Donald North Audio — Owners Thread

Clearly, you were taught to look for beauty within.

 

Ok, now you're just teasing us. Give us some proper pictures. Enough of boxes and artsy black and white stuff.

 

Haha - because you asked

 

That's more like it! She's a beauty for sure

 

Good golly!

 

Can i start hating you right now?

Eheh enjoy mate, it's a beauty and I'm sure it sounds beautiful as well.

 

Ogodei


Songmic said:

In the meantime, I would appreciate what the seasoned members of this community thinks of Stratus, which DAC's match well with it, and especially how well pairs with HD650/800 and K1000 in particular. Yes, I know it has been discussed a lot of times already in different threads, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of info in the dedicated thread we have here.



Stratus outfitted with Shuguang Nature Sound 2A3C-Ts is the best I have ever heard for the HD800s, period. Easily bested my other amps specifically designed for those headphones. The tubeyness\lushness of the Shuguangs adds just enough to the bass and midrange to make them sound great without reducing much of the top end detail. Stratus outfitted with anything makes them sound great, that was just my favorite combination.

HD650s sound great as well, although not overwhelmingly better than on some other tube amps. I didn't listen to that combination as much.

I haven't listened to the HEK1000s enough with the Stratus to confidently say too much about the increase in performance over a SS amp, am looking forward to making those comparisons with the Stellaris.

I was using Stratus with a Questyle CAS192D (in my view much under appreciated DAC) and Schiit Yggdrasil. Both were excellent with the amp. Honestly I think that will come down to your favorite DAC sound, I suspect the amp will sound great with all of them.

 

Once you get into the Stratus, where else are you going to go except tube rolling ? I think a lot of those posts are just some people's natural upgrade-itis meeting other's desire to pontificate on their audio experience and wisdom.

Of course that's the purpose of these boards in the first place.

Snarkiness aside, some of the conclusions people arrive at regarding tubes do get a little eye rolling. I'm still trying to figure out whether perceived quality of the tube drives the price or vice versa.

 

I have had some time with that to be yours Stratus.
I say hunt down some nice Sylvania 2A3 dual monos (best tube for Stratus I know).
I do not recommend mellow/soft dac (like SFD-1), because the end result would be too dreamy.
For the purpose of powering HD800 this must be one of the best amp options there is. I personally like rivaling EC amps sound more, technically more proficient in some areas, but then I will not listen to HD800 for more than 2h either. Stratus is certainly more gentle and forgiving of flaws of headphones and music.
K1000 is a silly headphone, while it has unique/nice mids it doesn't compete with HD800/650 and for K1000 only Stratus is wasted potential. Some swear by it's freaky soundstage, so be it, Stratus helps to widen it even more.
Modded 650 does very nicely with Stratus as well, but here I think EC top amps are better suited.

 

That's the wrong way to think about these things. Lack of scientific evidence is just that, lack of evidence, and NOT proof that our subjective impressions are imaginary or placebo. Especially if there is no sane way to set up a valid experimental setting to determine if differences are detected or not.

The thing is, there is no sane way to perform direct comparisons of headphones* in a blind setting because of physical constraints. So what then: We do a bit of headphone rolling ourselves and keep the ones we "preferred" but let's don't fool ourselves about the reality of our impressions?

* But this more generally applies to transducers.

 

Thank you for all your input. For me, soundstage is very important when listening to headphones. I know even the most wide sounding headphones still sound in your head compared to actual speakers, which is why I use OOYH all the time. With OOYH, I found headphones with better soundstage (e.g. HD800) to convey a more open, realistic sounding presentation.

My setup will be AES16e > Yggdrasil > Stratus (EML 5U4G-Mesh + Shuguang Nature Sound 2A3C-T) > HD800 (SuperBAF + SuperDupont mods) and K1000 (bass-heavy). I will listen to both headphones and decide which to keep. I may end up keeping both.

It's interesting how people are clearly divided between K1000 and HD800. Donald North himself and Darin Fong prefers K1000 to HD800, but at the same time a lot of people prefers HD800 to K1000 with Stratus. I've listened to HD800 with a lot of amps, the best ones being L-2 and ZDS, but never K1000. I'm excited to see what the Stratus would bring to the table with these 2 venerated headphones.

