This is the official thread for the Cavalli Tube Hybrid. This thread is for discussion and reviews.
HifiGuides linkReviews…
Audio Science Review measured this. Great site for anyone who likes to look at objective measurements with amps and DACs. According to them, it’s a very noisy amp.
I cannot think of a reason why someone would be interested in any tube amplifier (even a hybrid one) if they’re obsessed with measurements. Tubes are intended to fuck with the sound, not to measure perfectly. People who buy tube amplifiers and ASR cultists are two categories of people on complete opposite ends of the spectrum.
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If I am going to spend $250 on an amp, I sure as hell would want to know its power and noise measurements. It helps objectively inform my decision. There are better tubes than others when it comes to noise and power. Some are noisier than others and some have more clean power. ASR doesn’t just exist to say whether an amp or DAC is neutral and perfect, but it helps objectively inform the buyer on the technical capabilities of the amps and DACs.
Not sure why someone would be against wanting to know that, especially since our subjective hearing is different. The things that are true are the noise floor, power ratings, etc. When spending hundreds of dollars on audio equipment, I’m guessing people would want to know these things in addition to what their favorite subjective reviewers have to say.
Edits: grammar and shit.
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Fair enough. My objections are withdrawn.
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I bit on this at $175 instead of $250 and received it today. I’m in love and this fits exactly what I was looking for: I wanted a quality solid state amp with a little bit of the tube “flavor” as a pre-amp instead of having to dive head first into a real tube and roll a bunch of tubes to get a sound I want. This delivers.
I have been listening to my Klipsch HP-3’s, 6XX’s, and Dekoni Blues through this and it is so clean and yet adds just this nice, tangible little boost of warmth to the sound. Totally digging it. It especially elevated the sound of the bass on the 6XX’s and brings the mids more forward on the Fostex’s.
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Nice to hear, mine should be coming early next week. I feel comfortable running planars on this since it’s not a full tube amp.
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@M0N I’m new to having a tube at all, would these benefit from a little burn-in? I’m never sure what the suggestion is - leave it on overnight?
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Yeah, just leave it on for a night and you should be good
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It showed up, I am impressed. This is exactly what I wanted. It’s different enough a sound from the 789 that I don’t feel dumb having both, lol.
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Stacks well too which is a bonus lol
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I may be biased, but this is still available on Drop and at $175 I think this is a total steal. Been listening to it all day and it sounds so nice.
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Hey! I just ordered this amp last night and I’m really excited about it. I already have the Atom, so I’m either going to A/B it when I feel like certain sound signatures, or I’m going to use the Atom to pre amp the cavalli.
Would it be a good idea to try it out with atom as the pre amp?
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What are you trying to achieve by doing so?
The CTH is a decent hybrid in it’s price range. The Balanced out is better than the SE out.
I’m more new to hobby. I’m not sure if I should try using the atom as a pre amp into the cavalli, or I should just keep them separate and plug into either one from the DAC whenever I want to.
If the atom as a pre amp can give better SQ to the cavalli compared to DAC -> Cavalli, then I would want to go the pre-amp atom route.
If it doesn’t really make a difference, then I’ll just swap between the two as regular amps.
It’s not going to sound better.
Best case the Atoms pre out is passive (and I don’t know the answer to this) and you just have 2 volume knobs in series.
If it’s active, then the atom will color the input to the Cavali, whether that sounds better to you is an open question.
I personally would use it as was intended, directly from the DAC.
Active pre’s can be beneficial to feed power amps, for a number of reasons, but they really don’t make sense in the headphone world. But it won’t hurt anything if you use the pre out.
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Thanks for the advice. I think I will keep looking elsewhere and probably try to find a tube buffer instead trying to use the atom as a pre-amp. Seems more of what I’m looking for anyways.
I just started a new thread for budget tube pre-amps so comment in that one if you have any advice on that!
Thanks again.
Not sure why you would want/need a pre for the CTH, it has plenty of power on its own
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I decided to get an OL switcher from jds so that I can go back and forth between the Atom and Cavalli separately.
Liking the Cavalli Tube Hybrid + Tung-Sol 6C8G (round plates but not with the familiar black glass, rebadge or swapped base?) with my HE-500. Very holographic and more diffuse sounding, very dreamlike. A very interesting direction with the sound signature of the HE-500. With the stock 6922 or a Amperex Bugle Boy 6DJ8, the HE-500’s were meh on this amp.
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