[sampson_smith]

Well, I am going to do a bit of explaining over the next few days, but I thought that I'd get this thread started while inspiration's running high. Simply put, I contacted Craig at Eddie Current about the EC/SS. I am the second owner of a dandy newer model and while it is very good to me, there has always been more noise between 9 and 3 o'clock than I could happily tolerate. This appeared to go hand-in-hand with the amp, ever since Asr reviewed it so thoroughly back in 2007. Apparently, if you kept and enjoyed an EC/SS, this was something you contentedly dealt with, like the warm smear of static that is part and parcel with listening to records. Being born and bred on CD's and the dead silence between the 1's and 0's, I decided to contact Craig anyway, and he, being the nice chap that he is, sent me a new pair of opamps for the EC/SS au gratis. Not fully expecting the transformation I secretly wished for--and simply shocked that it was his instant solution given that he has not been known to endorse opamp rolling in the past--I was blown away by the bottomless floor of the now tweaked EC/SS. It. Is. Silent. At almost six o'clock, max'ed out, I can detect the faintest sniff, but, otherwise, you are in deep space with nothing but your music. Fearing that this amp has been unfairly judged, or at least improperly evaluated in the past under less-than-ideal conditions (unbeknownst to the reviewer at that time, of course), I feel we need a reassessment. More on that as I get a chance to compare the *new* EC/SS to the Gilmore Lite and iBasso D10 using, hopefully, RS-1, RS-1i and HF-2 headphones as reference in a crossfire review, sometime soon.

The old opamp spec's: AD811AN / #0706 / 1098576

The new and improved "stealth" spec's: AD711JN / #0844 / 1543382

 

[stang]

Now all you need is a Ear+ HD to do a comparison against the EC/SS with Grado's. Both are pretty much the best of both tubes and SS with Grado's

 

[keyid]

The amp will take any two single(1 channel) opamps and one dual opamp for dc servo. You can roll any single channel opamp which makes this amp a opamps rollers dream, as the dc servo takes care of dc feedback. If the single channel opamp doesnt give any dc feedback then you can take out the dc servo opamp for better sound.

I rolled several opamps in the ec/ss for fun.
The default ad811 has the best detail, prat, resolution.

637 - great warm mids with nice extensions, very resolved sound.
(favorite with etys almost like sweet tubes w/ solidstate details)
627 - really warm mids, less extensions.
8065 - my fav at the moment, balanced with good soundstage.
228 - very addictive, fun, nice extensions.

I miss this amp now that I have grados. You can also change gain, changing resistors.

 

[sampson_smith]

I take it that you did not have noise issues with yours, keyid. That's great news. Glad to have an idea of other opamps that I can eventually roll, and how they sound to you.

I assume the it may have been the early stock opamps (serial #0706) that were to blame for the fine white noise/hiss that Asr and others have described. I would be interested to know who else has encountered this problem.

 

[keyid]

I dont have the amp anymore (regrets), I copied the opamp info from old post; however, I dont remember any kind of noise/hiss when I had mine.