My Long List of Amplifiers and My Personal Review of Each!
Unfortunately preamps aren't really something I plan to heavily review. If I end up buying one here and there then sure I'd do a comparison but I'm not trying to search for preamps in tbe same fashion as I do with amps. As far as the Merill, they will be back and yes I still own them. I am waiting on the matching Christine preamp to arrive as well. |
What makes you think the Merrill pair is still around? We haven’t seen it on video in 2-3 weeks, despite now-open stands since Pass INT and Accuphase and Sim left. Plus numerous pleas from you to bring it back for more video time have been ignored by WC. I can’t remember even one time where WC featured an amp or preamp on a video, then completely removed it from the on-camera area, and then brought the same amp (not repurchased) back weeks later. Probably was a one-and-done without much staying power, though he did say it was best of class D which counts for something although he hasn't typically gone for D amps too much ... |
It sounds like the Gryphon will be leaving, my guess. If so, please do a video A/B with Merrill. If the Merrill is gone, bring back the Sim. From your statement that the Gryphon is a little warm in sound, I believe that the Sim has greater clarity, unless you want to refute me with a Gryphon/Sim shootout and/or greater clarification of the differences. You could live happily ever after with the Sim. Imagine the Sim on top of this stand. WOW. The stand is impressive and reveals MUCH MORE clarity from the Momentum. The guitar twangs are sharper and really impressive. There can never be too much clarity, and anyone who says they prefer less clarity and more dullness is on the wrong track. Let's see if such a person prefers the amp without the stand. If this increased clarity is too jarring, keep the volume reasonable, and/or accept the recording for what it is. The stand sounds like a totally different amp. The other possibility is that the RF/EM suppression with the large disc on top can be responsible for the clarity. The simplest thing to do is try the amp + stand with and without the disc on top to see the effect of RF/EM pollution by itself. The disc looks like it weighs about 10 lbs, but this is negligible compared to the weight of the Dag, so I believe that the major effect of the disc is RF/EM suppression. |
WC, I thank you for your work and presentations. But since you have owned and listened to the Gryphon a long time, it shouldn't be much trouble to say why you think it is still better than the Sim. You have extensively listened to the Merrill a few months ago, and now you are even more enthusiastic about it, so it would be nice to complete your thoughts about it instead of just brief mention as the best class D. The Gryphon, Sim and Merrill you consider very special, unlike nearly all of the hundreds of other amps you have gone through. Thanks. |
Stick to the Rossini as a preamp if you own the clock... No, the Rossini isn’t the Vivaldi as a preamp. Not close either. The Vivaldi kills the Rossini as a preamp. After hearing the Vivaldi as a preamp, I can't live with the Rossini as a preamp so now I need a preamp which is why the momentum HD is here and I am working on bringing the ref6se back in. |
@speedbump6 I fully agree with you. we can never be satisfied and thats the fun part or sometimes the curse part of this hobby.once you listened to something better its hard to go back to the lower end gear. wanted to find a good performance sweet spot and thats what i was trying to gauge. like in dac to choose between bartok ,rossini ,vivaldi i chose rossini. my 860A v2 is ordered and on its way. iam trying to figure out what would be the best segment appropriate preamp or the performance sweet spot or do i not need the pre-amp at all |
@whitecamaross WC great video. as usual you have stuck gold mine in performance leap. feets and isolation bases do take the performance to the next level try changing the feets on dcs and put it on a isolation base and iam sure that will improve the overall performance as well. |
Good source, that’s always the problem. In reality none of those are cheap for the average person. Value for the money the choice is obvious. But many audiophile can never be satisfied, and need/ want the next fix. What if? They want better, or sometimes it’s just different. What would be really intresting, and I have no idea if this could be done. I play the guitar and kemper makes an amp, or even what we would call a preamp, and you buy a separate amp, but it’s a modeler. With guitar amps, tube model are hands down superior to solid state. The kemper is digital and solid state. You can download files of modeled guitar amps, and speaker cabinets. Could this be done in Hi-Fi? Model preamps, amps, speakers, who knows, dacs? I don’t know. There were always naysayers about modelers,and the early ones really wernt what the current product are, but they’ve done blind tests, where it was proven that artists could not tell the difference. There are some subtle ways if you train yourself, because of how it loads the speakers, but even knowing this, no one could tell on a consistent basis to say it wasn’t the same as a 50/50 guess. Files of amps were mostly free and made by other players who owned the real thing to record, and shared on sites. In this case for about 4k , you could have any product that someone had “ modeled”, anytime you wished. My, how that would change the discussion. |
