Adventures in Downgrading

Re: the steak, both the chefs and other critics are right, and the lone food critic is also right.

The chefs and other critics agree upon a standard of shared, cross cultural, culinary preferences, and a medium rare steak represents that.

The lone food critic has an individual preference for burned meat that doesn't align with that standard cultural culinary preference, and that's okay. But its not "good".

Sometimes I like eating Totino's frozen pepperoni pizza with a drizzle of yellow mustard, but I'd hardly try to convince anyone else to try it, or even suppose that it's "good".

 

Blue rare fo lyfe. Y'all can keep your medium rare, just walk mine through a warm room and call it good.

 

"I can't imagine why anyone would ruin good whiskey by putting ice in it" - Dr. Watson, Pursuit to Algiers, 1945

 

Thanks for this whole thread. I'm likewise looking for a chain that stays comfortable no matter what, and I was equally amazed at how satisfying it is to hear gear that achieves that smoothness. I'd rather be embraced by the sound than squeezed to death

 

My adventure in "downgrading" includes Holo Audio Cyan 2, Schiit Vali 3 with GE Jan5670W tubes and HD6x0 headphones. So far, so good. Another update pending.

 

According to Audiophilestyle the D2R can do DSD Direct for HQPlayer:

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/...ss-digital-filtering/page/31/#comment-1280696

Thought I would add a source of nervosa back into your hi-fi life

 

It sounds like you’ve had quite the journey with different audio gear, and it’s interesting how your preferences have evolved. It’s not uncommon for people to have unique experiences with audio equipment, what sounds great to one person might not to another, and vice versa. Your exploration of various DACs and amps highlights how personal and subjective the listening experience can be.

 

An update from my perspective:
https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...nergy-special-sound.11676/page-22#post-432857

 

This is a fascinating and insightful thread. I particularly resonate with the OP's sentiment, as I've also been exploring ways to downsize my audio setup.

While it's challenging to establish universal rules for downgrading, I agree that it often comes down to identifying what aspects of our listening experience we're unwilling to compromise.

Here are a few thoughts based on my own experience:

• Financial Considerations: Unless facing financial constraints, downsizing an audio rig may not yield significant monetary gains. Most of our setups likely represent an investment comparable to a few bottles of high-end wine. Assuming we've invested responsibly, the potential savings from downsizing are often relatively modest.
• The Elusive "Dominant" Downgrade: Finding a downgrade that offers significant cost savings without any perceived sacrifice in sound quality is incredibly difficult. Audio perception is subjective and influenced by numerous psychological factors.
• The Power of Blind Testing: Conducting blind A/B tests can be extremely helpful. It allows you to identify areas where you might be willing to compromise without a noticeable impact on your enjoyment.
• In my own journey, as a Susvara owner, I've been searching for a viable alternative that allows for downsizing. So far, the search appears to continues.. (the other parts of rigs were reasonably downsized btw)

 

So, I had a bit of a crazy thought. I still love my system, the D2R->Pendant->A23+->QC30s sounds like a dream every time I use them (and I use them most every day). But the Schiit Wotan came out (this is not actually going to be about the Wotan) and I thought well it is nice that it has an input switch on the front, while on the A23+ I have to reach behind it and flip two switches to go from the solid state S17 to the Pendant. And then that sent me looking at gear for the first time in a while, and I ended up staring at something I didn't think I'd want. So the Prima Luna EVO 100 is a tube integrated amplifier. But it has a headphone output that's actually supposed to be good. And that got me thinking why bother with input switching at all? I can find an EVO 100 on the used market for like $1,600. At that price, I could sell the Pendant, A23+, and the S17, go straight from the D2R->EVO100->QC30s and both simplify my setup and recoup some money. That's pretty tempting... Granted it means I'd be burning down tubes all the time, but the EVO100 is supposed to have low biasing or something like that which makes the tubes not run as hot and last a long time. (It also has a feature to tell you when a tube needs to be replaced, which is neat.)

While I was thinking about this I also thought about how much I liked the Velo when I tried it which made me think the LTA Z40+ would be even better than the EVO100, and it probably would be, but there's no way I can justify spending $7,650 on this (and that's without tube rolling) and the Z40+ seems much less available on the used market.

