jwlaudio, can I ask what speaker you will be using? Both those products you mentioned, the Pass and PS are nice amps. If I’m going low power I’m going SET. So I’d pass on the Pass though I’ve heard the 60wpc sound great with a pair of Ryan’s. I like the BK amp very much though.
When I mentioned the Kinki as being ‘leaner’ it was in relation to the Denafrips. All three would be leaner in comparison. Perhaps I should have simply said more neutral, less warm, cooler.
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Hestia and Hyperion r the choice for my Zu DW’s. Let ‘em run n, they gotta lot of caps; so for a good month. The pair is smooth, organic, open, dynamic and powerfully musical. The midrange is excellent. If you’ve played around with tube and ss amps for a while, you may find the Denafrips sound to provide that ‘just right’ sound. Organic and dynamic, with a wide soundstage and plenty of air the duo may give up a tad of resolution but easily resolves the quality of your music collection. They’ve an analog character in a good way, open and balanced, powerful and confident.
My sense is that the Kinki gear is voiced towards a faster, leaner sound.
A set of different listening priorities, the ‘you are there’ presentation that prioritizes detail retrieval and micro spatial cues along with tight fast transients.
If these two were coupling capacitors, the Denafrips house sound is Jupiter or Dueland copper foils, the Kinki is CuTf V-Cap built around speed and resolution. If you’ve familiar with the differences, you know one must be very careful when mixing them as it is easy to introduce anomalies in the frequency response, a hardness or sluggishness is introduced by often times a component mismatch or speaker selection. They may really both potentially be very good, but perhaps not together.
Horses 4 courses… (-; |
Wow! Those r cool preamps. Must sound really nice. Did u settle on a speaker? I’ve some of those 6dj8 around as I once had a Dodd battery pre that required such. Think I sold it on to a fella in Eastern Europe. Sure was a good looking piece of kit though… |
jackd
I bet they do! You’ve got an audiophiles dream going on. Tough problem, the BHK on tone, finesse, the M7 on pure grunt? I bet both sound great. Thnx 4 sharing, b well… |
jackd any comparison of Kinki vs PS amp? I’ve only read about the Kinki stuff. U certainly roll through a bunch of speakers, nice ones too… |
jackd
Nice. I can relate to the small tube rolling and the subtle differences imparted. I did the same with Amprex and Mullards years ago. Still use a pr. of Bugle Boys in my EAT Petite phono pre as the Mullards go a bit too soft. Did you go with the BK preamp in your setup? After years of going dac direct, I like the Hestia pre also, just a bit more tonal body driving the Hyperion amp. ‘Sides I like the footprint of the duo. I’ve got an Athena pre here also, and she’s a beast, big and heavy. I picked it up from a fella moving to an ARC Ref 6 because he felt the added active drive helped control his speakers woofers better. It’s ‘almost’ too much in my modest system. Like moving from the 10th row to the front row. Added magnification, better separation, bigger soundstage, but the same tonal qualities as its smaller sister. I’m unsure on weather to get the dac or a larger amp next as I think any step up will force another speaker purchase. The new Zu Soul’s would be terrific with the top Denafrips gear. A bargain too! The endless chase, as really the Denafrips duo, driving the DW’s w/Jupiter caps is a nicely balanced system and I quite like how easily the entry duo makes me forget about the several tube amps I’ve collected. Are those 6922’s in the BK or ??? |
jwlaudio
Anything Klipsch will not need the kind of power or sophistication you r considering. The Decware will serve u well, when it arrives. If it were me, and I’m biased cause I own the stuff, I’d buy the entry Hestia/Hyperion and settle in. Will take about two weeks to get to your doorstep and won’t break the bank. Good luck… |
Hell even better, pick up the Rotel Tribute integrated and settle in for a few months. $800 bucks I think. They sound really nice and even do Bluetooth. I own the matching CD player and like it very much… |
So much information to sort thru here. May as well add to the fog.
1st let me say I really, like the ‘unity gain’ style of preamps. I like the simplicity, the feel, and the quality. Being fed by a Benchmark Dac3 HGC, I’ve run direct, 0,10, and 20 db attenuation, into the Hyperion & thru the Hestia/Athena. I have both.
I find the Denafrips transparent to the source voiced primarily around depth, tone, and dynamics. They have a certain gravitas and plenty of ‘drive’, particularly in their size/price catagory. The voicing may be in regards to the class A biasing. The case can be made that they are unique exquisitely mfg products.
I run Roon thru a Nuc filtered thru a top end Audio Magic conditioner I’ve modded with Jupiter copper caps on the receptacles. I’ve 3 dedicated circuits w/10g wiring, & spent a lot of time rolling caps thru the filter stages, Jupiter’s, Cu V-Caps, Duelands, Mundorf SGO, ect… So I would say that my digital source preference is shaded to what the Jupiter caps bring to the table.
My room is big, 800-1200 sf. and I’ve rolled at least 9 pr. of speakers thru the room, but currently live with the Zu DW’s with (of course) Jupiter caps. Let’s leave the analog, tape and tubes aside for now.