 

I have the L-2 and had the ZD until very recently. The L-2 is more of specialty appliance to run the HD800 than anything else, while Stratus is much more flexible with connections, tube rolling possibilities, and general compatibility with most stuff out there. Even with the L-2's focus on the 800 I still preferred them on the Stratus, its effects were much more subtle on the high and low ends while softening the overall brittleness. Being used to ( and liking) the sound of the 800s the L-2 seems to step on its high end too much while the Stratus just seems to tame it and make it shine.

I much preferred the Stratus with a Western Electric 422A and Nature Sounds tubes over the ZD with stock for the 800s. I got those amps literally the same week and the ZD rarely got play time after hearing the Stratus. The balanced power on Stratus might have been part of that. The Stratus just really makes the things shine.

The 800s have traditionally been my favorite cans but the K1000s are sneaking up there in my estimation for sound quality. I don't know that I've actually tried the K1000 on the L-2, that could be an interesting experiment.

 

I’ve dreamed about getting the first version of the Sonett since 2010. I never expected to snag the bigger, better Sonett 2 from HF two months ago considering they are actually pretty rare.

People might recognize this one as it’s been upgraded with Black Gate capacitors. Normally I hate modified audio equipment stemming from my experiences with audio in the early 2000’s. I swear every single vintage, or DIY tube amp back then was “upgraded” with Auricaps. The markups that accompanied Auricaps were so ubiquitous that I came to hate any modding for a long time.

Forum threads about Black Gate capacitors are divisive. I really wish I could listen to an unmodified unit to experience how different the sound would be. I spoke with A DIY guy at a meet who I think had an interesting take on the capacitor. Electrolytics are not the best capacitor, but sometimes you need an electrolytic, and Black Gates were the best electrolytic at the time.

The amp is very cool in its presentation. In my limited comparison, it is warmer than a Chord Hugo, and less warm than Chord Mojo. Using all of the stock tubes makes the sound pretty sterile. A JJ, or repro Tung Sol rectifier is pretty worthless. I recommend going straight for a high-quality NOS tube like the Amperex GZ34 which gives a pulse to music, and a mid-bass bump. I think the rectifier makes a bigger difference than the power tube for this amp.

The previous owner also threw in some 6H30P super tubes which gives a subtle, and pleasant improvement to the sound. The prices for these tubes are beyond obscene, and most are these tubes are located far across the world in Eastern Europe. I see myself eventually selling this to fund a 2A3(Stellaris) headphone amp in the future. I think it would be easier to justify tube prices then.

I tried the pairing the Sonett with the Modi Multibit (USB), and it was pretty awful. I have heard setups with the Modi Multibit that I have enjoyed, but I didn’t expect such a night and day difference. The Modi Multibit based setups I enjoyed were fed with AOIP, and or some sort of SPDIF transport.

I ended up returning the Modi Multibit, and settling with a shameful 1/8th to 2x RCA running from the computer headphone jack. The Sonett has definitely been an improvement to the sound after choosing the Audio Zenith PMx2, but without a good source the music doesn’t really engage me in any meaningful way. My goal is to get a Yggdrasil, or an equivalent performing DAC, but I don’t think it will sound all that great until I figure out how to avoid using USB to transport a signal from the PC to the DAC.

 

@bigfatpaulie have you weighed in on the stellaris anywhere publicly yet?
Hope you are well mate.

 

You as well buddy.

No, I haven't really. A lot of PM's though. I haven't had much time with the amp, maybe 10 - 15 hours total and I don't feel I can really comment on a piece of audio gear after spending so little time with it. There was a major health scare in the family so I had to head out of town recently. I want to be sure of what I am saying. In the near future it isn't looking better being Easter and the following weekend am I going out of town again for a funeral.

 

Sorry for your loss,

take your time, enjoy the little moments of bliss you get with your rig!
Al

 

@Northwest I use a CV1377 f32 rectifier which is a Mullard England 1962-1975 military tube. And I've got a Reflektor 6H30 Supertube, but I think I gravitate more towards the Electro-Harmonix 6H30 for some reason.

Looking around, and if I remember right, I paid about $200 less than what I just looked at for my Supertube, but that was some time ago. Yikes.

 

I spent the last couple of days switching between the stock tubes, and the super variety. The super tube has a noticeably warmer tone. Feels a little more driven, and it highlights notes better, however, I think the stock tubes has a tonal temperature that is better for more genres of music. That’s the only thing I can think of.