CanJam Dallas 2024 Impressions

Is the high end of personal audio taking steps forward in its 6k+ range vs the 2k range a decade ago?

 

Sounds like we're well overdue for an update of Merv's Top 5 Headphones - 2023 Edition

 

I've not heard the Immanis but its designer says the Magna and Immanis are equally resolving. I found the Magna to be more resolving than the SR1a, fwiw, but not by much, and not enough to obsess about or justify the $6k+ price, using both the Jot R and the HSA 1b direct drive amp. So, yeah, it sounds like the Envy held back the Immanis.

How's the X9000 for macrodynamics and percussiveness? I heard one at CAF last year, twice, from the new $20k Headamp amp that's not been released yet. I liked the tuning. Nice bass. Lovely mids, no treble weirdness, as with SR009, and beautiful tonality. Great headstage and imaging, likewise resolution. But I found it a bit boring, frankly. Not quite lifeless. But not lively, either. But then the second time I heard it was after some dude got his foot tangled in the cable and got up suddenly to walk away, sending the Stax bouncing across the floor. Oops.

 

I spent time with an X9000, and yes, for folks who broadly liked the 009 but found it a little thin and harsh, it’s a clear upgrade.

The estat that really impressed me last year was the Audeze CRBN. It was plugged into some amp I never heard of before (and have since forgotten), but sounded terrific. Way more to my taste than the X9000, or any other Audeze. It’s like someone cleaned up some of the slight funk in the 007 FR curve, added a bit of clarity, and plenty of low-end. Disclaimer: show conditions, but in a quiet area with no one around. I had the system to myself, and used my own source.

 

The main problem with the Envy is that it is overpriced and that leaves a bad taste. It is also dull and rolled unless you change the tubes. If you can get one used for 4.5k - its a great amp that does a lot of things well and better than a lot of amps in that price range if you are willing to get WE300Bs or Elrogs and a set of premium drivers. It seems to have been tuned with planars in mind and does pair really well with them even if the advertising is silly and offputting (although I really like it with Sennheisers). It does seem like there is a a bit of back story to Purr1n’s dislike of Feliks Audio although it may be as simple as his sense of excessive pricing. A standard WA33 and certainly the WA23 are not better (just different) from my perspective.

 

I heard through grape vine (a trusted source) that Feliks’ OPTs are wound by Leszek Ogonowski. Supposedly, his OPTs are well regarded in EU. He seems to go for a more dry and resolving sound vs wet sound.

I have heard an ENVY at my friend’s place being fed by Lampi Big 7 running PX25 and Globe 45. I got to compare it to my former Elekit 8900 running 300B tubes. Headphones were HD580, Utopia, Atrium, Susvara.

I prefer the sound of lower power DHTs like 45 and 2A3, for their more resolving and transparent sound. The Envy doesn’t have the bloom of typical 300B amps, but it doesn’t have the magic of 2A3/45. But yea, it’s a nice amp that can drive most headphones, coz all those 4 headphones sounded good on the amp and all 4 are different in many objective and subjective ways.

A shame I didn’t have any 2A3s to throw on my Elekit that day. But we did swap the tubes on the Lampi. The moment we swapped out the PX25s for the 45s, I almost felt right at home, but only with the HD580. The sennheiser just picked up the micro and decay of the 45, even though the tube was on the DAC. The other headphones got more neutral in tone but none became more resolving. I digress. But goes to show that the amp had no problem letting the upstream changes come through.

I never got around to trying the High Z setting on the Envy extensively, as the Lampi was set to 6V output and the gain on Envy’s High Z was too much. My friend said the loss in quality by swapping to the 2V on the Lampi was greater than what the High Z on the Envy would bring to the table. So we stuck with Medium and Low Z settings on the Envy. The Medium Z setting was preferred over Low Z for all the 4 headphones. There have been cases, where I have preferred the Low Z tap of the OPT for its more resolve, over the more dynamic sounding High Z tap. But on the Envy, the Medium Z didn’t sound like it sacrificed the resolution over the Low Z, but you did get the added benefits of better macro swings, dynamics, impact and liveliness. On the Medium Z, Envy is a pretty dynamic amp.

It’s a well rounded amp that seems to work with most headphone types and there wasn’t any glaring flaw, except the shortcomings I typically have with 300B relative to the 2A3/45. The price really is the biggest downside of the amp. If you can find a used one for $3k - $3.5k, it would be a decent purchase. Also I am not a big fan of its looks.

