Been listening to a lot of music (and gear) this weekend.
The last few hours it has been the Immanis off the Audma Maestro HPA1.
Don't know what to say that I haven't said before. It's a remarkable amp!
A couple of people messaged me and asked me how the Audma compares to the Nimbus by Lake People.
In my view, the Audma is in a different league from the Nimbus or any Vioelectric amp, all due to respect to different opinions formed under different contexts, chains, preferences, etc.
I have an AIC for a direct comparison, and a chain and transducers some of you are familiar with, for context. I have also done a lot of painstaking comparison between the Audma, the AIC, the Mass Kobo, and the VIVA Egoista over several long sessions.
Not sure if
@simorag has posted this here (or did I?), but his full review of the Audma is worth a read:
https://6moons.com/audioreview_articles/audma-maestro-hpa1/
As for the Nimbus, I have a post somewhere comparing it to the Cayin Soul, and I think that:
(a) the Cayin Soul is a considerably better amp in tone and technical peformance in particular, more natural and better resolution and slam than the Nimbus and
(b) I have never been drawn to Vioelectric amps like a lot of my close friends. I honestly haven't met a single Vio or Lake People amp that can play a super hard-to-drive planar or a ribbon headphone (namely, the Susvara, the Immanis, etc) to its fullest potential.
(c) I prefer the Audma to the Soul for tone and technicalities and in the latter, it is quite a clear step up from the Soul, and the Soul is from the Nimbus.
As I keep learning and re-learned with the AIC-10, these high-end amps take a bit of time and a lot of close A/B-ing with peers to familiarize oneself with.
And I do agree with
@simorag's views and I thought the comparisons he makes with the AIC, Primavera and Headonia are the appropriate ones.
Of course, YMMV.