Viber I'm not about to embark on reviewing amps using the rating system without really sitting down and giving it some serious thought. If I answer you then everyone else will come back and want me to throw numbers off the top of my head for other amps I've owned and that's not going to be too fair.. |
Hi @goodsource, haha percentages are very tricky and of course subjective based on varying baselines. Above I indicated my overall system enjoyment went up 15% with the Ref10 vs the 740p. Not that the Ref10 was 15% better than the 740p. For me, a 15% increase in overall system performance is very significant. With respect to the 850p, and with my sq preferences, I would have said my overall system enjoyment increased by say ~20-25% over the 740p. Which is huge for me. As always, in my view, there are diminishing returns into the higher price points which I think we all strive to strike the right $ balance... |
WC, In your words, "The gryphon is amazing with slam and dynamics but it does add a hint, a smudge of honey." So I interpret this to mean you rate the Gryphon 6 for sweetness, compared to 5 for Sim, 7 for Luxman. How about the Merrill 118 for sweetness and resolution? Do you still have the 118 so we can hear it A/B’ed with the Gryphon? If not, just give your ratings of Merrill vs Gryphon, thanks. |
@whitecamaross WC Did you get a chance while testing to connect 860A V2 directly to the dcs rossini dac and do you have any thoughts and comments on dac direct to power amp where dcs was used as a pre-amp. is dac direct performance adequate or good by any chance? |
@zprr excellent thoughts and very well summarized. so ref10 is 15% better than 740p where 740p is 9k and ref10 is 30k in price 850P is 33k in price.since you said ref 10 and 850p were very close in performance would you say that 850P is 15% better than 740P or more. the price difference is enormous not only between the premaps but even both ref10 and 850P cost way more than 860A V2 which is just 18K. |
Totally agree with your assessment above. That said, if someone is looking to be surrounded by an immense amount of musicality and soundstage, Id choose the ref10 for the simaudio. That said, the momentum HD is becoming more and more that component that I am simply afraid to even think about parting ways with. It really is the most enjoyable solid state preamp I've owned. Is it better than the boulder 2010? Its hard to say because my system has changed so much... |
Thanks WC. I did have the chance to compare 3 preamps in my own system with the Simaudio 870a - the Simadio 740p, Simaudio 850p and arc ref 10. I have been asked privately on how they compared so just to resummarize: Over the span of 2 weeks I had many hours to compare these 3 broken-in preamps in my system. Final notes on the 740p vs the Ref10 in my home system: - Ref10 a touch warmer/richer. 740p can sound a bit thin on certain songs in comparison - Ref10 wider stage. some songs remarkably so - Ref10 a bit more engaging and less fatiguing - Ref10 more bottom weight, but not boomy - same resolution/detail. So, if I had to choose bw these two, definitely Ref10. Perhaps a 15% bump in overall enjoyment. That said I was quite surprised how well the 740p held up. Then I brought home the 850p. Compared to the 740p my jaw dropped. The 850p performed with an increased overall smoothness/liquidity, brought forward recessed instruments w exceptional spacing, resolution increased/inner details on songs I had never heard before, tidied up the soundstage, added coherent bass,...was hard to put a finger on any one exact change. Overall I had never experienced the utter lack of fatigue after playing for hours. Obviously there is quite a price difference between the 740p and 850p. That said, I can see why someone might prefer the Ref10 even in my Sim (amp and DAC) dominated system (vs the 850p). The Ref10 adds a touch of warmth and a wider soundstage and perhaps is a slight touch more forgiving. I think the 850p gets out of the way better to play what is on the recording more than the 740p and the Ref10. I decided to stick with system synergy (which I think may be the primary reason for the slight nod to the 850p vs ref10) as I wasn’t quite ready to build a system around the Ref10 (although I was tempted). I think the 850p and ref10 are incredible and a good example of how individual preferences may vary. |
If I had 30k to spend, I'd buy a luxman 900u and simaudio 860v2. This way you can't be second guessing yourself as to what you like best. Trust me there will be recordings where you will prefer the luxman over the simaudio. I tested this theory myself and it is the case. The gryphon is amazing with slam and dynamics but it does add a hint, a smudge of honey due to it's class a design which is well received in my book with piss poor recordings. As far as WHAT PREAMP would sweeten the 860v2... Look, don't even try to go around burning money; Buy a ref10 and prepare to be FLOORED with the synergy it has with simaudio. I did this YEARS ago when I owned the v1 860a and I was in love. It is a combo that will put many systems to shame with the right speakers. |
