Interesting, in my case i can most definitively hear the volume increase, it is not subtle. Since i am trying to squeeze everything i can out of the QS it feels like i would have to leave the OOR on while using the QS to get that extra dBs, that actually makes me want to use the OOR as a pre-amp even more…
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Hi @orrman , did this shootout happen? I am still waiting for the Susvara so i can compare it to the Tungsten, so i am interested in your findings 
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It did! I didn’t really learn anything new since it was my third time having Tungsten DS here but in short - I’d still pick Susvara over it for my preferences and taking into account not only sound but look and feel too. Tung sits between HE6 and Sus as far as tuning and technical performance goes. It doesn’t have the special low end slam that HE6 has but it’s also not as polite and laid back as Susvara can be (you can definitely wake Sus up with the right amplification).
Technical performance generally I’d rank it Sus > Tung > HE6.
Stage size might go to Tung but it’s very close with Sus. HE6 definitely smaller.
I do think I prefer pairing both Tungsten and HE6 on solid state while Sus can be magical on tubes too so it’s up to preferences and the amps you have. I think the first two benefit from better grip of something like 465 or HM1 can offer to sound their best.
Let me know if there’s anything specific you’d like to know!
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Thanks for that info!
I feel the same way about the Tungsten’s bass slam, i think this specific aspect of its sound was way overhyped, its not bad by any means, but Resolve’s impressions on it made me expect something similar to the HE6 and that is just not there.
Interestingly i like the Tungsten on the Quicksilver WAY more than in the OOR, what the Quicksilver does for the soundstage/imaging on the Tungsten is out of this world, makes me wonder how a better/more powerful tube amp would sound since apparently the Quicksilver does not have sufficient power to drive the Tungsten’s to 100% potential, honestly i cannot hear that at all and i pick it over the OOR every day.
I think the OOR + HYPSOS would be just that from what i read, right? I wonder if the OOR would make the Susvara slam harder than the Tungsten, is that a combination you have tried by any chance?
I’m not sure. Oor/Hypsos is very nice for its price. Susvara is the most rewarding and scalable headphone available and the more you give it the more it’ll give back. My experience with the Ferrum stack (owned a couple years ago) was great but it’s far from reaching Sus full potential. I didn’t hear Tungsten on it but Oor isn’t really slammy so can’t say for certain.
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Gotcha, yep i know the OOR is probably one of the weakest amps in the higher end spectrum, its just that i keep hearing people saying that for some reason it is a perfect match Susvara and that it brings the Susvara’s macro dynamics to life. That is why i am now trying to get a Susvara once again, so i can listen to it on the OOR which was not here last time.
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I recently unsubscribed from all of the headphone reviewer, apart from Wave Theory.
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Yep he is one of the good ones, i got the HE1000se because of him going on and on about how good they are and how attractive of an offer they are after the latest price cuts, and man was he right.
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Same. I waited to hear his thoughts/comparison between the HEkse and Tungsten, as well as reading impressions on here.
He’s thorough and methodical. As long as you have a reference point for something he mentions in a review, you can account for his preferences and hearing quirks and draw a reasonably safe conclusion. It’s how it should be done IMO.
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So, after some more time listening to these i think i can better pinpoint how they sound on the OOR compared to the Quicksilver.
While using the OOR i found two things i don’t like, the bass becomes too polite and the soundstage gets smaller and simpler, less holographic.
I expected to get a more interesting soundstage from the Quicksilver because of tubes and all, but the bass was really surprising to me.
As far as the Quicksilver being able to drive the Tungstens properly, most of the research i did so far indicates that it does not have sufficient power, but then there is a senior member of the headphones.com forum (his username is “Torq”, you may know him) who believes the Quicksilver is indeed sufficient, this is his take on it:
"
The Quicksilver’s maximum output of 7v is enough to get the Tungstens to between 100 and 103 dB/SPL, depending on which version. That’d yield an 80 dB/SPL average listening level, allowing 20 dB for musical peaks.
That assumes, of course, that the unit’s 24 dB of gain is enough for your source to drive the Quicksilver to its limit.
"
I am still trying to understand about amplification specs/requirements but his calculations actually match what i am hearing on my setup, i tried to go back to the OOR many times and i end up picking the Quicksilver every single time, that incredible soundstage presentation + more bass presence always wins, at least to my personal preference.
