Audio-Gd Master 9

anyone else own or heard this Monster head/preamp?

Specs here:
http://www.audio-gd.com/Master/Master-9/Master-9EN_Specs.htm

 

heard its very slow and gooey

@Hands

 

Very slow and gooey?

Hahahahaha, no. Quite the opposite.

 

why bother asking then? I thought you were asking for peoples opinion. Now you are telling me it's wrong?

 

Lol, I didn't ask. It seems there are two males users on the forum

 

oh ahaha my bad

 

It's a better Master-11, so it must be amazeballs.

 

It's good enough to start a hissy fit with the GSX crowd, unprovoked.

Coupled with the Master 7 I thought it was the most dull, lifeless, sterile, sound I ever heard from my HD800s.

 

Who is the GSX crowd?

 

People who make their marriage proposals on MySpace.

 

I don't have any idea what the heck is going on anymore. Are we still talking about audio or have we entered the realm of someone is high and saying nonsense?

 

Well the question is does a headamp/preamp need to add it's own coloration to the sound or is it suppose to be as close to "wire with gain" or transparent volume control knob(Preamp).

If you are looking for coloration of the sound then maybe master 9 is a terrible device for you.

 

I heard briefly in a mini meet and it was one of my favourites amongst Punit's amps. This is with my HD800.

 

It's a monster amp. Master 9 + Yiggy is my end game

 

in all seriousness though, how does the Master 11 compare to the Yggdrasil/ Ragnarok stack

 

Not sure about Yggdrasil/rag stack, but m11/rag vs m11 amp, the m11 win to me. Rag sounded muddied in comparison.

 

I finally got to hear Yggdrasil with a proper setup. Not with Rag, but a couple other amps.

It's quite good. Bell Canto Reflink AES into Yggdrasil was better than BNC into Master-11.

That said, I really didn't like that synergy. Either M11's BNC isn't great or it didn't like the Bel Canto (or BNC gets crippled when AES is also being used).

Nothing I heard at the meet made me want to replace the DAC or Amp on my Master -11 (when fed good USB). The heavy-hitters there were great, but nothing made me enter audiophilia nervosa land.

 

agD Fanboy everywhere, jumping up and dpwn

 

I received my Master 9 this morning, and have spent the last 4 hours listening to it. 2 hours with the Abyss Phi, 2 hours with the Focal Utopia. These are very early impressions, the kind that hit you right away, not the subtle things you notice over time. I like these impressions as it usually gives me the main idea of a piece of gear, and whether or not I will enjoy it over time or not. This amp is replacing my Wells Audio Headtrip as I wanted to downsize price wise (not physically) and move to a more neutral amp. I bought this amp used, so it has a good amount of hours on it.

The first impression off the bat is the Master 9 is big, and heavy! Build quality seems to be really good. Utilitarian and simple, but well put together. It runs fairly hot, but not overly so compared to a few other amps.

My initial thought is this amp has pretty darn good transparency and is very detailed. I’ve tried running it with my iDSD Black Label as the DAC, and my PS Audio PWD mk2, and it was very easy to pick out the differences between the two. The Master 9 also seems to be a very punchy amp, accentuating the qualities of the already punchy and dynamic Utopia and Abyss Phi.

The Master 9 does not seem veiled, or flat and boring in any way. It also doesn’t strike me as a warm amp, which is a nice change from the Wells Audio Headtrip, which is definitely a warmer amp. The treble doesn’t seem to be sibilant or harsh so far, but I need more listening time with it to really comment here.

I’m impressed and happy so far with the Master 9. I think I have achieved my goal of an amp that is cheaper than the Headtrip, but also more neutral and transparent. Between the PWDmk2 and Master 9, combined with the Abyss Phi and Utopia, I’m hearing tiny details I haven’t heard before.

I’d really like to compare this amp to the Schiit Ragnarok, as that seems to be its natural competitor. Maybe in the future I will get a chance