Skylab
Reviewerus Prolificus
I received a PM from David Lin, who is the founder of Firestone Audio, letting me know he had left Firestone, and had started a new company, Travagans. He asked me if I would like to review his new headphone amps. Which of course I said yes to. I received from him two very similar looking amps, one called "Red" and one called "Green" (for obvious reasons - see pic).
Both amps can drive headphones, and actually also serve as small speaker-amps - they have banana jacks on the back for this purpose. I did test this - see below. The Green has as its only input a USB connector. It uses the PCM 2704 USB DAC. It actually has coax and optical digital OUTS, so you can send the PC audio from the Green to another DAC. It has no analog input. The Red amp has ONLY an analog input (on 2 rear-mounted RCA jacks).
The chassis are very sturdy and VERY attractive. They use an outboard 24V power supply. One curious choice is that the they use mini-jacks for the headphones, not 1/4". I would have preferred 1/4".
So, how do these amps sound? Let's talk first about the Red. I tested it using the output of my iMod 5.5G + VCap dock, and the Denon D5000 (partly because this is the one high-end headphone I own terminated in a 1/8 inch plug).
Two interesting comments upfront. First, I have NO idea what these amps sell for (as they were review samples). So this review will not be able to make any sort of value judgment. Maybe David will come in the thread and post the selling prices. The web site index is all in Chinese. Second, I have been spending more and more time listening to tube headphone amps, and less and less listening to solid state, with the exception of the Blue Circle Audio SBH, which remains in my bedside rig, and gets about an hour or so of use a day. So in some ways I was dreading reviewing a solid state home amp.
RED
Well, that dread turned very quickly into surprise and enjoyment. The Red sounds TERRIFIC. It’s incredibly enjoyable to listen to. It’s highly transparent, very detailed without being bright, and had very controlled, very deep bass. It also really makes music - I was totally engaged with every song I heard, in a way I guess I hadn't expected to be. No, the Red doesn't sound like a tube amp, but it represents the best traits of solid state, with none of the major downsides.
The soundstaging was excellent. Really enjoyable, stable, and believable. Width was better than depth, but it was engaging and convincing. Listening to “The Needle Has Landed” by Neko Case, which has a lot of artificially created depth, there was just a little less than I normally hear from my SBH, but the lateral placement was outstanding, and the soundstage felt very spacious.
The amp is basically neutral, if anything it leans just a hair to the light and lively side, but its not bright. It creates no unnatural sibilance. On good female vocals, like on Kate Havnevik’s “Melankton”, vocals were reproduced well, with no extra sizzle.
The Red comes with the “LM4562 [op amp]; current boosters made by NPN/PNP power transistors” The instruction card makes it clear you can roll op-amps. But I found the sound to be incredibly enjoyable, and so I wouldn't feel the need, but for those who enjoy it, it’s clearly doable.
I briefly compared the RED to the Meier Cantate, with the IMod as the source. The primary difference between them is that the Meier has an overall warmer sound signature. The Travagan's Red has the slightly more forward, and I believe slightly more extended, treble. Listening to Patricia Barber’s “Nightclub” album, I slightly preferred the additional midrange warmth of the Meier. But if you have warm-sounding headphones, or just prefer a slightly crisper overall sound, the Red might be your preference. In any case, the Travagan's Red was not embarrassed by the comparison with the Cantate. The Cantate is actually like the Red and Green both in terms of features, but at the Red and Green have speaker-drive capability.
GREEN
The Green amp, which has just the USB input, also sounded very good. Via headphones, the Green can run just from USB, without needing the AC adapter. But I was warned that to use it to power speakers, it needed the AC Power. And it sounded better plugged into AC, even with headphones. The sound from the Green was very good, but I preferred the sound of the Red amp driven by the iMod/Vcap over the sound of the Green amp being fed lossless music by my PC via USB. The sound with USB was a little thinner and hazier than it was via iMod/Red amp. Of course, I have no way to know if this is just the effect of the Green’s USB DAC. But the sound was still very engaging. Listening to Sirenia’s “My Mind’s Eye”, the bass was deep, tight, and punch, the guitars full-bodied and crunchy, and the vocals were still clear, although they were not quite as clean as I have heard them before. Background vocals were nicely layered, though.
I did briefly compare the Green to the iBasso D1 (mine is stock, first version), and the Green was better sounding than the D1 – it was smoother than the D1, and slightly more transparent and neutral.
But NO USB DAC/amp I have ever tried has sounded anywhere near as good as the (admittedly expensive) Meier Opera, and this was no exception – the Opera was easily better in every way. But the Opera with DAC is over $1200.