Hopefully more members of this forum will get their hands on the Tungstens soon, i am looking forward to hearing other’s opinions on amp pairings for these!
Then use the Quicksilver, you are way overthinking it.
Power is a useless number, if it gets loud enough and doesn’t clip (you would hear it) it has enough power.
It has no direct bearing on quality.
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Oh i am using it, but i still want to fully understand this.
I am an exact sciences person, both in personality and in my career, overthinking this type of stuff is how i roll
OK once more for posterity…
Volume is just Signal Voltage, amps can’t magic Voltage from no where so if say your amp has 20V power, it can’t swing above 20V under any circumstances (this isn’t true of transformer coupled tube amps but ignore that for a minute).
In practice it won’t even be able to swing 20V, because transistors in the output circuit will limit it some so with a it might be 15-19V depending on topology for a 20V power supply.
Amplifiers also can’t break the laws of physics, and have to obey Ohms Law V=IR so if it cant deliver enough Current then the Voltage is additionally limited by that, so an amplifier with a 20V main power supply that can deliver say 0.1A, would be limited to 2V into 20Ohms (20*0.1) despite being able to deliver more voltage into bigger loads.
Power is just V*I for a given load.
Anytime your output tries to exceed that maximum voltage you get clipping.
For SS amps that clipping is usually brutally obvious, because the waveform looks like it just hits a ceiling, tubes clip a lot more “nicely”, and tend to round off at the top of the wave, but it’s still obvious.
That’s all true for any signal, but what’s less obvious is because perceived volume is logarithmic, if you listening to music at say 0.5V peak, loud sudden noises in that same track could be instaneously 3 or 4 times higher than that. This is what headroom is for.
I put my scope on the output of my amplifier recently to see just how much voltage swing I was seeing going into my Susvara when listening loud, it was about 0.5V peak (1V Pk2Pk) for most of the track with spikes commonly hitting 1.5V peak.
Everything is also quoted as RMS, so that 20V power supply above providing ~20V Pk2Pk becomes 20/2.82 or about 7V RMS.
Power is a much less useful measurement in the Headphone world because loads vary so much you can get headphones with 15 Ohm loads or 600+, so you have to infer from the quoted power levels into various loads, what the actual Voltage and Current limit are.
You don’t really have the same variation with Speaker amps, but even there it can be quite misleading.
In the end all that matters is what it sounds like to you.
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Thanks for another great explanation.
Ok so i tried to find where the Quicksilver starts clipping so i could better understand what are its limits, and it turns out i was already using it at 100% of what it can do.
For those interested in pairing the Quicksilver with the Tungsten, it starts clipping just after 12 oclock on the volume pot, that is why i never had issues with it, it all depends on your listening levels. Oh, and about adding a pre-amp to increase the input levels, as expected the Quicksilver starts clipping earlier than that, around 11 oclock.
I found some rap music with ridiculous amounts of bass, and it behaves just fine until 12, after that there is LOTS of clipping, so there you have it
The OOR on the other hand just will not clip at any volume level, i have reduced the pre-gain on Roon to -12dB which is the maximum you can go, so i could turn on the volume on the OOR, still it would not clip.
So if you listen on lower volume levels, the Tungsten’s sound presentation is a lot nicer to my ears in the Quicksilver than the OOR’s, but at higher volume levels it is just not enough.
I bet the Tungstens sound phenomenal on more powerful tube amps!
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Thanks for leading the way for us QS owners… I’ll watch for a used Tungsten DS to drop at some point like a year from now. Looking forward to trying it.
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Hey @Christof , how did you go about removing de cloth in yours? I want to give this a try but i fear i may end up damaging something…
Also, is there another forum where more mods are discussed for these?
Ryan might be modding the pads for new units I’m not sure. But you can tell if there’s cloth in there by seeing if there’s a thin layer of stretchy cloth in the pad. There’s also a coarser mesh on the metal ring that the pad mounts to but you don’t want to remove that. To remove the cloth I just pulled it up and then poked a hole in it and cut it out. I pulled the cloth as I cut it out so that I could remove as much as possible.
I get most of my info from the Telegram group. Here’s a link: Telegram: Join Group Chat
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This is what you mean, right? I was inspecting it and i realized i could easily remove them even without scissors.
Looks like the cloth is already removed from that one. You can remove that mesh if you want to, I did on one of mine but I don’t think that changes the sound at all
