Ultra Quiet tube amp recommendations

Hey all,
I think this is universal enough for its own thread outside the general advice thread as it will help others as well and allow for discussion into the future.

My modded Letshouer S-12 planar magnetic iems (RD-S12) scale up with the best amps I've heard and I need to use iems a lot of the time for health reasons.

So I'm personally looking for "TOTL" or "end game" amps here, but we can leave the thread open to all price ranges so it's more useful as a thread.

The Zana Deux Super sounds incredible with my RD-S12, but I've had 2 different units that both sounded polar opposite and both had issues. One was really bright in the treble but had incredible grip and texture and resolution. The other was neutral with perfect tone, but was a bit mushy and smoothed over in texture. I used polar opposite tubes in each amp trying to get them more towards the sound I wanted from them. I suspect the mushy sounding ZDS sounds that way because of a broken or aging part, maybe a cap. Because it has issues and needs repair.

So I'm looking for excellent super quiet tube amps for an end game desktop amp for my RD-S12.

So far I know these amps are quiet enough

• Zana Deux Super
• Afficcianado
• Studio B
• ampsandsound Kenzie Ovation

Not good enough technically but quiet enough

• LSA Hyperdrive 2
• Vali 3, Vali 2++
• Drop TA-84

But the Kenzie Ovation doesn't do it for me technically with my RD-S12 and the Afficianado and Studio B are unbearably dry in tone IMO.

I'm interested in trying one of the new Cayin tube desktop amps, maybe the Cayin ha-6a that takes KT88 tubes. @zach915m has said they are extremely quiet. I'd love it if the Felix amps were quiet because my RD-S12 seems to love OTL for reasons that baffle me. But I have heard they are not quiet at all.

I know "end game" and "TOTL" are BS terms and ubjective. I just say this because I'm not looking for something like a Vali 3 here, my RD-S12 scales up way higher than this. The ZDS would be my choice if it wasn't super bright and I don't know why it was. No one else who's heard that amp with other full size headphones thought it was bright.

Thanks for any amp suggestions! I'm not in a huge hurry, I would need to sell all my amps currently F/S to get another amp, but I thought I'd get a list going of amps to look out for.

Cheers!
Whitney

 

I don't remember if you had one but there's a Liquid Crimson still for sale on Head-Fi. Maybe talk them down to a reasonable price as $2800 is imho is too high. Pushes planars really well and one its jacks is meant for IEMs. I personally love the amp and it works really well with a whole slew of headphones.

 

I have one! I love it too! But it's not quiet enough for my RD-S12 even with the low impedance jack. It's also the only tube amp that has pretty bad synergy with them, it's a bit hard sounding. I don't know why.

but I love the Crimson with my Yamaha YH5000SE (with the caveat that it still has issues that need addressing with mods but I am hearing it as I envision it with these issues fixed, or it's potential).

It's' such a fast sounding amp, never heard anything like it.

but it's not quiet enough.