The Pendant is powerful and will easily push headphones into distortion or unpleasant listening volumes, the DAC i am using has volume attenuation which i normally set somewhere between 75-85% in order to give me a wider volume range on the amplifier. Otherwise i too am unable to get much past the 8 o’clock position on the Pendant. If your DAC has no volume control it will probably NOT be a good match with the Pendant amplifier. Great catch @Polygonhell i should have listed that point too.
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great stuff guys, I enjoyed reading about your experiences. The Pendant is definitely a tube amp I’m interested in checking out in the future. I would love to hear more impressions on headphone pairings and tube rolling especially.
Also in case anyone reading is interested, currently there is a ampandsound Leeloo for sale on head-fi for a very attractive price. Basically a very similar amp to the pendant if I understand correctly. please someone buy it before I do lol
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that doesn’t look like much of a pendant to me. wear that you’ll sink when you go swimming…
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The pair of NOS RCA 6BQ5’s I’d ordered arrived and I replaced the stock JJ El84’s with them last night.
Really significant difference, MUCH wider and taller sound stage, richer mids.
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Very nice, mine came with several nice NOS tubes, I honestly am still learning the amp and haven’t done anything other than drop a low gain tube in. Tube amps are fun but you need time and patience. Congratulations on the new additions, thanks for letting me know that these sound good, I’ll take a look around to see if I can find a good pair to add to my small stash. Thank you!
I just got mine and am barely a few songs into listening on my 880s, and I am completely smitten. With everything. This whole chain. I don’t want to go to bed. I never should have started this tonight!
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that looks more like an anchor than pendant. :o
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Yeah, would not recommend wearing around your neck. If you thought Audezes were heavy… Shipping weight with the ironwood chassis was 14lbs, lol.
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The wood is very visually appealing, and i hope you are getting no or minimal RF interference. It really is a versatile and quality SQ piece, happy listening and many congratulations on finally getting one in your hands!
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Thanks, Nick!
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So, it’s official: Pendant drives Susvaras with gusto.
The King of Planars just came in today, and I’ve been breaking them in on a Topping A90, balanced, in high gain. Fed by an ADI-2, I maxed out comfortable listening levels about 1:00 on the dial of the A90.
After a couple hours of listening, I’ve finally switched cables and fired up the Pendant. I’m getting the same sort of stunning clarity, captivating mids, and pounding bass that I got from the A90. I can’t even quite hit noon on the Pendant. And this is purely SE, with RCA from the ADI-2 to the Pendant and, of course, the 1/4 cable fed from the Low Z tap.
Through both amps I am certainly getting my money’s worth. I have been a long time fan of Focal Utopias, but they simply can’t hold a candle to what Susvaras can deliver. These are simply on another level in terms of realism (timbre + presence) and musical engagement.
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I haven’t tried the susvara on a pendant, but the pendant has more power than you would think behind it, the he1000se was pretty nice on the pendant, I would imagine the susvara being pretty good as well 
I would agree lol
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I’ve experienced a combo that you haven’t? Is that worth a merit badge of some kind? 
Absolutely! Thankfully, it has put to rest all anxieties about running my Susvaras off of speaker taps. Whatever gains may be possible don’t seem worth the relative hassles.
Ironically, I bought my Pendant with the intention of exploring euphonic listening with ZMF heapdhones. At the time I wasn’t dreaming that I might pick up Susvara, much less worrying about power output of the Pendant.
When I did grab Susvara (most unexpectedly, after finding a deal I couldn’t refuse), I recalled all the times I’ve read that tubes and planars don’t mix. I just assumed the Pendant wouldn’t be a good match. But then reviewing the design and the purpose of the Hi Z / Low Z taps gave me pause. Finally, after getting a mini baseline from the A90, I gave it a go, and here we are.
I can hear nothing off or lacking in this presentation. I can’t even imaging how to improve this sound. This has completely redefined what’s possible from headphones.
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I still think it’s worth a try, but yes the susvara can be effectively run off normal headphone amps for the most part lol. I did try a he6 off a pendant and it was meh tho lol, so still speaker amp preference there, but they actually made the susvara usable lol. But generally I do think that the more power the better with the susvara (as long as you don’t sacrifice quality for quantity)
This is a general good rule in the lower end side of things, but honestly once you get an actually high end tube amp, even otl at times, they can run planar with ease. Most of the amps I run planar on are tube these days tbh
That’s something you can find out later on lol
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I haven’t found a good “tube rolling” thread for the Pendant anywhere yet, so I figured I would ask here if anyone had any thoughts. What tubes have you guys been using with your Pendant, and what tubes do you think are worth keeping an eye out for?
I have a Pendant incoming with the stock and ZMF selection NOS tubes, and my plan is to stick with those for a while to get a feel for the amp and it’s sound before playing with other NOS tubes. Having said that, I’d love to hear thoughts on some of your favorite tubes!
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I settled on an RCA rectifier (can’t remeber which one ), a Mullard 12 AU7 and a pair of Tunsgram EL84’s.
I liked the PSVane EL84’s, didn’t like the PSVane 12AU7.
RCA EL84’s were OK
RCA 12AU7’s were OK
The one Brimar 12AU7 I have is noisy, but OK.
Didn’t really like any of the “cheap” new issue EL84’s, the JJ’s were the best of the bunch, the Mullards the worst
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That’s interesting re: the EL84s. Candidly I think the power tubes are the one I’m most curious about because it seems like there’s a sea of fun options for the input tubes but less so for the EL84. I’ll have the stock JJs and whatever Zach sends me for the NOS pair, and I have a NOS GE and Mullard pair on hand, though neither are the versions I think people tend to chase down. I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on favorite EL84s (or viable alternatives)
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I haven’t tried it in a pendant, RCA 7189 tilted getters are pretty impressive for neutral with lots of control and good spatial recreation
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There was a significant discussion on EL84’s in the Haggerman Tuba thread, different amp, but my experience is the generalities remain the same.
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Thanks for the heads up! That sent me down a rabbit hole both here and on the Head-Fi version of that thread.
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That’s also what I ordered and how I have been proceeding. I still haven’t made it beyond the first set of tubes.
What I have installed now are all Baldwin (Sylvania) green-labeled tubes that came in plain white boxes. The input is a 12AU7A, Recitfier is an EZ81, and the output tubes are a pair of 6BQ5s. I believe these are the NOS tubes.
Here are the other tubes that came with my Pendant:
The JJ set are an ECC802S, an EZ81 and a pair of matched EL84s. These seem to be modern production (they’re readily available at any rate); I suspect they’re the “stock” tubes. In addition, there are a couple extra input tubes: a Baldwin 12AX7 and a Westinghouse 12AT7 (more NOS options).
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I am a total tube noob still at this point; I don’t really know a thing beyond blind experimentation, and I’ve done very little of that.
I can offer that I instantly fell in love with the tube combo I picked. They breathed stunning life into my 600 ohm 880s, turning them into a fairly endgame-level experience. They’ve also been an easy favorite over SS chains for most source material on both Susvara and VC.
The general effect I’m getting from Pendant with this tube set is enhanced staging and spatial reproduction with a touch of warmth in the mids and a lovely smooth delivery. I’ve found these differences to be consistent across 880s, Susvara and VC. One of the things that most impressed me with Susvaras was how much very dynamic percussion (drums and cymbals) sound live and in the room. The tubes blunt that effect somewhat, but it’s really only something I notice or care about with very exciting and dynamic orchestral / score music. For virtually everything else I much prefer the captivating sense of space and naturalness conveyed by Pendant.