I’m waiting patiently on my Bifrost2 to arrive (parts shortage, couple more weeks maybe). I have a 789 and a CTH and run essentially only planars (4xx, aeon2, t50rp). Will also have lcd2c and Argons (moar waiting) soonish.
I’m wondering if I’m some way the amps will be the bottleneck in this system and if something like the violectric v280 would be a good solution. Or if the drop deal is good enough where I should just pull the trigger? Maybe a rnhp is a better move?
For reference I like a warmer sound with rolled off highs, detail is my friend. I listen to electronic, jazz, and hip hop with occasional acoustic. I also game competitively and spend half my day in zoom meetings (remote worker before covid).
I do think you are limited by the amp here, but also at the same time I don’t know if the headphones you have justify an upgrade on that tier of amp yet. The violectric is great, and would handle mostly anything you can throw at it. The price on drop is good but not great, and that wait though. The rnhp would also fit your preferences sound sig wise but I don’t think I would say they pair that well in terms of headphones. What headphones do you plan on going with in the future (if you have any lined up)?
As most of these are new to me I plan to live with what I have currently for a bit (how long is highly variable as I’m sure you understand). So without immediate upgrade plans it sounds like it’s not going to be worthwhile to upgrade to an amp at that level.
So while I don’t think it’s worth it in terms of the violectric level (this is what I meant initially, sorry for the poor phrasing), I think you might really enjoy a monolith liquid platinum which imo does work well with the lcd 2 classic, argons, and also you have the aeons correct? That would be a sweet combo and be worthwhile imo. As long as you run it balanced since the single ended out on the liquid plat is mediocre, I think that would really help you out in terms of overall quality and pair well with your current cans. Vs the thx amps, it’s going to have more impact, wider stage, more accurate placement, and generally just a more spacious and open sound, it’s going to be warmer, smoother, and thicker, but also more detailed and natural presentation
Nice, seems reasonable. Yes, I love the Aeon2 closed. I do quite like the CTH so this seems like same idea just …better? I do like that it’s a hybrid approach as I wouldn’t feel comfortable running planars on raw tubes (I’ve heard it’s bad).
On sale for 500 right now it’s a pretty great deal imo
I actually really like this combo at home with the plat, really solid.
Yes, imo the massdrop cavalli designs are much higher tier than the drop designs, it would be a direct upgrade
So for the most part that is true for sure, but it does depend on the tube amp and it’s topology. It depends on if the amp is transformer coupled vs otl, what type of tubes it uses, if it’s push pull vs single ended, etc. I tend to find that some of the best amps for some of my planars are tube (in the high end at least), but it really does depend on the amp and the headphones
