[goldwerger]

Budget would be TBC for now, but if there are any particular good products in both the mid and upper end of the headphone amp price range (assuming such price categories are easy to define here of course), I can check them out when researching.

Ah, the fun of thinking about spending someone else's budget... so let me have a crack at giving you the high-end watermark from my POV. If this doesn't give you a sticker shock, then I will be egging you from afar as you make this purcahse. If it does, we'll bring it down a notch and find out your true threshold of pain...

With that preamble behind... check out:

Ampandsound Red October
(https://ampsandsound.com/products/red-october

This is the best I've ever heard any ZMF on any amp (specifically, I demo-ed it extensively at CanJam NYC with the VC Olive LTD that was on hand, which I happen to have at home and veyr familiar with). It was such a profound experience, I still daydream every now and then how one day I explain this giant piece of hardware in our living room to my wife...

 

[9bphillips]

Ah, the fun of thinking about spending someone else's budget... so let me have a crack at giving you the high-end watermark from my POV. If this doesn't give you a sticker shock, then I will be egging you from afar as you make this purcahse. If it does, we'll bring it down a notch and find out your true threshold of pain...

With that preamble behind... check out:

Ampandsound Red October
(https://ampsandsound.com/products/red-october

This is the best I've ever heard any ZMF on any amp (specifically, I demo-ed it extensively at CanJam NYC with the VC Olive LTD that was on hand, which I happen to have at home and veyr familiar with). It was such a profound experience, I still daydream every now and then how one day I explain this giant piece of hardware in our living room to my wife...

Yeah that's most definitely shooting for the moon! Man I would love to have the red October. I've only heard phenomenal things about it! It is a beautiful amp too!

 

[goldwerger]

Yeah that's most definitely shooting for the moon! Man I would love to have the red October. I've only heard phenomenal things about it! It is a beautiful amp too!

I've had the pleasure to test it as well as the Nautilus, and they are quite different. Both are built wonderuflly and look great. The Nautilus though, other than just being a fantastic very clean amp, would have been interchangeable to me with any similarly clean and linear amp. The Red October had an expanded sound stage the like of which I didn't think the VC was capable of. It was also had a great bass texture. I think its even harmonics are probably creating some great resonances. The 300Bs on it are just magic (and to get good ones of those, add another 2k or more to the cost...)

 

[Shockadelica]

Ah, the fun of thinking about spending someone else's budget... so let me have a crack at giving you the high-end watermark from my POV. If this doesn't give you a sticker shock, then I will be egging you from afar as you make this purcahse. If it does, we'll bring it down a notch and find out your true threshold of pain...

With that preamble behind... check out:

Ampandsound Red October
(https://ampsandsound.com/products/red-october

This is the best I've ever heard any ZMF on any amp (specifically, I demo-ed it extensively at CanJam NYC with the VC Olive LTD that was on hand, which I happen to have at home and veyr familiar with). It was such a profound experience, I still daydream every now and then how one day I explain this giant piece of hardware in our living room to my wife...

Well if I ever have a spare $12k to blow on a headphone amp, I now know where to go!

Some of the options provided in previous posts are more in line with my likely (but still technically TBC) budget.

 

[geoffalter11]

Will you be going to CanJam SoCal @goldwerger ? I am planning to send this amp to Zach beforehand, maybe you can try it and tell me what you think. Relative to Airmid, it is a totally "old school" circuit, no silicon whatsoever, it is a warmer more euphonic sound, larger soundstage, more full-bodied bass to my ears. It is a prototype, unique circuit among headphone amps, nothing like it on the market, but could potential become an offering down the road. I'll be seeking feedback, assuming I get it to him in time! Waiting for one last part, but I got the ship date moved back so we should be good to go oh and transformer coupled, should pair well with planars.

Beauty. Gives me amp jealousy…

 

[Mike C]

This was extremely informative, thank you. I’d love to learn what makes my Icon Audio HP8 sound so good. To understand technically how it was designed and what makes it sound the way it does. It is such a wonderful amp.

Lots of good iron is a great start! 7Kg weight.
Though I can't see what OPTs it uses, your results suggest they are good.
Then good sounding output valves ... though I have an issue with 12AX7 (the driver), evidently they get good results. Myself, I would definitely try a good 5751 (have a read of Joe's Tube Lore on Audio Asylum about 12AX7, you should find it by google).
And evidently designed and configured well by people who know what they are doing, and this matters far far more than expensive boutique audiophile components.

It would be worth a better volume control, and I know this from direct experience with the Alps blue ... perhaps I've been a touch over critical of it in the past, but there are better out there. As it's a small amp it might be a problem getting something better in so be careful. But there are many companies out there who could do the mod. Worth some research IMO but YMMV!!!

 

[L0rdGwyn]

Beauty. Gives me amp jealousy…

Thanks!

Your Icon Audio Amplifier is a two-stage SET design, the 12AX7 input stage looks to be resistively loaded and cathode biased, the input and output stages are coupled with some type of film capacitor. The 6SN7 output stage puts the two sections of the 6SN7 in parallel to cut its internal resistance in half. This allows for the use of a lower primary impedance output transformer, which the maker states are custom wound and have multiple secondary taps for different headphone impedances. I would guess they are 10K primary output transformers. The output stage is also cathode biased. This is a pretty typical SET topology. The power supply is passively filtered, all filters appear to be RC, no chokes.

