[George Hincapie]

yes indeed
Best amp I’ve heard to date

Just had a look at the UK dealer prices. £15K...ouch!

 

[goldwerger]

Just had a look at the UK dealer prices. £15K...ouch!

It is crazy expensive. Avoiding going into value (highly personal) will say they absolutely deliver to their tier.

that said, with (real) effort and patience, a used one can be found once in a moonlight at half the price

 

[George Hincapie]

It is crazy expensive. Avoiding going into value (highly personal) will say they absolutely deliver to their tier.

that said, with (real) effort and patience, a used one can be found once in a moonlight at half the price

Of course, pocket depth varies.Mine are deep, but that'd be a stretch TBH.

Out of curiosity, what is your source chain? I'm sure you and I have discussed before, and you were using Sonore products?

 

[goldwerger]

Of course, pocket depth varies.Mine are deep, but that'd be a stretch TBH.

Out of curiosity, what is your source chain? I'm sure you and I have discussed before, and you were using Sonore products?

I use Roon Nucleus+ (streaming) / NuPrice CDT-10 (CD transport) >>> Bricasti M3 >>> various amps

 

[jonathan c]

Of course, pocket depth varies. Mine are deep, but that'd be a stretch TBH.***

*** “deep pockets, short arms …” [usually encountered at annual review ]

 

[George Hincapie]

*** “deep pockets, short arms …” [usually encountered at annual review ]

 

[OnlySoMany]

I can wholeheartedly recommend the Viva Egoista 845 for any ZMF headphone. It's endgame.

 

[Pharmaboy]

Viva Egoista 845

I never heard of this, so just looked it up. Damn, that thing is beautiful! Never saw anything like it.

The price is as attention-getting as the design....

 

[OnlySoMany]

I never heard of this, so just looked it up. Damn, that thing is beautiful! Never saw anything like it.

The price is as attention-getting as the design....

For sure

But look up the reviews. That is what made me bite. I recently went from Stratus, to WA33, to Viva. Worth the (very expensive) upgrade path. Kept the WA33 for another listening setup. Stratus is for sale. Still a great amp, I just don't have enough space.

 

[goldwerger]

I never heard of this, so just looked it up. Damn, that thing is beautiful! Never saw anything like it.

The price is as attention-getting as the design....

I've heard it at few CanJams, they're actually making reuglar appearnaces demo-ing it these days. Beauitful (and MASSIVE in size).

It drives the Susvara really well, very euphonic and holographic presentation. I can it synergizing really well wtih ZMF, I'll make a point to take a pair at CanJam NYC to try this, now now I'm super curious.

Only headphone that weren't ideal for it were the Tungsten, as the gain of the amp is limited (will clip) unless you feed it high voltage from DAC (like 9V instead of 4V), but that's an insanely specific and specialized edge case.

It's also well revealing of source. I forget what crazy DAC they had with it at CanJam Chicago (those are 2-channel guys, it was a DAC I never heard of that costs 40-50k), and just switching the filter types on it was audible.

Those giant tubes are just mesmerizing. This is a showpiece. Like using a ferrari, the drive and look are equally important

 

[AudioDuck]

I can wholeheartedly recommend the Viva Egoista 845 for any ZMF headphone. It's endgame.

It should be, for what it costs, no?

 

[sianofabio]

My Parents always say "Too Much Tube Porn is not good for you!"LOL

Going back to more affordable Amps, according to reviews, the Bliss seem to have the biggest sounstage even compared to tube amps. (Euforia for example) Anyone here knows of a tube amp that actually surpasses or equals the Bliss at under $4k of course.? I want the bliss with the lush and warm mids! plus the big stage.

 

[goldwerger]

My Parents always say "Too Much Tube Porn is not good for you!"LOL

Going back to more affordable Amps, according to reviews, the Bliss seem to have the biggest sounstage even compared to tube amps. (Euforia for example) Anyone here knows of a tube amp that actually surpasses or equals the Bliss at under $4k of course.? I want the bliss with the lush and warm mids! plus the big stage.

Based on CanJam demos (alone) the Euforia EVO has a wonderful holographic stage with the Atrium

Based on personal experience (got one myself), the Decware/ZMF OTL is the best amp for ZMF dynamic headphones at any price point and just hits your budget limit (u get few hundreds discount if u already own a ZMF) - it has a superb soundstage and mids, and is as lush and holographic as an OTL can get (with big impact from tube rolling).

My review:
https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/decware-zmf-reference-otl.26421/reviews#review-30541

More info at thread:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/decware-reference-zmf-otl.969513/

 

[Tchoupitoulas]

Going back to more affordable Amps, according to reviews, the Bliss seem to have the biggest sounstage even compared to tube amps. (Euforia for example) Anyone here knows of a tube amp that actually surpasses or equals the Bliss at under $4k of course.? I want the bliss with the lush and warm mids! plus the big stage.

I see you've got the Vérité open. I owned the VO at the same time as I had a Bliss and a DNA Stratus. The Stratus is an appreciable step up in almost every way over the Bliss, including soundstage. (It's not as slammy or impactful, though). I don't what they go for new, now, but the Stratus's price used to be right around $4k. Used ones pop up in the classifieds every so often - I'm not sure if @OnlySoMany's one is still for sale, see the post above. It's listed as "closed."

I loved my Vérité open but found it quite finicky with amp pairings, at least for my preferences. The Stratus was the best amp I heard it with, and the Stratus plays very well with other ZMFs, including my Atrium. I wasn't especially fond of the pairing with the Caldera, though. I don't think they had a good synergy together.

I'd recommend checking the Vérité thread as quite a few folks have the Status (@heliosphann and @RestoredSparda, I believe), and they might be able to give you a second opinion. For reference, mine is the v3 Stratus and my DAC's an Yggy A2.

 

[George Hincapie]

My Parents always say "Too Much Tube Porn is not good for you!"LOL

Going back to more affordable Amps, according to reviews, the Bliss seem to have the biggest sounstage even compared to tube amps. (Euforia for example) Anyone here knows of a tube amp that actually surpasses or equals the Bliss at under $4k of course.? I want the bliss with the lush and warm mids! plus the big stage.

LTA MZ3 is the obvious choice.