The voltage input of the Dac3 does effect the voicing of the system, in general the lower the voltage input the more perceived warmth with or without the preamps. The less voltage the less attack, or leading edge.
Dac direct, at full output, you can introduce a touch of the dreaded digital glare. Just a touch.
I understand and have experienced the perceived warmth of the Denafrips voicing as relates to digital and have found it to more naturally align with my analog sources. Both cassette and vinyl sounded more at home with the Denafrip amps, until…
I brought in a subwoofer to properly ‘load the room’. I’ve a very good upper corner placement that has enabled a Rel T9i to bring in the 30-40hz and ‘what do you know’, everything has just fallen in place. My room now sounds the best I’ve attained in over 20+ years of playing around, with tubes and power supplies and speakers, and preamps, ect…
i luv my Hyperion/Hestia. (-;
Now if I could just find the order of tubes for the downstairs system that DHL says was delivered yesterday.
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Just another note as this thread and much of audiophile searching in the wilderness is about achieving the elusive ‘perfect voicing’ of ones system.
The critical focus put upon a preamp to mediate source to power.
sns seems to have a Coincident 101D preamp.
Here r the mfg specs…
Specifications
Type: Vacuum tube stereo linestage
Frequency Response: 10 Hz to 30 kHz (+/- 0.2dB)
Gain: 20dB
Output Impedance: 500 Ohms
Output Voltage: Greater than 30V
Features: Dual Mono Transformer Coupled Volume Pots
Inputs: Balanced inputs via XLR and unbalanced via RCA
Outputs: Two pairs of RCA outputs for bi-amp'ing;
One pair of balanced outputs on XLR
AC ground lift permits AC ground lift to eliminate hum caused by ground loops.
Dimensions: 203 x 260 x 390 (HxWxD in mm)
Weight: Power supply is 40.7 lbs. and linestage is 30.8 lbs.
AC Voltage: User selectable- 115v, 230V
Price: $4999
So a question. What do you think, >than 30V sounds like, on an amp looking for 4V input? Based on my limited messing around with voltage variance into the Hyperion, I would suggest you hear more of the flavor of what is input. GIGO.
Though voiced slightly to the organic side of neutral, there is no way Hyperion performs as described above. The thing has balls and a ‘bit’ of colour. My experience is that music has soul in a Denafrips system, one feels the heartbeat of the music, not as an intellectual exercise. It’s liquid not clinical. The voltage regulated preamps preamps pass what they r fed and even the BHK appears to output 4V through its balanced outs, which is perfect for the Hyperion.
Audiophiles seems to attempt a lot of crappy system matching and then blame it on components. The Denafrips are much more mainstream components with the advantages of ss and a beautiful midrange. They are not veiled, overly dark, or slow. They have authority and time like a 50k stack of Naim gear… |
sns, perhaps the 500k output impedance figure is NOT throughout the entire frequency band, but a single measurement. Pretty common with tube preamps and yours is definitely unique. I have no idea however as to why such would only present itself with the Hyperion amp and not other ss amps. Regardless, your attempts show it was not a reasonable match. |
Ie… “When matching preamps to power amps, a general rule of thumb is for the load (amp) input impedance to be at least 10 times higher than the source (preamp) output impedance to provide a suitably flat frequency response. Many prefer using a minimum ratio closer to 20 to 1, or having an amp with input impedance 20 times or more greater than the preamp output impedance.
With solid state preamps, this is generally not a problem since most have output impedance of only a few hundred ohms or less, while most SS amps have input impedance of at least 10K ohms. However, you must pay much closer attention when trying to match tubed preamps to SS amps, since many tubed preamps have an output impedance of several thousand ohms or greater. Another thing to watch is how the output impedance spec is reported, since it is sometimes limited to a measurement at a given frequency such as 1K Hz, while the actual output impedance may vary with frequency. It is not unusual for the output impedance of tubed preamps to rise significantly as the signal approaches a lower frequency of 20 Hz, because of the size of coupling capacitors used in the preamp. In these cases, a low frequency roll off can occur whereby, for the same power output, the lower frequencies drop in output compared to the rest of the frequency range, resulting in a loss of deep bass.
The good news is that most tubed amps have sufficiently high input impedance to allow the use of most preamps, tubed or SS. Also, for SS power amps, input impedances of around 50K ohms and above are common and these amps should work well with the vast majority of tubed and SS preamps.
