I looked up the HPA 21 and its listed as archive on Bakoonâs website so I suppose that thatâs been discontinued. But the HPA 01 is still available for purchase
Yes I think they slimmed it down, but you should still be able to find the 21 out in the used market, the hpa 01 sounds similar with perhaps a bit less power imo (although I havenât heard them side by side, but I have heard both separately). Also a note on the current drive amps, the lower impedance dynamics tend to sound not great lol (the utopia sounds pretty piss poor on the re/leaf for example), and planar can work fine if the amp can push enough power
Regarding QES Reference. There was a comment under one of Zeosâ videos that said the guy making those died about a year ago
Yes the company is no longer in business as well, really unfortunate
That sucks
Checked Canuck Audiomart. Only the 01âs for sale
Yeah now for current drive amps it seems like slim pickings, you donât really have many options anymore, other things I can think of are really old amps or one off designs
I donât know how usefull this is. But First Wattâs new amp, the F8, is described by Nelson Pass as âa current feedback amplifier (CFA) as opposed to the J2âs voltage feedback (VFA) differential input.â
Looking through headfi archives, back around 10-11 years ago people were using the F1 amps from first watt as current headphone amp
I want to try one out for sure, just have to wait a bit lol, but I do know of more current drive speaker amps than headphone amps (seems like the f8 would be current drive but I donât know too much about electronics so idk for sure lol)
Yeah. I know the basics of calculating ohms impedance and current but very little about electronics themselves. I want the F8 as well.
I know that neither of my amps really solve the issue I have with the T1s where if I push the volume beyond a certain point there is an extreme sharpness around 6-10k that depending on the day hurts my ears or nauseates me, but I like the sound a lot despite that and the amp section on the my Hugo TT 2 does the best at taming that (about 50 percent less than the Micro BL)
One of the reasons (that I was told) the t1 and 880 600 sound so different on current drive amps is because it pretty much removes headphone impedance out of the equation, and that causes it to basically ignore the changes in impedance on a driver (since with most headphones you have impedance curves and at certain freq the impedance of the headphone changes), and thatâs prob why stuff like the utopia sound wrong but idk (the utopiaâs bass goes boomy and out of control, the midrange sounds off, and the treble gets kinda strangely peaky)
Unfortunately thatâs just beyers tuning, the only way to really fix that if you are still having issues with the tt and the bl (also just wondering what filter are you using on the hugo and idsd), you are pretty much either going to have to go with a tube amp or a current drive amp for the most part
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Yeah, Iâve been looking for solutions for a while and it seems Tube amp or Current amp is the best way to go
I have a feeling these would be pretty sweet on a more neutral higher end tube amp like a pendant. The bottlehead crack + speedball is pretty nice and the highs are smooth but still present. Does it justice but I have a hunch theyâre not at their potential yet.
Yes thatâs also my understanding, current drive headphone amps are really best suited to driving Planars, where the impedance curve is more or less flat.
They are sweet on a pendant, but I donât think I would call the pendant that neutral imo
The crack + sb is prob the most enjoyable budget tube amp pairing for them, but I would agree you can get more out of them later on with a higher end amp
Budget? good lord M0N how is $600+ considered a budget tube amp 
. Hell if anything I would call something like dark voice or little dot budget.
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How would you describe it? My thinking for PAB was something flatter would be ideal but if the pendant isnât that then there goes that idea.
Personally I love the pairing. Very nice 
I mean I should say budget representation of a good tube amp lol. The darkvoice or like a little dot mk2 is a more budget oriented amp ofc and I do like them for what they are, but I will say that there is a massive difference from going from the darkvoice range to stuff like the bhc+sb (you get to hear what a good tube amp can actually do lol), the darkvoice and little dot is where people tend to pick up the idea that a tube amp is only good for different sound and is dirty/sloppy, unrefined, and are behind solid state technicality wise, which for most higher end tube amps is absolutely not the case, where the bhc + sb gives you that coloration that people are after but actually keeps up in terms of technicalities and refinement and is more representative of what the higher end can offer you imo than a darkvoice. Also if you build it yourself itâs only 450 ish lol (but if you pay someone to make it, you can reach that 600 range)
I mean the pendant is leaning more towards a bit warmer, more spacious, more fun and slightly more forgiving, but compared to like a bhc it could be called more neutral, for what he is after honestly something with that type of coloration sounds desirable. You can get more neutral and clean tube amps, but they potentially might not calm the treble enough
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Hmm, since I havenât tried the bhc+sb I will take your word for that one. I love my LP though and I really appreciated the Dark Voice. IFI ican over there was just⊠weird honestly sounded completely different from the other tubes so perhaps thatâs what you mean on their respective sound still on the fence about this amp.
That is true. Consider it just me being lazy on that lol. I am not the builder sort.