oh no I am using the ZMF atrium out of the headphone output on the preamp. And was saying that the atrium sounds a lot more spacious out of the Tyrs in comparison. I imagine the preamp headphone output wouldn’t work great with susvara but I can try.
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As a follow up to this I just tested susvara out of the front headphone port vs out of the tyrs that the preamp is driving. And it’s a similar case to the atrium where it’s nice on the headphone output and I have plenty of volume range but when switching to the speaker outputs, the stage expands, dynamics are more powerful, separation is much more clear, and it’s just a more fulfilling sound overall. Test track for this was a classical song I found through a Qobuz grammy winners playlist:
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Nice. I kind of figured as much, but thank you for the follow up.
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Thanks for sharing. I drive my Susvara straight out of the speakers taps and notice improvement over the headphones output. YMMV of course.
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Is the headphone out on the LTA preamp touted a being good? I know the integrated amps from LTA have their HP out as direct output from their amplifier, I would have to think that the preamp only would have the least power output via the headphone jack of anything in their lineup. What information have you run across that has you making the comparison or is it just curiosity on your part?
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From my understanding all of the LTA amps have lower power out via the 6.3mm headphone socket compared to the speaker taps (with the exception of the MZ3’s 1 w).
I would guess the Z10e is similar to the MZ3 if looking at their website but don’t know for certain
It’s somewhat interesting it has one at all, the output stage you need to drive a power amp 50K-200K ohm load is VERY different than driving a headphone at 32-300 ohms.
Most pre’s that do it likely have a separate headphone circuit.
That’s what I thought as well.
Yup. It’s not the same power output as the speaker taps on the z10e. Kind of sucks since it has enough power for something like the Susvara, but only via the speaker taps.
where do you see that?
Conventional Headphone Outputs: Low: 240mW per channel @ 32 ohms, High: 3W per channel @ 32 ohms
Power output with 8-ohm load: 12W, 0.5% THD
The High output option 32ohm seems to follow the 8ohm power… if it was perfectly linear than 6W to 16ohm and then 3W to 32ohm, no?
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Found under With HifiMan Susvara
“I could not find a listing for 50 or 300 ohms, so I wrote LTA’s PR guy, Nicholas Tolson, asking for facts. He reported back: “Into 50 ohms the Z10e makes 500mW from the HI power output, and 77mW from the LO. Into 300 ohms, it can generate 220mW from the HI jack, and 19mW from the LO.” Which is fine for most headphones, but not for one of the world’s finest planar magnetics.”
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nice find thanks for sharing, clearly I should keep my speakers taps to XLR DHC adapter here lol
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Yeah, there’s a manufacturer’s note where they state that they “reworked our original, conservative headphone output”.
That’s why it states 3 W into 32 Ohms now. It’s still not the 12 W at 8 Ohms that the speaker taps provide.
I just wonder why they were ‘conservative’ with the headphone output to begin with?
It is the same, it’s just voltage limited.
To get 12W into 8 Ohms you need 9.79V which is likely the maximum voltage the amp can push into a load for some distortion figure, into 32 Ohms that same 9.79V gives you 3W.
Who knows, it’s not uncommon with speaker amps that drive headphones from the same circuit, most of these things were designed with Grado’s in mind.
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Likely wasn’t a large focus considering it’s on an estat amp designed primary for higher end estat owners, more for convenience, likely would cost them more (either in time, hassle, or perhaps some extra funds but likely more the other two) to focus on a nicer headphone out when it’s something that would mainly only be bought for estat use. Don’t know much about how the zotl stuff works, so perhaps it’s a bit more difficult to make a decent headphone out without giving full power output (which I’d assume they didn’t do full speaker out at first for safety reasons?)
They likely realized after the fact that the demand for an estat amp that can fill both stat and traditional/dynamic use was higher than they thought, and put a bit more focus into the headphone outs, then again seems it’s still pretty stat focused either way and not designed for some of the really high power demand headphones. Only heard the amp with stats and it’s pretty fantastic but never got to try the headphone out for any reasonable time so can’t comment to it
To be honest even off of their speaker amps (dual UL) I’ve never been super impressed with the susvara off of LTA stuff, think it’s much more suited to dynamic headphones or more efficient planar
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Definitely agree regarding pairings.
My guess is there’s a limiting factor to the ZOTL circuit that’s doesn’t allow it to properly drive inefficient planars.
I really think something like the MZ3 is best suited for dynamics. Even efficient planars are meh for me off of it.
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Memory is a finicky thing in audio 
That said, I do agree you can get more out of the Susvara than the LTA pairing if what you’re prioritizing are dynamics, stage size and the the finest details on both low and high frequencies. For speed, timbre, midrange, separation, depth it does well. This is based on driving it from speakers taps though and the Z40+ so others might disagree. I’ll know soon enough how that changes with the Z10e.
I’ve enjoyed it a lot with the Utopia, D8000 Pro and Mysphere and I agree it’s better suited for those. Would love to try it with some ZMFs when I get a chance (Caldera, Atrium and VC mainly).
Yeah does an awesome job with lower impedance dynamics like fostex, grado, kennerton, audio technica (older ones), mid impedance dynamics like focals, and higher impedance like senns, zmf, beyer, newer at, etc. In terms of planar, I liked the d8kp off it and some audeze but never really been standout to me with other planar
Should have clarified in that sentence, surprisingly well for an LTA, decent job overall in the grand scheme of things, so my bad on phrasing there, but decent for that price point isn’t something I’d consider impressive. One UL on it’s own really didn’t do a good job so I didn’t expect doubling it up to improve so much at least with the susvara in comparison to just the single UL (then again I had also upgraded preamps when I grabbed a second one so that could have contributed lol going from the bricasti preamp to a pass preamp). Single UL to dual UL seemed hit or miss depending on what you drive with it for if it was worthwhile or not
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Anybody buying one or two ULs to drive the Susvara clearly isn’t thinking about system building the right way. I know that’s not why you had it for but just referencing this for future readers and out of context. You can spend much less (and much more) and get better results between an amp and sus pairing.
I still stand behind the matching of r2r dacs, class A amps and planars as the best way to get the most out of them and the most enjoyable to my ears. I just think with good gear you can get close. At the end of the day these amps are good, they’ll produce good sound. They just won’t produce the best sound for the things they’re not intended for.