I have the Diana Phi and I approve of this thought pattern. However note that with the Diana Phi I learned my Bifrost 2 no longer resolved enough.
I will say for chain upgrades I would avoid a topping stack as it may not do what you want. A Chord Mojo is perfectly fine if you can’t find a ladder DAC in that price range.
Going by reviews though, the Abyss headphones don’t really sound like a ZMF or Focal. Not to say they are bad but that Abyss has it’s own sound signature, which you may or may not like. Also, remember that there are usually massive diminishing returns when you pay for sumit-fi level gear.
That’s just a thought though, as I prefer dynamics over planars at the moment. I’m reading a lot about ZMFs performing their best with tubes, however I’m not too familiar with them (you can tell I’m leaning towards the ZMF). Are there any “Heresy/Liquid Spark/Atoms of the $100 range” tube amps at the $300 range?
The Auteurs sound great off of the Schiit Vahalla 2, which is $350.00. I would only get the Darkvoice if it is on sale for 200.00. You will end up spending at least $100.00 in tubes for the DV. The V2 doesn’t need a tube change but the tubes are really cheap for a NOS pair for them. The DV is on Drop right now for $200.00 but I would just have Apos price match them and you will get them quicker and get better customer service.
Schiit Vali 2+ is pretty awesome. If you can wait for a $500 or less deal, the Monoprice Liquid Spark has a following. A favorite OTL is the Bottlehead Crack (and totally recommend the Speedball mod).
I recommend updating your source gear as you are missing out on what your Headphones can do in terms of performance.
I assume you meant Liquid Platinum, but what a jump from Vali 2+ to the Plat!
Let me list out my options so I can refer to them in the future( in the order of decreasing preference):
Why shy away from the Topping stuff though? They aren’t especially cheap, I’m seeing $1250 for the 90 stack on Apos.
To be quite honest, you would want to spend more on the amps for all of these, I would be wanting to spend at least 600 on an amp for the auteur like a feliks echo or hagerman tuba, for the clear I personally like the rupert neve rnhp or lake people g111 (some also like the echo with the clear although I do not), and for the diana, I would really suggest being in the 1k+ range amp wise to take advantage of what they have to offer. Dac wise, you could go with something like a modius or a allo revolution dac, but later on I would want to upgrade those as well. For what amp and dac you decide to pick would be based on what ways you want to tilt the cans and your preferences. You can really get more out of both the autuer and clear with better source gear, it’s definitely worthwhile to not neglect there as @Towa mentions
That’s the problem imo, they tend to have pretty poor value and don’t really compete at their price range. To me the a90 is a very mediocre amp, personally I’d say it’s outperformed by an asgard 3 or magnius on multiple aspects, and the d90 is a marginal step up from a d70, to the point where it isn’t worthwhile imo
Aside from all of this, what type of sound are you actually after, as the clear vs auteur is a pretty different sound imo. Personally I wouldn’t suggest stepping up to the diana right away as you wouldn’t have the source gear you would want for the headphones, and also I’d suggest hearing other options lower down the ladder before jumping that high. And the diana isn’t admittedly known for comfort, I personally don’t have issues but some don’t find the headband comfortable. It’s an excellent headphone, but in your case might not make sense right now
The Diana V2 is something I would be very cautious to run at tube amp. There are some hybrid and transformer tube amps that can handle it, but overall a good solid state amp with some decent power is what I would look at. At least it’s not as amp picky as the Diana Phi.
Additionally I don’t think the Clears benefit as much on a Tube. Some hybrid amps may do some pleasant things tonally.
@M0N do you think given the budget and desire of @BurgerFlipper that maybe for about the same price, something like the Allo or BF2 for a DAC with a Bottle Head Crack and Sennheiser HD600 or HD650 is a good place to start?
It sounds like those headphones with an OTL amp, the Crack with the legendary status (and tube recommendations on the forum), and the experience seems like that might be a better start than jumping directly into ZMF. And the signal chain would definitely scale for ZMF later. Thoughts or is there a cheaper route to go that you can think of?
Hm so I’m kinda behind that, the bf2(if it can be squeezed in) or an allo rev + bhc + sb is a really nice combo, that would pair very well with the sennheiers and the zmf, but regarding the sennheiser, I would assume one wouldn’t want to take a step down tier wise and at least stay or go above ananda level.
Also because of this post here, I would assume they aren’t in the us
And that would make getting a bottlehead somewhat difficult depending on the country, a good alternative might be a eufonika h7 which is kinda going for a similar signature and quality at a similar price, but is more eu friendly if they decide to go for zmf or perhaps something like beyerdynamic (like a t1.2) or audio technica like an adx5000 (since those two are also very comfy imo and are at or higher tier than the ananda, although I’d want better source gear later on)
Hmm you do have a point. Perhaps I’m overreaching a bit when reaching for the Diana and disregarding the source gear in the process. I remember reading from a forum somewhere and I quote: If you have modest gear, it’s best not to go for the Utopia, get a Clear instead.
