Iāve heard from people who listened to it that itās very very good and easier to drive. I wonāt be a customer but will sure try to get my ears on one. Might also pick up a cheap Susvara when those flood the used market eventually
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Wow, didnāt know people were already listening to them.
How good are we talking about? Shang Sr level resolution and soundstage with bass 
It was available to some under NDA at Munich High End. I donāt know much about how it sounds other than āvery goodā
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Sounds like the yammy lol
Jokes aside, it would be cool to see what they come up with
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Can you imagine the domino effect on the broad used market pricing a hot new TOTL Hifiman would have?!
oh and I forgot, spoke to Ben Zwickel today as I saw a blurb on his site about a new Illuminati āBrickā power supply thatās coming soon.
The Illuminati āBrickā is a single 5A power supply as opposed to a dual output combined 5A like your Illuminati v1.
All the internal components have been upgraded: newer/better Belleson regulator, better film and organic polymer capacitors, better Lundahl choke (even amorphous core choke upgrade option).
What is no where near as good is the chassis: simple, off-the-shelf, cast aluminum ābrickā shaped chassis with simple high-temp textured black powder coating.
Because of the less attractive and less custom chassis we were able to manufacture a better power supply at a lower cost.
Starting at only $1,250 there is nothing on the market that will compare in performance at any price.
In a subsequent email I asked about voltage range options that would be avail.
They will come in voltages from 5V to 25V each with a bit of adjustment.
So a 9V could be adjusted down to 7V or 5V.
Or a 12V could be adjusted down to 9V or 7V.
Of course being Ben thereās going to be amorphous core choke upgrades which he said have a huge impact on anything with analog outputs not nearly as important on digital only upstream sources which I found an interesting comment.
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There is that. Maybe some type of source, then he is aiming to get the new totl dac out by the fall. But that same totl dac has been rumored and hinted at since 2017.
As someone with OG vegan pads on a 2.2, i would love if these were exact copies.
Unfortunately he only shows it on the lcd-2 classic, whichā¦ Why?.
But knowing the og pads are the real deal, hopefully these give others a taste.
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Iām glad to see yet another ācherry pickedā brand, but I have to ask should we really have to be willing to pay a premium for new production āqualityā tubes vs standard new production āokā tubes? We all know there are only a few factories in the world manufacturing new production tubes, all of these āpremium sub-brandsā are just cherry picking the best of the batch and charging a premium for it. What if those factories just increased their production standards so that every new tube produced was up to spec with these premium sub-brands?
Intel, AMD, etc have tried this model before, where they cherry pick specific units that perform better than the rest and charge more for them and it usually just irritates people. Also, in audiophilia, where performance is more esoteric than most other realms, assuming the ācherry pickedā sub-brands picked the absolute best units available for your price premium seems like a dangerous proposition. 
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Iām not sure itās quite that simple i have 3 different grades of PSVane 2A3ās here, I canāt tell if the construction is identical, because the middle tier ones have opaque glass, but the materials do seem to vary between them.
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More news on the new TOTL Hifiman. Was talking to a dealer today about buying a Susvara, and was told the new model is due out middle of this month. They didnāt have any word on pricing yet though.
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Multiple sources told me price is $8K
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I am not sure if the tube tiers or lines are just the same as lower ones but cherry picked, or binned higher. Even if construction is near identical the metallurgy can differ and make a huge difference. Higher end tubes also tend to last longer, or come with better warranties.
Looking at the video, it does seem these are priced slightly above a JJ offering which is pretty value based.
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Has anyone heard what pricing is going to be on the Headamp CFA3? I checked the Head-Fi thread and didnāt see anything there.
Not since last year, when they were projecting two versions at 4-5K, one at the lower end, the other at the upper of that range.
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Iāve heard similar ranges but about $1K higher
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As far as I can tell, exposed magnets, cover for storage, silver on the diaphragm instead of gold, (supposedly easier to drive) $8K, whatever that turns out to be at a dealer.
Wonder how much of the 8K they are budgeting to replace damaged diaphragms given they are basically exposed.
Be interesting to see what it sounds like.
Look seems to be a bit polarizing, but no wood veneer at least.
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First thing that came to mind 
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Also, if I have to baby it like an estat, this is probably out of the question for me until a revision comes along. Iām looking forward to a shootout between this, the Raal Immanis, and the Final X8000.
More graphics:
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The cups and pads look pretty thin. I would wonder if the pads are deep enough for comfort.