Still, the EVO100 seems like it's a really good unit (one person I saw even specifically said it was as good as his Pendant). The thing is, I'm reluctant to even bother since there's nothing wrong with my setup. It's still great. But recouping money and space? (And I admit there's the bug to hear what something different sounds like.)

One annoying thing is that the EVO100 doesn't have a preamp output, so if I like it better than the Pendant but think I still want the extra grunt of the A23+, I'm out of luck. (Perplexingly, Prima Luna's preamps don't have a headphone jack, so you can't buy a headphone amp/preamp combo from them even if you want to. But even if they did, it seems like an obvious flaw for them not to include a preamp output on their integrated, since they're also useful for subwoofers, but hey, I'm not a product manager at Prima Luna.)

I donno, am I crazy? I should just quit while I'm ahead, right?

 

Is that the Parasound A23+? If so, I was never happy with the sound of my Parasounds. Feature-wise and durability and resale, they are great. Sound, they are just ok.

I'm also trying to figure out if I should get the Wotan for my current speakers or get better smaller speakers (need smaller). The ones I have my eyes on are a bit of a stretch but I'm pretty confident my current amp would drive them beautifully...

 

I'm just going to provide some info on background, ultimately whatever sounds best to you for the money is the right way go. Primaluna is a reputable brand, however I believe them to be horrendously over priced. Waaay back in the day there was a fellow, Paul Grizbach, that started importing Cayin/Spark amps to the US, specifically the Cayin TA-30. The TA-30 was a PP EL34 amp supposedly based on the Marantz 8B circuit with a 12V tube driver stage instead of the original 6V stage. I owned a TA-30 for many years, and it was quite good for the $785 I paid for it from Paul (non modded version). A few years after Paul stopped selling the TA-30, Primaluna popped up via Kevin Deal's Upscale Audio. And the new price of the nearly identical EL34 amp was $1499, IIRC. I get that there's costs involved with distribution and warranty considerations and customer support and all that, but the whole thing just reeked of minor exploit. Now that same basic EL34 amp (the EVO 100) is $2500, or thereabouts. And looking at pictures of the tidy point-to-point wiring inside and the quality of components, it looks nearly identical to the $800 amp I owned a decade ago. I'm not trying to shit all over Primaluna, or be generally cranky, but just trying to give background on "what's under the hood" of these amps. It's a rather simple circuit with decent component parts.

Sound wise, compared to Schiit Aegirs that I owned at the same time, the TA-30 was a good bit warmer, rolled off in the treble, and generally a bit plodding, or, more mellifluous if I'm trying to give feint praise.

 

Yes, it's Parasound. So I don't remember if it was this thread or another, but I talked about how I had a parade of speaker amps through here and the A23+ bested them all with my setup and speakers. (They were: Audiolab 8300A, Peachtree GaN1, Schiit Aegir 1, Marantz MM7025, Arcam SA10, and Parasound Zamp. Of course, this doesn't mean some other amplifier wouldn't still clobber it.) I know the original A23 got a bit of a drubbing in this forum, but the A23+ is supposed to fix the issues with that model. In any case, I've liked listening to it.

This is very interesting, thanks for sharing. I see that the EVO 100 does at least have some features that the TA-30 doesn't (autobiasing, tube replacement lights, remote), but I have no idea if anything they've done differently translates to sound quality at all. In theory, slow with rolled off treble is kind of my jam, but I don't know if this particular implementation would be too much of a good thing.

Cayin is actually an interesting option I hadn't considered, I know the ZMF folks like them. At a very cursory look though I'm not seeing many Cayin integrateds with headphone jacks new or used that compete on price with used EVO 100s. (The closest I see is a Jazz 80 for slightly more, but its 20W output I don't really think is enough for my speakers.) I should do some more digging though. (That's the thing about things being "overpriced"--they're only actually overpriced if you can find something that does the same thing for less money.)

I will also admit that Quad bringing back the 33/303 stack (or just the 303 on its own in place of my A23+) has me curious, since that's also supposed to have a more laid back, old school sound. But I haven't found solid state yet that competes with tubes.

