I get what you are getting at but I personaly take the perspective that if the budget exists there’s no real harm in trying. No one expects something to work well in thee first couple hundred iterations with a new tech, but that doesn’t mean complication need be avoided in the high end space. Imo, one of the greatest things about high end niche products is that that can afford you the availability to innovate and prototype in ways not viable in larger sectors. While they didn’t work out as totl the first go around I personaly find stuff like the neurophone, 1more triple trident, and even just empys very very very cool tech that should be supported (at least emotionally).
Fair. Tbh I dont know much about wav in general. I assume lossless = lossless as far as storage codec goes? Aka flac vs wav is no sonic difference? Assume that’s easy enough to prove in the digital domain.
I had absalutely no idea about that. Yah, again, I realy do need to find more info on current drive amps…
My understanding was that current feedback is less audible not that it was the only change in topology, but again, I don’t know shit here. Do you have any decent sources for examining current drive (and maybe why oi is so high on mons examples)? I would genuinely love to read more on it and just can’t find anything
Sure, but you would have just figured you would see more of the bigger and established players doing more public experimenting. But idk, I just think of in the now, rather than what can be done in the future
At this point yes, in the past it would depend
Guess I just have not been impressed by the many both prototypes and production, both with stuff that’s in the high end and budget. It’s just one of those things that (to me) seems like it’s not taking off for a reason, no matter how cool it might be
There is one on DIYAudio somewhere.
My understanding (which is limited) is that it assumes your transducer has pretty much constant impedance across the frequency range, which means it’s better suited to planars than it is to dynamic drivers.
Though it seems to me you could relatively easily modify such a design to at least work well with any low impedance load.
Note current feedback is not current drive.
Has anyone here heard the bakoon dac-21 and/or HPA-21? It didn’t realy dawn on me until just now but if I’m now looking at stuff in the broadway suze range I should porbabaly add these to my curiosity list
FWIW the way Bakoon names things, the first digit is the size of the box, and the second is the generation of the technology, so 21 is mid sized, first gen.
13R is small/3rd gen.
I really liked the hpa 21 wish they still made it, haven’t heard the dac 21 though. The 21 on current drive is a cleaner leaning signature that’s still reasonably organic, very tight and controlled, pretty technical and very precise. It can be on the slightly lean side of things tonal density wise. Stage is very pin point and holographic but it does lay things out slightly inorganically. Dynamically very alive overall but mainly in micro. Timbre is pretty solid too.
The voltage output of it was pretty meh, but the current drive aspect was where it was at. You did get a bit more warmth and body with voltage drive but it just felt sloppy and unrefined in comparison, not worth
Although with overly sensitive headphones or higher impedance it had very little volume range and sounded blown out, worked best with planars and lower impedance dynamics from my experience. But on low gain some of the higher impedance stuff was still pretty enjoyable
Oh! Interesting! I didn’t realize that at all. Good to know.
There is a hpa-21 for sale for ~2k in Germany that i figure i should probabaly consider. Do you think its at a higher tier than a browadway for stuff like d8kp (and maybe mysphere)? I assume sus and 1266 are just out the window given 1W at 50 ohm.
As for the dac-21, there is just no info on the thing. I think if I could find one sub 2k I would just buy to try but the only one I’ve ever seen for sale is currently on audiogon for damn near retail… tbh, the idea of a couch listening battery powered bakoon stack kinda tickles my like of audiophile obnoxiousness
I really don’t know given the last time I heard one was before any of those even existed outside the 1266 lol. But I actually bet it would be solid with a d8kp or diana, absolutely no clue on the mysphere. That 1w figure is misleading, that thing had a shit ton on tap from memory, it was easily the most amazing portable I had heard at the time, unfortunate I didn’t see the value in it as much back then
Ok, so I’m using hpa-21 on hd800s and I have no idea at all why no one brings uo current drive with hd800s. Its like they were tuned for this shit. Fr changes entierly (same fr change on hpa21, and hpa-01m). Obviously different amps have different voicings but just the fr change alone is enough to be amazing. With the vast staging but sweetness of the hpa21 it becomes an incredible experience
New xdsd has analogue input. Only 1W but tbh I’m kinda hype. As much as I tont trust ifis desktop stuff to be uo to snuff for the price, imo their portable stuff has always been pretty competitive. Would be nice to have a cheaper portable amp option to recomend to people tbh
all I could figure out was the first batch was crowd funder after which it was sold retail for a bit, but I latterly cant even find a review much the less a discussion of topology or why they even went about somethings the way they did. It seems to me to have a similar philosophy to the HPA-21/DAC-21 where a batter is used for a clean power source and not to make it portable but I cant tell for sure.