So for the Green, all in all, quite good sound, but given a choice, I would listen to the RED via analog input rather than the Green using USB.
With regard to the use of these amps as speaker amps, this feature is kind of cool with the Green amp, as it means that you can use the Green with your PC to drive headphones OR to drive speakers. It has plenty of juice to power speakers in this application. It’s obviously not going to power a pair of giant tower speakers. Travagans actually makes a matching set of small speakers, which I tested briefly with the Green, and this combination works very well, and makes a very compact PC audio system. The Travagans speakers are small and attractive (see their website), and can be used by themselves for background music, but they would need a subwoofer to be used for serious listening. With my Sunfire True Sub Jr., they did very well, and that made a very satisfying office PC based stereo. I see less application using the Red as a speaker amp, but maybe others would have a use for this.
So, David Lin has left Firestone Audio, and created a new company with some products I really enjoyed listening to. I will have to save my very highest recommendation for when I know how they are priced, since that would let me assess the value they represent. But if they are priced similarly to Firestone’s offering, then they will earn that very high recommendation. These are well built products that sound good – another nice addition to the product landscape!
UPDATE 4-1-08 - "White" Headphone Amp/USB DAC
David sent me the "White" to test. This is his "premium" product (so far anyway) - it's the same size as the others, but includes a different feature set:
> Has both line input AND USB DAC input, with switch
> Stepped Attenuator
> High/Low gain switch
> No speaker outputs
Pic:
The "White" amp shares the same basic sonic signature as the others - quick and fast, but is a little lusher in the mids than the Red and Green amps are. The treble is also smoother, while being just as extended. The bass is maybe just a tiny bit tighter, with perhaps just a tiny bit less quantity in the bass.
The "White" is even more transparent sounding than the Red and Green, which I feel are fairly transparent to begin with. The White actually is remarkably transparent. It also has a LOT of drive capability - even in low gain, I only needed setting 3 on the stepped attenuator to get all the level out of my Denon D5000 that I could possibly want. I don't listen super-loud, but the D5000's aren't the easiest headphone in the world to drive. No problem driving my 600 ohm Beyer DT990's, either.
For $290, it isn't the crazy screaming bargain that the Red is, but it offers highly competitive sound. For me, the $100 more for the White is EASILY worth the improvements in smoothness and the slightly more lush midband. I continue to be impressed with David Lin's products.
Both amps can drive headphones, and actually also serve as small speaker-amps - they have banana jacks on the back for this purpose. I did test this - see below. The Green has as its only input a USB connector. It uses the PCM 2704 USB DAC. It actually has coax and optical digital OUTS, so you can send the PC audio from the Green to another DAC. It has no analog input. The Red amp has ONLY an analog input (on 2 rear-mounted RCA jacks).
The chassis are very sturdy and VERY attractive. They use an outboard 24V power supply. One curious choice is that the they use mini-jacks for the headphones, not 1/4". I would have preferred 1/4".
So, how do these amps sound? Let's talk first about the Red. I tested it using the output of my iMod 5.5G + VCap dock, and the Denon D5000 (partly because this is the one high-end headphone I own terminated in a 1/8 inch plug).
Two interesting comments upfront. First, I have NO idea what these amps sell for (as they were review samples). So this review will not be able to make any sort of value judgment. Maybe David will come in the thread and post the selling prices. The web site index is all in Chinese. Second, I have been spending more and more time listening to tube headphone amps, and less and less listening to solid state, with the exception of the Blue Circle Audio SBH, which remains in my bedside rig, and gets about an hour or so of use a day. So in some ways I was dreading reviewing a solid state home amp.
RED
Well, that dread turned very quickly into surprise and enjoyment. The Red sounds TERRIFIC. It’s incredibly enjoyable to listen to. It’s highly transparent, very detailed without being bright, and had very controlled, very deep bass. It also really makes music - I was totally engaged with every song I heard, in a way I guess I hadn't expected to be. No, the Red doesn't sound like a tube amp, but it represents the best traits of solid state, with none of the major downsides.
The soundstaging was excellent. Really enjoyable, stable, and believable. Width was better than depth, but it was engaging and convincing. Listening to “The Needle Has Landed” by Neko Case, which has a lot of artificially created depth, there was just a little less than I normally hear from my SBH, but the lateral placement was outstanding, and the soundstage felt very spacious.