 

Fair enough. With some tube amps, it’s hard to tell whether tube rolling isn’t needed because the amp has already hit its performance ceiling, or if it has such a high ceiling that it still sounds good with basic tubes, or if the amp relies heavily on the tubes and improves with higher-quality ones. It can be a bit confusing. Sometimes, it even feels like some users might not fully grasp what they’re hearing.

That said, the Envy is clearly designed to compete with high-end solid-state amps, particularly with planars. In contrast, DNA amps are more suited for dynamic drivers. As for Eddie Current amps... I honestly don’t even know how to buy one anymore. What happened to them? They also don’t pair very well with planars I've heard, not that I think planars are necessarily better.

 

You got me thinking so I did some maths. Based on the published specs of the DNA Stratus and the Feliks Envy, they put out about the same 5ish watts into a 15ohm load.

Feliks posts their specs as 5 Watts into 15ohm, and DNA posts the Stratus as 1.8 Watts into a 50ohm load.

Definitely supports your point that the Envy is 'marketed' to be a powerhouse for orthos more than it really is. Honestly, Donald could tweak his product page and say '5 WATTS OF POWER FOR POWER HNGY ORTHOS' if he wanted to.

 

That’s a bit surprising. On a synergistic setup, it’s clear that Envy excels in both resolution and bass, particularly with headphones like Susvara or 1266 TC (both of which are fairly objective to evaluate). An Envy may lack in refinement or taste but it certainly doesn’t lack for resolution or dynamics.

I know you’ve pointed out before that these headphones have exaggerated power requirements, which makes it a bit puzzling to see such a comparison here.

I do appreciate your perspective on the Immanis, though. While I’m finding it hard to align my general respect for your posts with the points you’re making here, I understand we don’t have to agree on everything—this is your space, after all.

I’d like to contribute when I can, but I recognize my ability to see the good in Envy in the current market might not be an acceptable stance.

 

I own a EC Studio Jr and a DNA Starlett. While I’ve not compared them directly with the Envy, I’d say the Feliks is more than competitive. And I’ve found that it drives the Susvara really very well indeed. And all of the HPs I auditioned at the dealer, too.

I’ve found the EC and DNA amps lackluster with even as light an ortho load as the LCD2-F.

As I’ve said previously, I think SBAF might become more curious/accepting/whatever of what’s actually on the market *now*. Donald’s amps are great, but take a year plus to get new. EC is defunct. Sure, there are EC amps out there on the used market, but if they break—and tube amps do break—good luck getting them repaired.

Yes, the Envy is expensive. But DNA TOTL is even more so. And you can get the Feliks tomorrow if you have the coin *and* you can get it serviced, too.

I continue to fail to see why, on SBAF, obscure mods of the HD800 (discontinued btw!) and impossible to get boutique tube amps = good. And new contenders that you can actually still buy and often at a similar spend = bad.

I like this place and am thankful for it, but, yeah, I think there could be some broadening of what gets repped.

 

I continue to be grateful for the site and what I’ve learned here. Don’t want to diminish that at all.

Guess I’m just saying that when I did that big TOTL compare last year, I found a bunch of good stuff that I think more folks might like but rarely gets discussed here.

And I was glad to see, for example, some discussion of the X9000 above. The value proposition there is far from high, but it did strike me as a step forward for Stax. I couldn’t participate in a loaner tour, but it’d be an exciting thing to hear more impressions of.

Of course I know tours take a lot of work. Don’t want to diminish that either.

 

The onus is on new contenders to prove their performance and value against the known incumbents.

The HD800 / HD800S interest is because many members have them. It's also not an expensive flagship at $1400 or less used. Many mods are cheap too. The headphone is a source of fascination both for uniqueness and chimeric behavior with different gears.

At such a high price point, the first question would be is Envy on the same tier of performance as Stellaris or other S-tier amps. After that, let's talk service and availability. (From what I've gleaned, Envy also needs $1500+ of tubes to be any good.)

Most boutique amps discussed here are also not the price of a Stellaris, most are much less. Given, this thread does have a kinda Summit-Fi sensibility, but that's not true of every thread on SBAF.

Additionally, Feliks is considered to be a brand that started out a good value and then they raised their prices. My demo of Euphoria agreed with that proposition. Therefore, there could be some expectancy effects that Envy is overpriced.

(I haven't heard Envy and have no actual impressions. A friend runs his with Elrogs + Sus + DAVE and loves it though. Don't think he's heard EC/DNA/Woo anything though.)

 

Feliks Envy (performance edition) has a kind of W sound balance where the midrange around human vocals seems to be exaggerated a bit, which I think can sound a bit unnatural. I can see Sus or AB1266 which have recessed areas in the midrange to work well with how the Envy is tuned.

