a variable preamp where the pot controls the volume of the RCA out? if yes.. does the L/M/H gain switch affect the preamp out volume? just wondering if this can go into my power amp + bookshelf setup when it's not on headphone duties.. thanks!
yes and yes
arar
100+ Head-Fier
Ah, that sucks. Feel like I'm running out of space on my desk already, even though I JUST bought a bigger one some time ago lol. I could fit a Schiit stack here, but I might be in trouble with the Rebel amp. Will have to think about it.
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