Comments on Profile Post by Merrick

So far: More congested than a Valhalla 2, but with a more pronounced low end. Tons of detail, just not as expansive. The Reflektor is overkill but it sure sounds nice!

Good stuff. I Iove my Vali to death and can't justify getting Vali 2 until it dies! Already have some tubes at hand from tube rolling in the past.

The original Vali is so cheap I'm tempted to get one to hear it, but this is the first time I've even plugged in my Vali 2 since I got my Valhalla 2. When I was selling off tubes for my Vali 2 I had messages from people who used their Vali 2 extensively with a wide variety of headphones and it made me want to pull it back out of storage and compare the two.

I can relate! There's something about the Vali/Vali 2 that allows it to be crazy versatile. I've found it compatible with both Senns and planars. Truly a Jack of all trades. It's the one headphone amp I can never get rid of.

At this point I'm going to make it a three-way shootout with the Vali 2, Valhalla 2, and the ALO Rx Mk.III-B.

One extra point to the Vali 2: In low gain it can handle my too sensitive Empire Ears Spartan IEMs.

Ahh shootout! You should make one of marv's spider diagrams!

I don't have anywhere near the confidence to measure things out like that, haha.

Jumping back to the Valhalla 2, it clearly has more depth and width with the same tubes. The sound is fuller and more natural. Not sure there's more detail, but the overall presentation is better, and the low end is not as big of a difference as I first thought.

It seems that space and a more natural presentation is what's generally mentioned when comparing the two amps. I recall some members here mentioning that the Valhalla 2 can come off as a bit too dry? How does the Vali 2 compare? I feel that the Vali adds the perfect amount of tube wetness.

That might be contributing to the thicker, more congested sound of the Vali 2. IMO it's not a positive trait because it closes in the sound, or maybe it's compounded by already existing smaller soundstage of the Vali 2.

The ALO also plays nice with my IEMs on low gain, albeit with more hiss at lower volumes, however that hiss isn't very noticeable with music playing. At least with rock music, I still need to test it with classical.

Meh, the hiss is quite noticeable with classical.

Edit: No, wait, that was just tape hiss from the recording, I could hear it on my HD600 too. Playing a cleaner sourced recording and I can't hear much hiss from the ALO with classical either.

All of this is being done with an HD600 and my IEMs since I know the Valhalla 2 won't play nice with most planars.

The ALO sounds just okay with the HD600. It has more depth than the Vali 2 but loses out on some detail (again this is with a '75 Reflektor in the Vali 2) and feels a little artificial. It sounds amazing with my Paradox and sounds quite good with the Spartans as well. At this point the Valhalla 2 is the clear winner with the HD600, which should be no surprise to anyone, but it was a fun little test.

The ALO might have made a better showing than the Vali 2 all around if my DAC were balanced. As it is, I was going SE out from the Bifrost Multibit to the ALO and then using the balanced out on the ALO to my Spartans and HD600. It sounds fantastic running all balanced with my Geek Out V2.

Been comparing my Vali 2 with my new Valhalla 2 myself the past couple weeks. So far my sentiments are similar. I honestly think my upgrade from the Modi to the Bifrost yielded more improvements than the Vali 2 to Val2.

This isn't a knock on the Val2 as much as it is an impressive feat of the Vali 2. Incredible value.

@Mystic I agree. However, I actually have an easier time picking apart DACs over amps. I'm sure I'm not the only one? Especially since people always harp that the chain of importance goes transducer > amp > DAC > source, I find that DAC > amp.

I found the difference between the GOV2 and the Bifrost Multibit to be immediate, but I'm not sure I'd necessarily find the difference between a Bifrost Multibit and Gungnir Multibit, or Gungnir Multibit and Yggdrasil as obvious. The difference between the Vali 2 and Valhalla 2 was obvious too, but it wasn't night and day.

And I agree that the Vali 2 is a remarkable amp for its price point, given that it can handle anything from IEMs to TOTL planars without collapsing. There are better amps out there, but for the money the Vali 2 is an incredible deal.