WC, So, for folks who do not like any sweetness (viber6) then no need to have more than one amp on hand for both sweetness and non-sweetness. And similar for those who prefer sweetness. However, for folks like you (and I suspect there are many) who appreciate both flavors, I am guessing there are two ways to go. For example, if someone had a budget of $40K, would they be better served by getting two high performing ~$20K amps - one that is not sweet or much less sweet and the other that is sweeter, OR, an ongoing quest to find the one single ~$40K amp that does a bit of both? Or, a third option might be (something that you mentioned) to get the $40K amp that is not as sweet, but has high marks in the other categories. Then, component and/or cabling choices can sweeten things up a bit. Dave |
As i mentioned during my video, i plan to eventually change a few categories. They are not set in stone, but i wanted you all to have my overall feeling on the simaudio 860v2. Yes, i would take this amp over any hegel, krell, mark levinson, bryston, etc, etc. i am not going to compare it to Luxman because it sounds NOTHING like luxman or momentum. I can’t punish the luxman or momentum for perhaps not having the same "muscle" as the simaudio because then i would have to punish the simaudio for not having the same degree of silkiness, smoothness or romanticism that exists in luxman and momentum. It would not be fair. I LOVE both amps in different ways because they both take me away in different ways. We have already been over this; THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE PERFECT SPEAKER, AMP, PREAMP ETC, ETC. If i wanted to punish the Simaudio then i just need to turn on my Gryphon and then have a long conversation about how much better the mids, highs, lows, etc could be on the Simaudio when i use the Gryphon as comparison, but then that is not fair either because they are different price points. In short, there needs to be categories: 1. Vodka 2. Tequila 3. Whisky None of them are remotely close in flavor but they all get you tipsy. Do we criticize the guy/gal who prefers to take tequila shots because he/she loves how it burns on the way down? Do we punish the guy/gal who loves Vodka because it is what is used for Martinis?? I tried Whisky and i can’t seem to like the flavor... In short, there is no "universal" amp that trumps all. I’d love to own the Dan D Agostino Relentless and maybe a pair of Mephisto monos so i can have probably the best of both worlds (this is an example fyi) |
WC, I hope you get the Sim 860V2 back soon. Meanwhile, let's hear your comparative ratings of the Sim with the Gryphon and Merrill 118, particularly for sweetness, resolution. I understand your rating of the Sim for sweetness as a 5, which to me means that it is tonally neutral. The Luxman sweetness of 7 means it is sweeter than neutral, but not as sweet as a classic tube amp which might score a 10. A sweetness score of 1 would mean totally cold/sterile. When adding up the total score, I would convert the 5 score for sweetness to a 10, the ideal, and downgrade the overly sweet tube amp to much lower than 10, maybe 1-2. As many have said, the sweetness category is confusing and misleading when you add up the total score. I suggest replacing "sweetness" with something like "smoothness and coherence" which everyone agrees is desirable, unlike the big differences in preferences for sweetness. |
Jay, if I make a couple of suggestions: -for your video sessions, instead of one or two long tracks, try a bunch of shorter tracks say one and half to two minutes each covering different areas like bottom end, female vocals, male vocals, instruments, top end, dynamics etc. ... you could do a session number two with your inputs, observations etc. ... -for the ratings, if you look at Stereophile you see they rate the stuff A, B, C, D... but their sister publication Hifi news gives an actual number. So for example on the reviews for D'agostino they gave an 89 or 90 to the older version of your stereo unit, a 90 to the progression, 91 to the 400 monos, and a 95 to the relentless monos they reviewed a couple of months ago. As you see the the differences are not in the tens but one or two or five, even from the stereo unit to the the gargantuan relentless... (Imitating the one eyed viper cutie here, who wanted to put this word in a sentence!) Just like Cigar, Wine, or Whisky ratings, those in the know would know what the difference between a 91 and say a 93 is. they also just recently did a review of the 860a v2, but I don't have a print copy to know what rating they gave this unit... Not having heard the unit, but only your oohs and ahhs, My hunch is somewhere in the mid to high 80s, rather than in the low 70s... Though all these ratings are subjective, they still give a good indication of the take of the reviewer, but the difference between say a 71 and an 81 is again gargantuan (did it twice now! Eat your heart out evil viper!...), let alone with a unit in mid to high 80s... just my take and thank you for your reviews... |