I’m from Malaysia, right above Singapore so audio availability isn’t an issue, it’s the local 2nd hand market that’s lacking. And yes, you’re right about me not wanting to go down a tier from the Ananda, which is why I had the Auteurs and Clears in mind in the first place. “No way but up”, as they say.
Also yes, people here don’t go deep into audio, not that I’m aware of at least, so most source gear comes with a hefty import fee + tax. I still remember my Magni2 costing me $180.
So yeah, I’m not budging from either the Auteurs or the Clears, but I’ll file the Diana away for now until I get better source gear.
I haven’t heard it yet so you may need to do some research. But in EPAC I’d recommend looking at some companies such as Holo Audio. It should be cheaper being closer/less trade issues/etc… There are few Chinese companies that do a fine job with their gear. Denafrips for DACs for an example. If you went with a Denafrips Ares 2 + Focal Clear I think that should sound plenty fine on a Magni Heresy.
IMO absolutely true, I would say on midrange amps, the clear even sounds more refined than the utopia does, the utopia is really picky on what it sounds good with (the clear is as well to an extent but not as much as the utopia)
Ahhh gotcha, I know singapore is actually pretty into portable audio so I bet you have access to lots of portable gear, but yes I would expect some desktop source gear to just not be viable because of import and tax
Ehhhhhh that’s really skimping on the amp, that would be holding the dac and headphones back a fair bit imo. I would really want to keep the amp at a reasonable level as the dac
Bifrost 2 > Shortest Way 51+ (SW51+) > HD 6xx is an experience. It just sounds right that keeps my music listening session into the late hours.
If you can get your hands on one and are willing to wait for the SW51+ it really punches above its price point.
That said… I am in search of a ZMF hp now and I cannot wait to try it out.
Maybe, but amps usually tend to scale better than DACs. Seems like a new headphone is in the cards as a priority and Heresy will power it and sound fine. But yes, after some time with the DAC and headphone, I would 100% go amp shopping but it’s going to sound pretty good until that point at the same time.
I’m budgeting around $3k for the setup, so $1.4k/$1.6k goes to the cans, split the difference 50/50 for the dac and amp?
In that case, if you are leaning toward auteur, that’s more than enough for a solid source gear chain for them. You could grab a feliks echo and a bifrost 2 or ares ii dac, and that should be well in budget if you go that route. Cayin ha-1a mk2 also could be an option for another amp. I’m not exactly sure how the extra taxes or fees could pan out though
My personal bias is that DACs are a greater priority over amps. If you have a decent amp (which the Heresy is) you can do a A LOT with it. It may hold back the signal chain but I will say, starting off with an underperforming DAC is the most limiting experience. Once someone has a headphone above the $1k mark the DAC will normally be holding back a bunch of detail on a system and goes under appreciated. Since the headphones are known options, a DAC that they can reveal the detail is something that will be desired (especially with the clears).
You can save amp choice for some overall signal synergy and plan that out later assuming the headphones are properly powered. I just caution ZMF on solid state, even though it was a solid performer on my GS-X Mini… my Eikon just felt like something was under performing until I got the Vali 2+. A $2k solid state class A sounded WORSE than a $150 tube amp (with another $80 or $130 tube). Why is this? A decent hybrid and definitely an OTL amp has the voltage swings require to move a high impedance dynamic driver headphone properly to start hearing the potential.
On the Mini, the Focal Elegia’s sounded plenty good on there before I sold them and sounded pretty good on the Magni Heresy (that is loaned to a friend). The signal chain that I can confirm say that sounds pretty good is the Bifrost 2 -> Magni Heresy -> Focal Elegia (no a stretch to compare to the Clear).
So I would agree with that, but only once you reach the high end, personally I would focus amps more in the lower to midrange end
It’s true, it can’t recreate information that isn’t conveyed to begin with, but that being said imo I think a weaker amp for a midrange source gear setup ends up limiting more than does the dac, budget dacs have gotten quite good in the past years (but so have amps, but I think the budget dac scene has progressed more)
Which is kinda why I would push for amp upgrades first in their case, the heresy really isn’t that good of a match with a zmf, and I think swapping to a more synergistic and also higher tier match amp wise with the zmf would end up doing more than would be sticking with a mediocre match with the heresy and attempting to boost it via the dac
Funny enough, the Cayin is available locally for $795.50, price negotiable(same shop I got the Anandas from, they also sell Chords if they’re any good). The Ares ii is around $771 converted plus $20ish for shipping, while the echo and Bifrost 2 will need to be imported.
So the source gear is pretty much nailed down, thanks for the help!
@M0N I’d like to ask, if you were a classical music man/woman, and you had to choose between these 2 headphones, which would you go for? Given a similar budget to mine.