Why doesn’t it mesh well w/ the Spring?
If I do I will, thanks!
Personally think it just doesn’t elevate the positive aspects of the mass kobo, while it does give more stage width, it ends up making stage feel more unnatural. While it does add some more smoothness to the treble to take the edge off, it somewhat dulls it as well. I also think it loses a bit of it’s control and grip somewhat. It is an enjoyable listen, but kinda ends up tilting it in a way that takes away a bit of what I like about it the most. Something that in theory should work well, in practice was more meh
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I heard Eddie Current makes solid-state amps as well which are not available anymore. But I heard somewhere he might bring it back one last time (don’t know how reliable the source is).
If that’s the case, are they worth considering as well?
the black widow v2 is pretty nice, i had one in on loan for a few weeks last year. Overall a very good pairing i thought with my Eikon i had at the time. Very warm and smooth, musical sound. lacked resolution and could feel a bit blunted sometimes. for the right price it could be a really awesome amp though. It might be a little lower tiered than what you are looking for though.
I heard from the man himself that he was thinking about doing a hybrid amp later this year, but that was back in March and that might have changed since. I haven’t heard anything about a new BW or SS amp. I think he kinda decided to stick to tubes mostly after some of the troubles they had with the BW
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Ah, ok got it good to know! Thanks for the info.
Personally I don’t think so, given other options that exist, I think it would be a step down from the tier you want to be at. Also not sure if the signature is what you are after, towa described it pretty well
It’s what he does best, so that’s a good thing imo
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Has anybody heard the Luxman P750U? I see someone selling it on usaudiomart and amazon for the same price and I was just curious on how it would match my preferences, chain, and the amps already mentioned above…
It’s a pretty nice amp, but I really wouldn’t suggest it given your current preferences and dac. It will lean very smooth, relaxed, warm, dense, and loose. Personally don’t find it to have that great of synergy with either the focal or zmf personally
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Hm, gotcha. It is a looker though!
Also, I see a Lampi on sale with what looks to be a fair price ($3200).
I’m curious what I’d be gaining/losing replacing a Spring 3 with this?
For balanced that would be good, for single ended it’s a bit high, generally at this point se lampi float around 2.5-2.8k from what I see
If I estimate the performance between a 2 kte and a may kte, I’d say you likely aren’t losing much, and it’s mostly gain, but it might not be leaps and bounds. If it is closer to the spring 2, then it is a solid jump. If it’s closer to the May it’s a jump but not a super large one (roughly on similar playing field with a may kte, trading blows). Generally I’d say the biggest gains would be overall more organic aspects like better timbre, better tonal density, more realistic spatial recreation, improved dynamics, better impact and slam. It is a step up in detail but not as much. Perhaps the spring would have better speed and separation. Signature wise the spring is a bit warmer relaxed, where the lampi is more neutral warm a bit forward imo
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Anybody got ears on ampandsound tube amps?
Would they perform similarly to something like an Eddie Current?
I hear they synergize well with ZMF and Focal so I thought it might be a good consideration as well.
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I had a pendant, it’s not a bad amp, but not comparable to the DNA/EC amps.
Mine also was extremely prone to environmental noise, which seems to be a common theme with Justin’s amps.
I haven’t heard his higher end stuff, they don’t appeal to me for a couple of reasons, the aforementioned issues with environmental noise and his choice of tubes.
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Ah, that’s right I did hear about them being somewhat noisy.
Still good to know, thanks.
@don has a one off amp from them right now, he might be able to give you some feedback.
I’ve not heard one myself but i have have seen similiar feedback in the vein of what poly was saying
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Funny that you use the word feedback twice. I’m noticing a trend with Zero Feedback (or Zero Negative Feedback) tube amps that they’re not great at filtering out tube noise. It’s been especially noticeable using the Verite Closed and not as noticeable using the HD600 but still there nonetheless. Has been the case with my old Makoyi and now this Ampsandsound Amp (I’m just going to call it Amp, closest relation is the Leeloo). Maybe someone can weigh in here and explain why this is but the why is over my head.
@hifiDJ Other than what I’ve noted above I think it’s an excellent pairing. The High Z out is 300 ohm so perfect for the VC and it’s a very fast and dynamic amp with pretty great detail retrieval. So, macro focused and slightly technical leaning. Not the warm soft tube sound. Soundstage and imaging I’d call average, not bad, not exceptional. Signature is neutral with a slight hint of low end elevation. Genalec Gold Lion’s in all the holes. Haven’t rolled yet.
All that said though idk if that’s a house sound or if these traits hold true with other Ampsandsound offerings and the one I have is a one off so you can’t exactly just go out and buy it. So potentially this post is completely useless to you. Lol.
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The noise floor still happens on the VC using Low Z?
Nah, thanks for the feedback still!
I guess one advantage is that most of their amps are more readily available. Can’t say the same about DNA/EC from what I’ve been hearing (unless you jump now).
It’s much less noticeable but still there. It’s 8 ohm btw and could potentially be nice with the Focal stuff. Trouble is the VC doesn’t sound nearly as good using the low z out. Honestly it’s not that bothersome to me and the zero feedback design has benefits like sounding very natural but I thought it was worth mentioning. Environmental noise is fine as long as it’s not too close to a cellphone ime.
Can’t offer a comparison with DNA/EC but there are many fans of those two amp builders in the forum.
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Was the environmental stuff like the 60hz hum that comes from lights? That plagues so many tube guitar amps.
A homemade faraday cage can help there.
Yes in my case it was 60Hz hum, but it’s unclear what the source was, I tried everything short of a regenerator on the power side (I sold my pendant before I bought a regenerator), I tried shields for the tubes, and countless other things.
Nothing made any difference, it was barely audible on sensitive headphones on HiZ.
I believe the newer models have a lower impedance (read lower gain) transformer for HiZ than the earlier pendants, so it might be less of an issue now, but that will also impact how the amps sound.
The amp was returned to A&S to be checked and after it came back with the same issue I spoke directly to Justin about this, and while interesting to talk to he was not particularly helpful in resolving the issue. His response came down to you’ll have to live with it.
I will also point out I have MANY tube amps here and it was the only one that ever had an issue.
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So i think this is much more common on guitar amps because, well, most are made to distort etc etc. One of the tricks used for guitar amps, was to make a tin foil “box” with seams folded over and encase the amp and see if it helps.
If so a grounded cage should do the trick. Or be in a room with every other single electronic thing off.