As far as why it sounds good, or why any tube amplifier sounds good, you will hear a lot of different answers. You might hear it is because there is no negative feedback - triodes are inherently linear due to their transfer characteristics so they do not necessarily require negative feedback for low distortion. A lot of audiophiles think negative feedback is the devil, which isn't true if it is used tastefully, so hard to say that is the reason entirely. You might also hear it is due to the second-harmonic dominant character of triode distortion (in single-ended circuits), that this is "good" distortion whereas odd order and higher order harmonic distortion is "bad", and the "bad" distortion is generated more readily in solid state circuits. Probably more accurate would be to say second harmonic is the least bad of the distortion, but lower distortion will still give desirable traits like increased clarity / soundstage / imaging and is still the goal of a good amplifier design (the entire reason people use directly-heated triodes, like 300B, is they are very linear and have low distortion!). But solid-state amplifiers can also have very low and second-harmonic dominant distortion spectra, so not entirely clear that this is the reason either. Other reasons you might hear have something to do with the magic of tubes, hard to put a finger on that one. No one can say for sure why the sound of tubes is desirable, and you cannot entirely rule out their mystique and aesthetic qualities having some psychoacoustic effect on the listener. I find designing a tube amplifier is some balance between art and science - it has to hit certain design and measurement standards, but there is an element of design that is best left to subjective evaluation. Regardless, they can sound pretty darn good and there is no answer that easily explains it, I think it's best to aggregate the theories and come up with your own conclusions

I find the Alps RK27 totally fine, for the price it is a good pot, but you could spend to get something with smoother turn feel.

 

[goldwerger]

Well if I ever have a spare $12k to blow on a headphone amp, I now know where to go!

Some of the options provided in previous posts are more in line with my likely (but still technically TBC) budget.

You’ll keep us guessing…

Enjoy!

 

[TheMiddleSky]

Funny thing is I never thought about experiment with Suede pads before. Been confuse to choose whether Universe or BE2 as primary pad, finally I find my peace of choice with Universe Suede!

All greatness of Universe Leather are here, great soundstage (BE2 lack of this), full body sound, but instead of a bit dull on high frequencies, Universe Suede open up more, giving better airy feeling as well, and produce a little cleaner presentation on bass and lower midrange. Micro detail seems a little easier to heard now compared to Universe Lamb. No extra sibilance/harshness which is perfect.

 

[9bphillips]

Funny thing is I never thought about experiment with Suede pads before. Been confuse to choose whether Universe or BE2 as primary pad, finally I find my peace of choice with Universe Suede!

All greatness of Universe Leather are here, great soundstage (BE2 lack of this), full body sound, but instead of a bit dull on high frequencies, Universe Suede open up more, giving better airy feeling as well, and produce a little cleaner presentation on bass and lower midrange. Micro detail seems a little easier to heard now compared to Universe Lamb. No extra sibilance/harshness which is perfect.

I was the same way with never thinking to try suede. The only reason I did was because I bought a used Atrium and the suede Be2 came with it. I am so thankful they did because I love the Be2 suede. I swap back and forth between universe lambskin and Be2 suede. You have me wondering how I would like universe suede.

 

[geoffalter11]

Lots of good iron is a great start! 7Kg weight.
Though I can't see what OPTs it uses, your results suggest they are good.
Then good sounding output valves ... though I have an issue with 12AX7 (the driver), evidently they get good results. Myself, I would definitely try a good 5751 (have a read of Joe's Tube Lore on Audio Asylum about 12AX7, you should find it by google).
And evidently designed and configured well by people who know what they are doing, and this matters far far more than expensive boutique audiophile components.

It would be worth a better volume control, and I know this from direct experience with the Alps blue ... perhaps I've been a touch over critical of it in the past, but there are better out there. As it's a small amp it might be a problem getting something better in so be careful. But there are many companies out there who could do the mod. Worth some research IMO but YMMV!!!

Thank you for this. I will message you off this thread as it isn't Atrium centric.

 

[geoffalter11]

I was the same way with never thinking to try suede. The only reason I did was because I bought a used Atrium and the suede Be2 came with it. I am so thankful they did because I love the Be2 suede. I swap back and forth between universe lambskin and Be2 suede. You have me wondering how I would like universe suede.

Do the suede add mid bass like they do with the Auteur?

 

[geoffalter11]

Thank you for this. I will message you off this thread as it isn't Atrium centric.

I believe it uses in house hand wound transformers. Not sure if they have copper in them or just in the top plate.

 

[9bphillips]

Do the suede add mid bass like they do with the Auteur?

I still need more listening time with the Autuer. I don't find the Be2 suede to be lacking in mid bass honestly. Compared to the universe lambskin I would say the bass and mid bass is more centered if that makes sense. It isn't as wide open in any of the frequencies compared to Universe lambskin. I will do a comparison probably by Monday night. I am at work now and have to work tomorrow night too. I have been seeing a lot of talk about pad rolling so I'm going to try the Autuer Lambskin out on my Atrium and may try the Autuer Hybrid again on my VC. I always like to go back to a pad every couple of months to see if my opinion has changed.

 

[AudioProm]

Do the suede add mid bass like they do with the Auteur?

To my ears, yes. Atrium sounds a lot darker with auteur hybrid pads, the universe suede strike a better balance in my opinion. I've tried Be2, universal lambskin, auteur hybrid pads but I always go back to universal suede at the end.