The amp is basically neutral, if anything it leans just a hair to the light and lively side, but its not bright. It creates no unnatural sibilance. On good female vocals, like on Kate Havnevik’s “Melankton”, vocals were reproduced well, with no extra sizzle.
The Red comes with the “LM4562 [op amp]; current boosters made by NPN/PNP power transistors” The instruction card makes it clear you can roll op-amps. But I found the sound to be incredibly enjoyable, and so I wouldn't feel the need, but for those who enjoy it, it’s clearly doable.
I briefly compared the RED to the Meier Cantate, with the IMod as the source. The primary difference between them is that the Meier has an overall warmer sound signature. The Travagan's Red has the slightly more forward, and I believe slightly more extended, treble. Listening to Patricia Barber’s “Nightclub” album, I slightly preferred the additional midrange warmth of the Meier. But if you have warm-sounding headphones, or just prefer a slightly crisper overall sound, the Red might be your preference. In any case, the Travagan's Red was not embarrassed by the comparison with the Cantate. The Cantate is actually like the Red and Green both in terms of features, but at the Red and Green have speaker-drive capability.
GREEN
The Green amp, which has just the USB input, also sounded very good. Via headphones, the Green can run just from USB, without needing the AC adapter. But I was warned that to use it to power speakers, it needed the AC Power. And it sounded better plugged into AC, even with headphones. The sound from the Green was very good, but I preferred the sound of the Red amp driven by the iMod/Vcap over the sound of the Green amp being fed lossless music by my PC via USB. The sound with USB was a little thinner and hazier than it was via iMod/Red amp. Of course, I have no way to know if this is just the effect of the Green’s USB DAC. But the sound was still very engaging. Listening to Sirenia’s “My Mind’s Eye”, the bass was deep, tight, and punch, the guitars full-bodied and crunchy, and the vocals were still clear, although they were not quite as clean as I have heard them before. Background vocals were nicely layered, though.
I did briefly compare the Green to the iBasso D1 (mine is stock, first version), and the Green was better sounding than the D1 – it was smoother than the D1, and slightly more transparent and neutral.
But NO USB DAC/amp I have ever tried has sounded anywhere near as good as the (admittedly expensive) Meier Opera, and this was no exception – the Opera was easily better in every way. But the Opera with DAC is over $1200.
So for the Green, all in all, quite good sound, but given a choice, I would listen to the RED via analog input rather than the Green using USB.
With regard to the use of these amps as speaker amps, this feature is kind of cool with the Green amp, as it means that you can use the Green with your PC to drive headphones OR to drive speakers. It has plenty of juice to power speakers in this application. It’s obviously not going to power a pair of giant tower speakers. Travagans actually makes a matching set of small speakers, which I tested briefly with the Green, and this combination works very well, and makes a very compact PC audio system. The Travagans speakers are small and attractive (see their website), and can be used by themselves for background music, but they would need a subwoofer to be used for serious listening. With my Sunfire True Sub Jr., they did very well, and that made a very satisfying office PC based stereo. I see less application using the Red as a speaker amp, but maybe others would have a use for this.
So, David Lin has left Firestone Audio, and created a new company with some products I really enjoyed listening to. I will have to save my very highest recommendation for when I know how they are priced, since that would let me assess the value they represent. But if they are priced similarly to Firestone’s offering, then they will earn that very high recommendation. These are well built products that sound good – another nice addition to the product landscape!
UPDATE 4-1-08 - "White" Headphone Amp/USB DAC
David sent me the "White" to test. This is his "premium" product (so far anyway) - it's the same size as the others, but includes a different feature set:
> Has both line input AND USB DAC input, with switch
> Stepped Attenuator
> High/Low gain switch
> No speaker outputs
Pic:
The "White" amp shares the same basic sonic signature as the others - quick and fast, but is a little lusher in the mids than the Red and Green amps are. The treble is also smoother, while being just as extended. The bass is maybe just a tiny bit tighter, with perhaps just a tiny bit less quantity in the bass.
The "White" is even more transparent sounding than the Red and Green, which I feel are fairly transparent to begin with. The White actually is remarkably transparent. It also has a LOT of drive capability - even in low gain, I only needed setting 3 on the stepped attenuator to get all the level out of my Denon D5000 that I could possibly want. I don't listen super-loud, but the D5000's aren't the easiest headphone in the world to drive. No problem driving my 600 ohm Beyer DT990's, either.
For $290, it isn't the crazy screaming bargain that the Red is, but it offers highly competitive sound. For me, the $100 more for the White is EASILY worth the improvements in smoothness and the slightly more lush midband. I continue to be impressed with David Lin's products.