However I honestly think it's a very decent amp. DNA Stellaris is brought up a lot but it costs around the same as Envy, has a waiting time of minimum 12 months and a lot more limited on what you can pair it with... I think for me personally when I pay 7K for an amp flexibility is an important consideration.

 

Unsolicited opinions from someone who has no experience with TOTL gear and who has no intent whatsoever of going down that rabbit hole:

Different voicings and presentations to suit different moods are all valid, I do think that being able to refresh your ears after a while is a useful thing to do when developing impressions of new pieces of gear. I'm still very much team dynamic and I don't think I'll ever be able to daily drive a planar or an estat unless I forced myself to stick to one for at least a couple months, but damn if it really isn't all just preferences at the end of the day.

Not sure what the usual going price is for a Studio Jr. 300B nowadays but I kinda doubt it's anywhere close to $7.5k+ (and needing to change out stock tubes on top of that besides? Why don't they just ship the thing with "good" tubes and save folks the waste?).

I'd like to disagree with the latter part of this post specifically cuz I feel being able to see the good in all gear is a valuable perspective-- that goes double for things that are generally polarising (see: Cayin RU-6, Ferrum OOR+HYPSOS, Fostex/Denon/the one Klipsch headphone ). What I think ought be kept in mind is the fact that the Envy is nice car money, at least where I live. It's the cost of a square meter of land in one of the busiest urban areas in my country. I remember the love the Euforia got here years ago, but then it effectively doubled in price afterwards? I get why they did that of course, but jfc.

 

I believe @JeremiahS was saying that the Envy is good for both typical dynamics and power-hungry planars like the Sus and the Abyss. I can offer some confirmation here, as over a long-ish afternoon of compares at a dealer, it was the best of several amps I trialled, particularly with the Sus, which was solid on other amps but fantastic with the Envy. This was in excellent demo conditions, in a very quiet room with a wall of TOTL HPs and interesting amps to try. I say "some" confirmation, b/c ideally I would've been able to home trial all this stuff for days and weeks. But it was still great conditions for an audition.

I personally have never found meet conditions useful for making judgments on gear. A few of us on this thread have heard the Envy in decent circumstances and have said it's good. Why can't this be taken onboard as a useful set of data points for the forum? Why does it have to be seen as, I don't know, dissent?

I agree the Envy is expensive, and I'd personally only consider it on the used market, but that's true of many worthy pieces out there. It sucks that the prices have ballooned in the summit-fi (whatever that is) sphere, but if you totaled the amount some folks here spend on DAC rolling and amp rolling and tube rolling, would the overall spend really be that different? If something wins praise on Head-fi or Headphones.com, and that praise is fairly consistent over time, why not be a little curious? There are folks with good ears and takes over there, too, even if the signal to noise can be higher.

I've tried my Audeze with a *bunch* of amps. EC, DNA, speaker amps, solid-state amps, etc. I found a definite correlation between amount of power on tap and how much I enjoyed the combo. My Starlett and my EC Jr just felt a bit limp and mushy with the LCD-2, while, of course, being wonderful with Senn and Focal. I'd wager this might hold for at least other Audeze and likely other planars. I've not heard the Rosson, but it's good to know that it worked well with the Starlett, and I'll happily take that date point onboard.

Interestingly, I've found the Phonitor amps really good with my LCD-4. I think it's b/c they put their highest amount of power into 300ohms.

Maybe we're dealing with a difference in "theory of reviewing" here. One theory says that value for spend should be taken into account and is maybe even a primary concern. Another says that everything should just be examined in terms of performance first and foremost, and then the individual consumer has to decide whether it's worth the spend.

I think I'm somewhere in between those two poles. I'm an inveterate bargain hunter, for better or worse, and have scored some great stuff I'm pretty happy with. There's not much I'd pay full street price for period. At the same time, I don't rule things out b/c they're expensive or even if they're perceived as FOTM. I may never own them, and they may be overhyped and overpriced, but when I hear something like, again, the X9000, I find that there is new stuff out there that excites me and maybe pushes forward the somewhat stagnant space personal audio has become generally.

To the theory above, I'd also add that availability, ease of use, and ease of maintenance are also important. If it takes a year to get, that's a year--a big chunk of one's life--you can't enjoy it. Surely that's part of the value equation, too? And if it breaks and the manufacturer can't or won't repair it or is defunct, then its value for money is exactly zero.

I say all of this respectfully and will sort of let it all be at that. Thanks for letting me push back a little here and there.