You really made the better decision tbh, the egoista is just the more enjoyable amp imo, and on a similar enough overall technical level to the wa33ee. I do still think the ee is probably a bit ahead, but like, it’s just not as enjoyable lol. I know for myself I still do respect the wa33, but it’s just not something id ever consider for myself at this point knowing what I value. Is still impressive though, and probably still worth considering for some
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And another update on the Egoista 845, new tubes, hopefully mostly burned in at this point…
Currently I’m running the RCA 5U4GB’s, Elrog 845’s, which are night and day better than the Shugang tubes it ships with, and a PSVane CV181T2 in place of the 6SN7, which I’ll continue to play with (I have a LinLai Elite 6SN7 here) but initial rolling didn’t provide as dramatic a difference as the power tubes, outside the one terrible tube I started with.
Chain is TotalDAC Unity → Viva → Mostly Susvara
With the current complement of tubes, it’s pretty easily the most enjoyable amp to listen to I own, to the point I’m going to at least try swapping it into my office system with the Pacific when I get some time.
The Elrogs play no small part in that.
The amp is astonishingly black, and in the end I think more resolving than either the WA33 or EC Studio T. It still has a very neutral presentation, but it’s slightly wetter than either of them.
It has easily the most impressive stage of any headphone tube amp I’ve heard, both in size and it’ ability to convey spatial information. It’s even forgiving of older recordings with Left/Middle/Right masters, where sounds are often right at the earpad, they seem to have more room to breath, which makes listening to some older recordings palatable to me without resorting crossfeed (which I occasionally do). Which has led to me listening to some of the more poorly mastered recordings in my collection that I would otherwise rarely listen to.
If anything the stage can sometimes feel overly large, to the point where with some not great Orchestral recordings, it feels like you are observing the Orchestra from some distance, or you have a mini orchestra. Where I find those same recordings tend to present more wall of sound/muddled on other amps.
Leading Edge Dynamics as I mentioned in the first post are “special”, but the Elrogs (or extended listening) have taken any harshness out of this.
Bass grip and control is also exceptional.
The timbre is excellent, I might argue for a bit more texture in high pitched strings, but we’re getting into what I might want vs what’s necessarily on the recording.
I really does drive the Susvara extremely well. I need to go back to the Raal’s with the new tubes, they were a bit too much for extended listening with the Shugangs, and I still need to try it with the MySphere and Utopia.
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@Polygonhell did you ever get a chance with these?
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Sounds really good with both.
It’s one of the better sounding Amps with the Utopia in particular, the Big stage opens it up in similar ways to the DNA.
I can’t tune the noise floor to absolutely black with the Utopia, but given a recent experience, I suspect the issue might actually be the Pacific, or possibly the way P3 is handling ground between the DAC and Amp. When I get a chance I’ll fiddle with it, and isolate the issue, my Office setup isn’t really very conducive to moving things around.
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