Only a couple of manufacturers make SS amps with input impedances of 10K ohms (e.g., McCormack DNA500), and a couple (such as Pass) make SS amps with input impedance of 20K ohms. These lower impedance amps would require careful matching with tubed preamps. If you are trying to match a preamp with one of these lower input impedance amps, you should try to find information on your preamp's output impedance throughout the entire frequency range. Some manufacturer's report this information and some do not.” |
sns, it’s all good. That’s a nice, unique pre, you have there. Nice selection of amps also. I’ve a friend with Khorns but he runs a 6wpc Set. Hyperion sounds voiced more like an ADS speaker than a Klipsch. Late 80’s sealed box vs horns. More Harbeth than ProAc. Thinking thru the Denafrips/Kinki voicing differences compare Teflon base 6sn7 Black Treasures vs the gold metal based Psvane CV181-T. Traditional vs modern tube sound. The Teflon’s all about the mids and tonal richness, the metals emphasize airy, incisive treble energy. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that mixing tubes into the mix of either brand is not optimal. Here’s an interesting take on the Denafrips ‘sister’ brand Musician preamp… https://soundnews.net/accessories/musician-monoceros-preamplifier-review-the-final-frontier-for-your... |
Finally, a manufacturer that bridges dac to amp with a unity gain design optimizes both impedance and voltage relationships. The unity gain steps down the voltage and the voltage regulators are an essential function of the preamps. The systems voicing has been carefully considered and designed for. Dropping in a wildcard component will have unpredictable consequences. Many audiophiles go thru myriad system configurations and never fully understand what or why, what effects what. Play around with moving coil cartridges and SUT’s feeding into adjustable phono stages and one will get the idea of how complex and inter-related the system chain really is. There are 100 ways to get it wrong, that’s the fun and the education. Bottomless, always something else to learn. By adding a sub into my system it is much easier to hear which output tap is optimal on a tube amp, in fact it changed my preference. I’m certainly not saying the Denafrips products are end game but like Kinki, offer a high value, low relative cost, solution if the more organic sound of what tubes offer, is desirable in a ss configuration. Of course speaker matching, source, ect. are still ‘make or break’, but if one wants to explore and play a bit on the ‘dark side’, the Denafrips product catalog is fully fleshed and well thought out with all the goodies at attainable, every guy/gal, pricing. The niche they fill, they fill very well. What your ‘absolute sound’ is, is for you to decide. It is a hobby after all.
Here’s a final bit on the importance of voltage…
“If you think of your preamp as a source, and your power amp as a load, then you may consider that maximum power transfer can occur when the output impedance of the preamp matches the input impedance of the power amp. However, in high fidelity audio, it is typically considered optimum to have a source with low impedance connected to a load with high impedance. In that case, the power that can pass through the connection is limited by the higher impedance (so power transfer is not maximum), but the electrical voltage transfer is higher and less prone to corruption than if the impedances had been matched.”
To which almarg replies, “I'll just add a little emphasis to your mention in the first paragraph that power transfer is completely unimportant between preamp and power amp, as well as for any other line-level interfaces. What matters is transferring the signal VOLTAGE accurately”
Denafrips knows what function they need their preamps to provide to their amplifiers. Unity gain, a constant, considered, regulated voltage to impart the optimal audio signal and attain their desired voicing performance, would suggest they don’t wish or require excessive voltage gain at the amps input. If I connect the Benchmark Dac3 direct with 0 attenuation, I can begin to introduce a touch of distortion, a slight ‘digital glare’ that is why Benchmark usually suggest the 10 or 20db pads that yes changes the output impedance, but more important into the 22000k Hyperion, it’s 4V input voltage.
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Just an update on the Hyperion and Athena preamp. This has been a really nice combo on several sets of speakers. The Zu DW’s just gobble up the combo and the combo does jazz, rock, blues, folk and grunge with aplomb. More surprisingly to me has been how a pr, of ProAc 1sc thrive with the pairing. Really, these guys will make one rethink using tubes in a system. Initially I thought the pairing too ‘dark’, but something happened. Now it’s a really great combo. I’m not sure if adding the Rel T9i or a solid 4 months of break n’, but just, wow! Everything is done with such conviction, energy, and propulsion you can’t help but be pulled into a connection with the music. The system has fleshy, colorful, textured, mids in a way a bunch of lit bottles are usually required to provide. There’s meat on the bones of the musicians. Visceral and quite addictive, I’ve attempted to roll back in my tube amp, but I keep coming back. This setup is both beauty and beast. Hyperion and Athena does everything well, which really makes it fun. Fronted by a Benchmark Dac3 HGC it got depth, drive, dynamics and detail out the ying/yang. Vinyl/tape fed thru the HGC’s analog input sound terrific also. I can see how this could make a guy give up tubes. There’s plenty of resolution and it’s all in the right places. There is a dimensionality and richness along with authority down low. Cymbals and vibes sound great to, lots of shimmer, bite, and decay. This would be a terrific combo with the new Soul 6, which I can’t afford. At some point I need to try one of the Denafrips dacs, but why, when this is so darn good? |
I’ll go out of my way to mention how good this combo sounds on vinyl. Count Basie and the Kansas City Seven, I Want a Little Girl is pretty damn nice, especially Basie’s organ. Randy Weston, Blue Moses is terrific. This is on a well sorted, modest vinyl rig. VPI Traveler w/the 10” arm, Dynavector 20XL, Bob’s Sky, Eat Glo Petite.
‘What the Denafrips combo brings is a natural timber and spaciousness. Serious dynamics and PRAT that gives everything its own place and location, yet tight and punchy. Thru modest speakers, to my ears, this is a terrific combo, way better than my tube amps or the Yamaha integrated was capable of, there’s just such a richness and density of tone. Effortless, dynamic, relaxed, liquid, yet wide open, deep, robust. It’s not really a fireworks show but really encourages longer listening sessions. It’s more of a joy ride than a thrill ride, but it can keep you glued to your seat. |
