Would agree, it’s just not a good value for something like a susvara but great value for some of the other aforementioned headphones above, and it also didn’t seem to do well some of my demanding speakers like raidho for example, you really want to make sure you get the pairing right with lta stuff in both the dac and the transducer
I will say it was actually pretty good with a HEKSE (although still likely not my first choice) so if you really wanted to go to hifiman + lta I think that’s the way to go
My understanding is that the LTA Preamp and the MZ3 have the same headphone and preamp circuitry, but the MZ3 has fewer inputs & outputs. I got that from this review, and haven’t talked to LTA.
I tried that HEKSE/Z40+/Wavedream and it was a bit much for me… would’ve wanted a warmer source or meatier tubes that I’m not even sure you can squeeze that type of sound from the LTA. What did you have for source when you tried that pairing?
IIRC I mostly tried it with things like a lampi gg2 or anuk dac5 which do lean more on the warmer relaxed and richer side of things, I did have a wavedream sig at the time and while I don’t think I ever used the hekse + mz3 combo with it, I did find that the rocka was a bit too forward for me at times with that pairing with some headphones, felt similarly with pairups like the tambaqui or rs2. I should also note the loaner hek I was using had a danacable ref on it which is a warmer more relaxed leaning cable too. Ah also direct + drivers which while not as warm and relaxed as the gg2 or (gimped) dac5 still didn’t cause issues for me personally. Wish I had the mojo at that time so I could have tried that pairup lol, seems like it would be a good one too
Makes a lot of sense. I do think the WD+LTA pairing is a hit/miss depending on your preferences and transducers. That’s one of the reason I’ve been looking more at the totaldac and mojo options lately. I know lampizator would be a great pairing too but I don’t want to deal with the tubes much and I lean a little more to the others sound wise.
Remember when we were at CAF in MD and we were talking to the LTA guys? I had asked him this very question about any difference between pre-amp and mz3 and the original MZ3 and their pre-amp are the same exact circuit.
The pre-amp has more features and the MZ3 adds the speaker taps. I asked him if it were worth upgrading to the new power supply and he was all, “Meh, would not bother” but then he mentioned the upgrades for the pre-amp were not available for the MZ3. So technically there is a pre-amp that’s different from the MZ3 it’s their newest version with some upgraded internals that aren’t being done to the MZ3 currently.
I tested it out of curiosity as I wanted to understand the LTA sound instead of hearing it through my speaker amps. I don’t have any regular headphone amps hooked up, just the speaker amps, so using the LTA headphone output is less things to turn on. It’s a nice sound but it definitely does not compete with the output from the Schiit Tyrs.
I heard the same thing about the MZ3 and microZOTL preamp being a very similar design. The reasons I went with the microZOTL was for the balanced input with input transformers since I like my dac, Bricasti MC1, better out of the balanced output. And I also went with the microZOTL for the level 2 upgrades.
The full pre-amp is a proper piece for what you are using it with, great choice. The MZ3 simply adds much value in that it offers up features well above and beyond it’s primary use case. Your stuff looks really nice all set up in the pictures.
Welcome…you know, the first picture post is a must and there are “certain” guidelines. (Tong in cheek comment) Did you get it primarily as a 2 CH or a HP solution or are they both equally important to you? You got it used or did a trade in with the guys at LTA?
(Tong in cheek comment) Did you get it primarily as a 2 CH or a HP solution or are they both equally important to you? You got it used or did a trade in with the guys at LTA?