There was a period in which I was looking for the one solid state rig to rule them all. Excerpted are a few snippets from PM's over the last couple years:
{Disclaimer: Preferences- I basically look for an amp to sound engaging and seductive- by which I mean I want transparency and detail but I also don't want sins of commission like grating/harsh upper mids or treble. I'd rather have one that sacrificed a little detail but I could actually listen to for long stretches of time than one that could wring more detail out but makes me feel like I've had a lobotomy after a while. I also detest hiss or high noise floor, as much of the older music I listen to tends to have it already, I don't want my reproduction chain adding more.}
So, with those preferences in mind, here were the amps that I thought accomplished that the best:
CIEMs - DSHA>LAu>GS-X
Low impendance High Sensitivity (Grado HP1000, Fostex TH900, Denon D5000) - DSHA=LAu>GS-X
High impedance High Sensitivity (HD800) - LAU>DSHA>>GS-X
Irrelevant impedance lower sensitivity (LCD-3, HE500, Paradox) - LAu>GS-X>DSHA
The LAu had the overall best balance of great microdetail and lack of glare/harshness/bite with the largest range of headphones. The DSHA overall would be second, with more play and a slightly blacker background with the sensitive stuff but less scaling with the ortho set than the LAu. DHSA also has that slight blur to it, kind of like being in a smoky jazz bar if everyone was smoking e-cigarettes. The GS-X had nice detail and drove a wide range of headphones well overall but had this razor edge to it with the HD800s and HP1000's. I'm willing to entertain the notion that something like an Invicta (epitome of an SD DAC, designed by the same guy who designed the 9018 chip) and Mytek may be on the bright side, the HD800 is on the bright side, and the GS-X leans bright, and that 3 brights make a wrong. So I am adding an MSB Analog DAC to the stable, to see if that helps at all and I'd revisit my thoughts at that point in time, which is why I've been a little mum on the whole thing (besides the powderkeg that can sometimes accompany saying anything less than stellar about Justin's products, I'd want to be sure of my findings.)
Then with MSB Analog DAC with power base in the fray:
Okay, so things have definitely changed with the MSB Analog DAC. A lot of brightness issues have been cleared up with only one pairing (the GS-X MK2 + HD800) noticed as an issue. Since the GS-X doesn't have nearly the same level of pain-inducing brightness with most of the other headphones in my stable, I think the headphone is to blame more than anything else. So, don't blame an overall neutralish amp for the sins of a transducer. However, once the transducer is a known quantity (being bright) I feel very confident saying the GS-X is not the right amp for it - and that this is not a slight to your amp. To use an analogy that saves face, its like saying a mathematics professor from Harvard will not be the best teacher in your inner-city high school classroom. Sure, he may know the material better than anyone and teaching it to a classroom of bright students whose only desire is to learn so that maybe one day their overbearing parents can live vicariously through their successful children, but teaching a classroom of disinterested kids will not be his strength. Much better to get the unconventional teacher who can relate and engage the hard to engage, the type that eventually has a Mr. Holland's Opus/Dead Poets Society style movie made about them that my wife notices my tearing up at but doesn't question my insistence that they're not tears, they're icicles that got stuck to my face and started melting inexplicably in mid-July.
After a while though, the whole cliques fighting thing became moot:
So I wanted to give you an update on my findings. The Gizzard has struck again! All these petty squabbles about Justin vs Craig vs Alex vs Donald vs Pete vs J-stod are so pointless. The TranSIT amp is the best headphone amp I have ever heard, bar none. It uses SIT's (static induction transistors) that measure even better than the custom ones Nelson Pass commissioned. These are solid state devices that have curves like a triode, and it really does sound remarkably like the best of both tubes and solid state, all in a solid state amp that really doesn't heat up too much as it only puts out 10 watts into 50 ohms (that's actually on par with the most powerful gear in the headphone market.) The truly amazing part is how perfect the TranSIT is at driving everything from whisper quiet IEM's to the finnicky HD800 to the power-gobblers that are the HE-6/K1000/Abyss. I literally listened to music all night last night, and there were many icicles melting on my face listening to this with the HD800 especially. This is what I've always wanted in an amp - the ability for Crescendos to sound bombastic, but the quiet moments to move with their own subtle grace. Its really too bad that the Gizzard is so secretive and refuses to sell his amps to many in the general public, as he would effectively render all other arguments moot. In my opinion.
I had HE6 before and LCD2.2, I much prefer HE6 in terms of comfort level and SQ.
![DT1990-ChSd-1024x555[1].png](https://cdn.head-fi.org/a/12230656.png)
