LionTamer
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2010
- Posts
- 37
- Likes
- 18
Hi all,
Lots of interesting info in this thread!
I'm just back from the Salon Son & Image show in Montreal, and spent a lot of time in the Woo room, choosing an amp to use in my first high-end headphone rig. I had already decided on LCD-3's, so listened at the show to a few amps with them...the Woo WA6SE, the WA22 (single-ended and balanced), and the Bryston BHA-1. I'll comment quickly on the Bryston, being that this isn't its thread...but suffice it to say that I don't get it. Sure the DAC was different so my conclusions are somewhat clouded by that, but the Bryston just had no soul to it - no depth of texture, no "rightness". It hit the bass notes, it hit the treble notes...but it sounded consistently strained.
When I went to the Woo room and listened to some of the same tracks as I listened to on the Bryston, on the WA6SE (which is cheaper), it sounded far better - not even close. More texture, more ease & flow, just more like music.
Having heard a variety of headphone amps at CanJam in RMAF last fall, I expected that my main interests would lie with Burson and Woo. Unfortunately, Burson wasn't around (neither was Decware). It was strange - most of the hi-end headphone brands were present (Stax, Sennheiser, HiFiMan, Audeze, Kingsound, Grado, etc.) - but of the renowned headphone amp companies, basically Woo was it.
So I listened to the WA6SE...and then the WA22...and then back, and forth, with my LCD-3's. To give a bit of a description of the difference between the two, both driven by the Woo DAC - the 6SE has a bit more bunch and dynamics; the WA22 has a beguiling liquidity and openness to it, with a bit more refinement on the bottom end. Really, the WA22's liquid character is a really strong trait - I just wanted to listen and listen and listen to it. But...at one point, Jack did me a favour and hooked up his DAC to the WA22 in both single ended and balanced connections, so that I could switch between the 2 and see what the loss is going to single ended on the 22. You see - in order to run balanced, I would need a single-ended-to-balanced transformer/converter...and that doesn't seem like a super-easy thing deal with. So, I wanted to check what the 22 would sound like single-ended.
The result was that the WA22 single-ended sounds quite a bit like a WA6SE - just with a little less dynamics and a bit more smoothness. But the differences were quite minimal. Basically, you loose some resolution when you go single-ended. Granted, I don't know if that is a deficiency of the DAC's single-ended output or of the WA22's single-ended input - but Jack suggested that would be the case, and that it was because the amp doesn't have a phase splitter on its input. So his commonly quoted comment that you're better off with a 6SE single-ended and a 22 balanced...well, that bore fruit in my listening. Not that the WA22 completely loses its character single-ended - it's just not enough of an improvement over the 6SE to justify the price if you can't run balanced.
So I was in the weird position of having loved the 22 balanced, but choosing to get the 6SE since it fits in better with my system. I will be picking up the show sample on Sunday at the end of the show, and will be a fellow Woozie soon!
IMHO, if you have the ability to run balanced, the 22 is far superior to the 6SE and worth its extra cost. It's fantastic in every way.
It was an interesting comparison, and I am very thankful to Jack for having brought those 2 amps in black, based on our email exchange where I mentioned I would order black (and he mentioned wanting to sell show samples rather than take them home!).
Now I'll go read up the 6SE thread to figure out which upgrade tubes to buy (well, I'll buy the Sofia for sure, but I want to check into the other tubes as well).
Lots of interesting info in this thread!
I'm just back from the Salon Son & Image show in Montreal, and spent a lot of time in the Woo room, choosing an amp to use in my first high-end headphone rig. I had already decided on LCD-3's, so listened at the show to a few amps with them...the Woo WA6SE, the WA22 (single-ended and balanced), and the Bryston BHA-1. I'll comment quickly on the Bryston, being that this isn't its thread...but suffice it to say that I don't get it. Sure the DAC was different so my conclusions are somewhat clouded by that, but the Bryston just had no soul to it - no depth of texture, no "rightness". It hit the bass notes, it hit the treble notes...but it sounded consistently strained.
When I went to the Woo room and listened to some of the same tracks as I listened to on the Bryston, on the WA6SE (which is cheaper), it sounded far better - not even close. More texture, more ease & flow, just more like music.
Having heard a variety of headphone amps at CanJam in RMAF last fall, I expected that my main interests would lie with Burson and Woo. Unfortunately, Burson wasn't around (neither was Decware). It was strange - most of the hi-end headphone brands were present (Stax, Sennheiser, HiFiMan, Audeze, Kingsound, Grado, etc.) - but of the renowned headphone amp companies, basically Woo was it.
So I listened to the WA6SE...and then the WA22...and then back, and forth, with my LCD-3's. To give a bit of a description of the difference between the two, both driven by the Woo DAC - the 6SE has a bit more bunch and dynamics; the WA22 has a beguiling liquidity and openness to it, with a bit more refinement on the bottom end. Really, the WA22's liquid character is a really strong trait - I just wanted to listen and listen and listen to it. But...at one point, Jack did me a favour and hooked up his DAC to the WA22 in both single ended and balanced connections, so that I could switch between the 2 and see what the loss is going to single ended on the 22. You see - in order to run balanced, I would need a single-ended-to-balanced transformer/converter...and that doesn't seem like a super-easy thing deal with. So, I wanted to check what the 22 would sound like single-ended.
The result was that the WA22 single-ended sounds quite a bit like a WA6SE - just with a little less dynamics and a bit more smoothness. But the differences were quite minimal. Basically, you loose some resolution when you go single-ended. Granted, I don't know if that is a deficiency of the DAC's single-ended output or of the WA22's single-ended input - but Jack suggested that would be the case, and that it was because the amp doesn't have a phase splitter on its input. So his commonly quoted comment that you're better off with a 6SE single-ended and a 22 balanced...well, that bore fruit in my listening. Not that the WA22 completely loses its character single-ended - it's just not enough of an improvement over the 6SE to justify the price if you can't run balanced.
So I was in the weird position of having loved the 22 balanced, but choosing to get the 6SE since it fits in better with my system. I will be picking up the show sample on Sunday at the end of the show, and will be a fellow Woozie soon!
IMHO, if you have the ability to run balanced, the 22 is far superior to the 6SE and worth its extra cost. It's fantastic in every way.
It was an interesting comparison, and I am very thankful to Jack for having brought those 2 amps in black, based on our email exchange where I mentioned I would order black (and he mentioned wanting to sell show samples rather than take them home!).
Now I'll go read up the 6SE thread to figure out which upgrade tubes to buy (well, I'll buy the Sofia for sure, but I want to check into the other tubes as well).
.
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