Quicksilver Headphone Amp

It just arrived.  Stay tuned

I spent a few hours listening to this amp last night and it is so transparent.  While listening I kept thinking of the best way to sum up the sound....clarity.   It is so natural sounding.  My Neve RNHP is a great amp, but this is in another league.   

Hi

Sources are NAD M51 DAC , OPP0 103d,  Bluesound Vault 2i,  tuner. Turntable

The Neve is a fine amp... it really is clean and detailed.   If you are looking for precision, studio quality it's there.   It sounds great don't get me wrong but the Quicksilver is more engaging, you know you are listening through a SET amp.   

The Quicksilver has incredible tone and a natural quality to the sound.   It's lightning fast and has airy highs .  The bass is very well defined,  again, great tone.   It seems much more powerful than the Neve but being tube I would expect it to be.   I haven't spent a lot of time with this amp but I can say it's the best sounding headphone stage I've ever heard.  

It' s built exactly like my Mid Monos.... it is a tank!!!    Same heavy gauge steel used in chassis, same power transformer.  It is beautifully constructed.    I had mine built with optional chrome transformer cover, it looks sharp.  

Im using Grado RS2e and Klipsch HP 3 primarily, I used them with some old beyer 600 Ohm and it drove them all no problem. This amp has balls ! I also used a pair of Sennheiser ear buds and those too have never sounded better.   $1000 isn't cheap but it's worth it .   Best new piece of gear I have bought in a while.

It is 3.5 watts of single ended goodness...   I just picked up the RME ADI-2 DAC and that driving the Quicksilver sounds incredible.  The NAD is still a fine DAC but the RME has a quality to the bass that is palpable.   You can almost hear the drum skin smack the air , it is so well defined and realistic.  It along with the Quicksilver has such control , the bass from those HP3 is amazing.  I used the RME's headphone amp briefly and it's good but nothing like the Quicksilver .  You are unlikely to see many of these used, it is that good.    

It is rated that at 30 Ohm or above.  My headphones are 25 , 32, and 600 ohms , drives all of them no problem.   PLENTY of power with anything I've plugged into them.  

Thx.  Im in Boston.....closest dealer I think is Audio Connection in NJ.    

Pulled the trigger on it....  I already own Quicksilver gear so no doubt it will be awesome...

I will be sure to post my impressions.    I am just going to connect it to my c-j Classic 2SE via it's tape out so I can enjoy all sources.    

It looks like it's built like a tank,  just like all QS amps.   I am using a pair of Klipsch HP 3 and a pair of Grado RS2e.   I'm currently using a Rupert Neve RNHP amp and it's a great amp but I wanted the QS since it came out last year.   Mike from QS said it will drive any headphone, and I believe it considering the size of the output transformer.   I read on one site it can drive a pair of speakers.....   not that I would try it.    Hopefully it's the last HP amp I purchase.

The only shortcoming of this design for some is it's single RCA input.  No problem though if you are using a DAC directly connected or in my case , my preamp's TAPE OUT is feeding a fixed level input to the Quicksilver.  I'm lucky I guess that my preamp Tape Out is wired directly to the input.  My preamp does not have to be on to pass what ever is present at its input appears at Tape Out.  This most likely would only be the case with an analog preamp,  i would guess anything micro processor controlled does not pass a signal when its off.  

If whatever you are feeding the Quicksilver with has a variable volume control in the digital domain, set it to either "fixed" or " 0dB" or a little below for best results.   Keep AC cables away from its input cables and it should have a nice quiet background.  I had noise when I first set mine up and it was just poorly shielded interconnects.  Swapped them and nice and quiet.  Remember, you are listening through headphones , so anything to lower the noise floor is worth the effort.

Enjoy, it is a great sounding amp.  I bought mine sight unseen, but having Quicksilver amps ,  knew it would be awesome.  Wait til you lift it out of the box, it is a monster.  Once you pick it up, you will know your money was well spent  before even plugging it in...  one caveat, you will be upgrading headphones a few times over the next year.... actually,  you will keep your existing phones along your upgrade path because they all sound better powered by this amp.  Post feedback once you've spent some time with it

Just wanted to say that JJ ecc83s and EL84 sound great in this amp.  Much more meat on the bone than the stock tubes

That doesn't sound like how Mike does business......