Actually if you follow this thread you will see that WCSS only gets Amps that he can at least get his money back on. I will bet ANYTHING he isnt going to buy a CODA and then try to flip it. That would be a 30-40% loss...might as well invest in JC Penney stock. Im sure CODA's are wonderful like Bakoon and many other boutique brands but if you buy them prepare to OWN them indefinitely. Try flipping them on a constant basis and you will be living under an overpass in a cardboard box in short order. |
@grey9hound I have not heard the Coda #16 yet. My dealer in Los Angeles does not have it yet (something about a pandemic). Today, I was looking over the specs on the Coda #8, Luxman m900u, and the Coda #16. The #16 is supposed to be the quietest of the 3. One factor that is important to me. I was just suggesting to @whitecamaross to have that amp in his radar since he is a fan of the Luxman m900u. |
goodsource, The Sim 860V2 has lots of gain, 31 dB, so a passive preamp may provide enough volume in many cases. My personal preference is to avoid electronic stages when possible, which enables the highest detail/transparency. Mrdecibel has the cheap Luminous passive preamp, which he has found to beat all the active preamps he has tried for transparency/neutrality. WC, Agree that it is hard to convert sweetness into neutrality. Once information is lost thru sweetness, it is gone. This is especially true with sources. An old historic recording which is musically interesting because of the artist won't sound much better on a revealing system because the recording is so veiled that it is hopeless from the hifi point of view. You have found a superb amp (Sim) at a semi-reasonable price that is revealing. There are so many sweet, rolled off amps available at all prices, that it is a shame to take a relatively rare neutral gem like the Sim and convert it to a commonplace rolled off one. |
@whitecamaross WC looking forward to it. if possible can you pick & make more price and segment appropriate comparison. momentum HD preamp is 40k. can you a pick a preamp in the 9 to 20k USD to mate with simaudio 860A2 |
@whitecamaross WC - great step and initiative for you to get into developing a coherent ranking system for amps. appreciate your time, effort and thinking towards this. do you have any thoughts on using diff preamps with 860A V2. last time i heard d’agustino preamp power amp combo the overall output was still warm and slightly sweet. are you saying connecting d’agustino pre amp with 860A v2 still gives a dynamic output? |
It is easier to turn a slam/dynamic neutral amp Into a sweet amp by adding a tube preamp than the other way around; It’s hard to turn a sweet amp (tuned to sound this way) into an explosive machine... Think of it as this: it is easy to make your "plain" tasting food taste sweet by adding honey or sugar to it ,but can you make sweet tasting food taste plain again?? Once it’s sweet, it’s hard to go back to being "plain" again .. |
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@WCSS I'm guessing that your 'Overall Rating' of the Luxman M900u and the Simaudio 860a v2 are going to be fairly close. Referring again to the two categories (Sweetness vs Slam/Dynamics) you said it is possible to improve the Sweetness category by using a preamp or cabling but can you improve the Slam/Dynamics category of an amp? How would you improve the sweetness of the Sim 860a v2? How would you improve the Slam/Dynamics of the Luxman M900u? |
ron17, Continuing your line of thinking--to me, sweetness and neutrality/clarity are opposing characteristics. Sweetness is usually obtained by rolling off HF, as with classic tube amps which show sweetness at the sacrifice of neutrality/clarity. The high fidelity ideal is smoothness/coherence + clarity, which are features of live, unamplified music. So if an amp has sweetness, I give it negative points towards the total score, but if it has smoothness/coherence I give it positive points which increase the total score. |
It would be interesting to hear your take on the CODA #16. It is being described on A'gon as being sweet as the Luxman m900u but a 10/10 in dynamics and slam. I have a callback with a local dealer to have a demo of the CODA #16 before I pull the trigger on the Luxman m900u (which I know well). Dealer still does not have the #16. |
I totally appreciate the fact that Jay really loves 'sweet' sounding amps. It's just that he has two categories that are opposing...Sweetness vs Slam & Dynamics. If you score high in one you will score low in the other....according to the reviewer. And of course having one of each (amps) as a reviewer sounds like a must....just like having different sounding sets of cables etc. I think the score of the Sim 860a v2 @ 71 is fantastic and right where it should be based on sound, value and all of the previous amps the reviewer has had and will have. Jay, just curious how you would score the Luxman M900u in JUST the 2 categories of Sweetness and Slam & Dynamics? Thanks again for your tireless work! |