Edit: to be clear, the A23+ is obviously solid state. Right now I have only the Pendant as a tube preamp, I kept a solid state signal path in addition so I wouldn't burn down my tubes when I'm doing things like having meetings or watching talking head videos or whatever. Part of the appeal of amps like the Prima Luna and the LTA (and presumably the Cayin if it's the same design as the Prima Luna) is that they (supposedly) run the tubes in such a way that they don't burn down quickly so I'd feel better about leaving them on all day. (Edit edit: it's apparently the EVO's autobiasing that does this, which I don't believe the Cayin has.)

 

So the LSA VT-70 looks like an amp designed to beat the EVO 100 for much less money ($1.4k list, I see a used option as low as $900). It even has preamp outputs like a sensible amp. The only thing is it doesn't have the "adaptive autobias" thing that the EVO 100 claims makes the tubes last longer. (It actually says the "meters can be used for biasing", but I have no idea what that means or how I would go about biasing the amp--I did a Google search and found all this stuff about checking the voltage that makes my eyes cross.) Very ambivalent about all of this. Might just get an LTA Velo to use as a preamp and keep my A23+ or try the new Quad 303 or something. If the Velo can be run all the time it would still allow me to sell off the S17 Pro (which I like a lot, but it doesn't stack up to the Pendant or other tube amps I've tried).

 

Another mad idea I just had: get the VT-70 and then some cheap nothing Fosi SS speaker amp for meetings and such and use a speaker switcher to switch between them. Sell off the Pendant, S17, and A23+ and I pocket even more money than buying the EVO 100.

 

Alright, I've made a decision. Speaker switchers degrade sound and are annoying. But what if I did something really crazy? What if I created a whole different signal chain for things where I don't care about sound quality? That would liberate me from having to worry about that entirely.

So I bought a pair of iLoud Micro Minis. They don't take up much space and I've heard them before and they sound good and would be good for checking mixes (I make music in a purely amateur capacity). They don't have a digital input (except Bluetooth where I don't want the latency) so I'll probably hook them up to a Schiit Modi+ I already have lying around, maybe also the Schiit Magni+ I have and then I would somewhat hilariously have a really great budget system next to my mid-fi one.

That would free me up to sell off the Aune S17+, which costs more than the Micro Minis and the Magni/Modi stack put together.

Meanwhile, I also ordered the VT-70. I feel like improving your system by spending more money is easy. Improving your system while spending less money, now that's challenging (and the point of this thread). If the VT-70, with an MSRP of $1.4k but for which I spent $900, is as good as I hope it is, it could replace the ZMF Pendant (MSRP $2k, I paid $1k from someone who gave me an good deal) AND the Parasound A23+ (MSRP $2k, I paid $1.1k). Now that would be a nice downgrade.

I've made some successful "downgrades" before (in terms of cost only). I liked the Q Acoustics Concept 30 speakers better than the Harbeth P3ESRs. I liked the SMSL VMV D2R better than the Holo Cyan 2. I liked the Aune S17 Pro better than the Headamp GS-X Mini. I've also had a bunch of unsuccessful downgrades. Maybe the VT-70 won't sound as good or won't have the power the QC30s want. We'll see. I'll report back when it arrives.

 

For now....welcome back to the rabbit hole!

Just a word of caution on creating that other signal chain...it gives you the utter freedom to tweak it with abandon. I mean maybe you're on to something of having a chain you've perfected and are settled with, and still have the 2nd one to keep on experimenting on to your heart's content. Perhaps not a bad idea at all....

 

Alright, Micro Monitors have arrived, and are running off the Modi+.

These things really do sound stupidly good for $350 MSRP (and I found them for $219 open box, they're so common you can find crazy deals).

 

I did find the Cayin amp that competes directly with the Primaluna EVO 100 at almost a third of the price btw:
Cayin MT-35 MK2 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09VDF94SY/

The Primaluna does still have the adaptive autobias feature that the Cayin lacks, and the corresponding tube replacement lights, and it does seem like if you want those specific features there's nothing cheaper than the Primaluna. And I obviously can't speak to the relative sound quality, since I haven't heard either one. But it is a bit shocking that Cayin offers something so similar for so much cheaper. (I still suspect the LSA VT-70 will be the better buy. It's showing up on Wednesday and I really hope I like it. I definitely am not going to be cycling through budget EL34 amps trying to find the perfect one.)