[Orestes1984]

I have a steady stream of available vintage "new old stock" valves as a family member of mine is a guitarist. I'm thinking of buying one of these amps so I can play with valves, I hear they are much better now since the v1.3  and upwards.

 

[Draxcer]

What are you going to be using it with?

 

[Orestes1984]

  What are you going to be using it with?

My main set of headphones at the moment are a set of Focal Listen One, my main source is an iPhone 5S which has a good DAC in it already or my MacBook Pro, which again has an Intel HD Audio chipset. I don't see the need to buy a DAC but I was thinking about buying a headphone preamp just to play with valves more than anything else. My other amplifier I have at home is an Onkyo TX-SR601 which I connect to by an Apple TV through its optical audio port. I then use DLNA with my iPhone as the originating source and listen to the output through the headphone jack when I'm plugged in.
 
My existing amp has a range of outputs including CD out, video out, monitor out line out, component out, optical out and so on, so connecting to a second stage is not an issue if I just wanted to use my existing solid state Hi-Fi receiver for amplification without colouring the sound.

 

[Draxcer]

 
My main set of headphones at the moment are a set of Focal Listen One, my main source is an iPhone 5S which has a good DAC in it already or my MacBook Pro, which again has an Intel HD Audio chipset. I don't see the need to buy a DAC but I was thinking about buying a headphone preamp just to play with valves more than anything else. My other amplifier I have at home is an Onkyo TX-SR601 which I connect to by an Apple TV through its optical audio port. I then use DLNA with my iPhone as the originating source and listen to the output through the headphone jack when I'm plugged in.
 
My existing amp has a range of outputs including CD out, video out, monitor out line out, component out, optical out and so on, so connecting to a second stage is not an issue if I just wanted to use my existing solid state Hi-Fi receiver for amplification without colouring the sound.

I'm not really the biggest advocate of using a receiver as headphone amp. And even though Apple stuff have pretty goods DAC's in the, there will always be a benefit from having a separate dac.

But I'm not going to force anything on you. As long as you like it, it's all good. The tubes may not do much in your setup, but playing with them is always fun. 

 

[Orestes1984]

Well there's plenty of evidence out there that suggests that there is no need for a DAC with iPhones, given there flatter than flat frequency response curve and complete lack of distortion, and adding extra things into your line especially without a dedicated line out is the perfect way to add distortion. Most of it is marketing nonsense and you will see that the people that advocate, of course you need a DAC come from the same people who are trying to sell that nonsense. But I'll leave you to explain why all of a sudden I need a DAC?
 

 
 
As far as valves, it's just fun playing with things. I probably won't "gain" much, no need for any puns, I was more so wondering. whether anyone had any recent experiences using this particular amplifier considering the less than stellar reviews of the earlier versions.
 
For my mind Head-Fi has finally become as bad as every other form of Hi-fi nonsense where people believe that gold cabling actually makes a difference and where some random Chinese startup company actually makes better DACs than a company that has been selling pretty much nothing else other than DACs in its top selling premium phone/mp3 player range for around 15 years now.
 
I'll put the advice of getting a DAC under snake oil, but you can buy one if you so wish. If you want to spend thousands of dollars on things that don't make any difference what so ever you're more than welcome to do though this emperor has plenty of clothes left in his wardrobe.