techno_dude, Two mono amps usually produce the same character of sound on the continuum of sweet vs neutral/accurate, just give more power than the single amp version. There is even the risk that the signal which has to go thru double the circuitry will be more veiled. Most music except for relatively infrequent peaks needs only a few watts, so for clarity it may be a step backward to use 2 mono amps, unless you want abusive high SPL's and don't care about clarity. So the 2 mono Luxman M900u at $30K retail will still yield sweet sound, vs the more accurate/neutral Sim 860V2 at $18K. I would prefer the Sim to the Luxman, either single for $15K or double for $30K. WC, The Merrill 116 for $22K is very nearly the equal of the 118 for $36K, according to Merrill himself. Let's hear the 3 way A/B/C of Sim/Merrill/Gryphon. |
Which is exactly why keeping the sweetness category makes sense. Definitely keep that. A clear indication that the current categories may be too heavily weighted away from sweet sounding amps is by considering how 2/3 WC’s all time best amps per $$ (see one of his videos in 20’s- meaning his 20th or 21st video or whichever it was where he anointed ) are Luxman 590AXii and m900 amps. Since WC himself rates these so highly (top 3 of 300 for the $$), clearly when he is ranking them they should score very highly (after all, he rated them top 3). But I wonder how highly they’d score with these categories (maybe WC will tell us), and if they do not score really highly in this overweighted resolution/clarity/detail dominated test, then something must be wrong with the test categories. That fleshes out more of my initially stated concern with the categories. We already know his top 3 of 300 for $$ - he told us. Some new arbitrary test wouldn’t change that. At minimum any test where WC scoring those three needs to score them very highly for test to be valid (with WC ranking them of course - if another ranking then things would be different bc anyone else may not have those as top 3 of 300 for the $$, but WC does so any valid ranking test he administers should have categories that correspondingly result in commensurate scores for his favorite amps. (Yes I know he didn’t say those were 3 best he ever had, only for the $$. But we are talking 300 total, per his estimate, so that is top 1% for the $$) |
@ron. yep, that is why i said some categories might work their way out. This is all the beginning and adjustments will be made as time passes when it comes to categories. I personally have decided that i want to keep one sweet amp and one dynamic/explosive amp (momentum s250 and gryphon respectively). i don’t believe one can compare a sweet amp to an amp that isn’t -such as soulution. I have tried in the past and i noticed it is too difficult to do. If you like luxman then you will love constellation, momentum. If you like Simaudio then you will love gryphon. Now, let me just say that OF COURSE you can help an amp become "sweeter" by way of cabling, sources and obviously using a tube preamp. |
Amp rating: A couple of things....after naming each category (1-10) and describing each one in detail and giving examples of each one, when you did finally go through and rate the Sim 860a v2 you skipped over category #6 (Soundstage Width & Depth). I had to go back and re-listen, write down each score in each category, add them up to deduce that category #6 = a rating of 6....no thoughts on why you rated it a 6....no big deal. Also by using a rating system of 100 I'm guessing that the scores could range from 10-100. 10 being the worst score (1 point per each of the 10 categories) and 100 being the top score. I realized no amp could possibly score a 100. You stated that an amp either falls into either one of two categories....#4 Sweetness or #5 Slam & Dynamics. So no amp will score a 10 in both categories...right? You described the 'Sweetness' category as "amps that are very sweet...like tubes". I don't want to get into the old 'tube amps are colored' thing but I very much agree with the YouTube poster 'stephen barnes' who posted on your channel saying... "I don’t care for the way the sweetness rating is done. That skews sweet sounding amps with a higher score than a more neutral amp that maybe provides a better sound at neutral than one that is sweet but maybe dosnt stand up to the neutral amp in the quality of the sound. It assumes that sweet is the preference over neutral, since we are all trained to believe a higher number equates to better, where in this case it does not relate to better in my opinion." Thanks Jay for all the hard work you put in for our enjoyment....it is much appreciated! |
Last hear I asked WC about the 740p. He said clearly it is not even competing with the big boys preamps. The 860A only has 75 wpc more, with two huge transformers instead of just one in the M-900u. That means the Lux has simply a better quality transformer, in a much higher class... If you do research, you will find the Lux transfo has solid core flat copper winding ! We are talking same weight amplifiers... it’s plain quality vs quantity. They mobilise a special team for 2 months each year to make the M-900us at Luxman in Japan. At Moon, the 860A is build by the same workers that make their cheapest ACE integrated. ( in Boucherville , Quebec) |
