Coming up for air..... Sorry for the radio silence, it has been a busy holiday week and weekend with family and non-audio stuff.
Folkvangr - I'm with
@ArmchairPhilosopher on this. An astounding amplifier that can deliver beautiful performance
with the right headphones. Which is causing me some consternation as to which way to go with this. I suspect that anyone who has Sennheiser HD800s will be very happy with this amp, based on my listening with HD650s (I don't own HD800s - yet). Planars are gonna be a whole lot trickier. More on all this in a day or two.
Am I keeping it? Yep.
Am I fully happy with it yet? Not yet.
Do I see/hear promise with it? Oh, yeah. Do I ever.
Bottom line - This is the most high-end-ish, non-Schitt amplifier that I've bought from Schiit yet. Best performance out of it demands correct pairing of headphones to the amp. It will surprise you with what it will power with reasonable, but not exceptional, performance. And frustrate you at the same time because you can hear the promise with those same 'phones. Welcome to the true high-end experience. My wallet is gonna hate me for a while.
A music note:
One of my all time favorite audiophile recordings, back before audiophile became a dirty word, is the Sheffield Lab's "I've Got the Music In Me" featuring Thelma Houston & Pressure Cooker. Originally recorded and released as a Direct To Disc vinyl record (Direct To Disc meaning that the output of the recording studio mixing console was plugged straight into the disc cutting lathe, run in real time) in 1974. The CD is directly from the back up 2 track tape that was recorded at the same time as they were cutting the record. Rehearse the hell out of the musicians over several weeks so that everyone could play four pieces of music without a single flubbed note, stuff everyone into a large recording studio at the same time, start the lathe as they're counting off the first tune, cross your fingers and hope for the best. None of this multitrack with overdubs, we'll fix it in the mix nonsense. Get it right the first time, all 4 tunes per album side. Old school.
So you have Thelma Houston's vocals at her peak, great back up singers, really awesome musicians backing them up, all in an excellent sounding room and recorded with the utmost attention to capturing everything in the most accurate way possible at the time. One of the things I listen for with this recording is the reverb from the room. It has a signature that is easy for me to pick out, with its sound and the decay as it tails off. The better the rig, the easier it is to hear this room sound and how it fills in the trailing sounds of the singers' vocals.
The CD is available on Qobuz if you want to give it a listen.
More to come, I need to do more listening, and probably buy another pair of headphones.