1 sold to @Saberpunch
1 sold to @mfgillia
1 sold to @Camride
1 sold to @DarPhyve
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Anybody stop by New York CanJam and get a chance to hear Valencia?
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I feel incredibly lucky to be able to have my first Tungsten experience with Valencia. I appear to have skipped a long line of testing a bunch of different amps to see what works and doesnāt with Tungsten. Been in the audio scene for ~10 years and have stayed solidly in the mid-fi arena until now.
This is the endgame I was looking for. Going to slow my roll on new equipment from here out. I still enjoy trying cheap/bang for the buck kind of stuff, but now I donāt have to imagine what summit-fi sounds like. Iām sure itās possible to get better, but itās so far down the diminishing returns road that Iām not going to bother with it (at least not to own myself, always happy to try new equipment). The combo of Tungsten and Valencia is just sublime and Iām having fun feeding a bunch of my cheaper amps through it to see how the sound changes.
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Final Board Previews from the Factory up in Canada. Feast your eyes on ā¦ Very little indeed. Efficiency and Transparency donāt need more than this. (Plus the separate Mean-Well Power Supply)
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I had the Valencia Prototype Amp for a while and I gotta sayā¦ great job Leo because holy crap this amp fits so well in my audio system. I donāt know how he did it, but this amp feels really similar to his speaker power amp, the Starkrimson Ultra 2.0. By that, what I mean is that, just like the Starkrimson Ultra 2.0, this Valencia amp is really really clean sounding and everything I put on it just sounds so clear and detailed from bass to treble. On top of being so clean and clear sounding, the Valencia really brings the best of bass out of my headphones. It could be because of the power rating since the Valencia is a beast at 15.12W into 32 ā¦. But the thing is, the Topping A70 Pro got power too and can drive my DCA Stealth nicely. But the A70 Pro sounds more polite compared to the Valencia when I use my DCA Stealth. The DCA Stealth is never really a visceral bass experience headphone, but the subbass on the DCA Stealth is phenomenal. The subbass can get bigger sounding on better gear. When I used the A70 Pro as a preamp to the Valencia, the Valencia sounds bigger sounding vs the A70 Pro as just a headphone amp. But when I try my Supratek Cabernet DHT Preamp connected to the Valencia, itās a bigger sound than when the A70 Pro was used as a preamp. I think part of the reason is that the Supratek Cabernet DHT Preamp got a pretty high gain as a preamp and I can get louder on the Supratek than the A7 Pro, not that I need thatā¦
Valencia deserves to be played on good gear. You can run it with the affordable Topping A70 as a preamp and itās still really good to listen. But, manā¦ to me it really scales up on my personal favorite gears.
For the DAC, I only have 1 DAC which is the Mojo Audio Mystique Evo B4B 21 (I have a HiBy R8ii DAP, but havenāt had the guts to connect that to Valencia yet). Its a big boy R2R DAC and what I really like about it is that it adds a hint of bloom in my audio chain.
Having a really good preamp feels really key on what the hell you are trying to plug into the Valencia amp. The Topping A70 pro is the minimum on what I want on a preamp for Valencia. It has a low gain and high gain, which is crucial if you want to drive sensitive gears like iem on the Valencia amp. Another thing I feel is minimum for a preamp, at least to me, is a remote controller. Itās because I became more of a speaker guy last year, and I donāt really have a dedicated desk to really put the Valencia and the preamp near each. Especially if my main preamp is something as big as the Supratek Cabernet DHT Preamp. Having a tube preamp paired with any of Leo power amp is just a treat. Itās because all his amps I tried just really are transparent and you just have a much easier time hearing the changes that were being made in your audio chain (I only own 2, which is the Starkrimson Ultra 2.0 and now Valencia). A tube preamp is the ultimate tone control and the Supratek Cabernet DHT preamp lets me play with my 45/2A3 tubes and 6SN7 tubes to my heartās desires. Just like the Starkrimson Ultra 2.0, the Valencia just provides me a reliable clean beefy power to my headphones and all I have to worry about is what kind of tonality Iām in the mood for today.
DCA Stealth on the Valencia with Supratek preamp volume knob picture below. I usually always go over 50% on a headphone amp to power DCA Stealtht, not Valencia.
On top of being a really good tone control for my system, the Supratek Cabernet DHT preamp have a gain knob which is different from the volume knob. I can control how much gain I want instead of what most preamp have which is just a low gain and high gain button. I usually go around 50% gain knob and control the volume knob like normal on my iems like the 7th acoustic Supernova and the Jomo Audio Nautilus. Then for my non-sensitive gears like the DCA Stealth, Mysphere 3.2, and Sennheiser HD580 Jubilee, I play the Supratek like normal on 100% gain and use the volume knob almost normal. I never have to go past 50% on the volume knob when I use the DCA Stealth which is really impressive because the DCA Stealth is a pretty hard headphone to drive. So yeah, feed the Valencia a really good preamp and it could pretty much drive anything. One caveat is that I do hear a very quiet noise when I drove the Nautilus iem with the Valencia with the Supratek preamp. I havenāt played with the gain knob more to see if I can get it completely noise free. But when I tried the A70 Pro as a preamp to the Valencia at low gain, it was pretty much noise free, easy. But the one caveat for the A70 Pro is that you can still hear music being played even when you turn the Topping A70 Pro all the way down on the volume knob. When I turned the volume knob all the way down on the Supratek Preamp, its silent. I guess maybe muting the A70 Preamp is better than turning the volume knob all the way down, but that feels more unsafe if I donāt remember to turn the volume down with the wrong gearā¦ I am used to a preamp to a power amp chain so I always put the volume knob all the way down and just slowly turn the volume up as the music is being played. An all solid state chain will probably be the easiest route if you are looking for a noise-free experience and you got some serious sensitive iem you want to drive on Valencia, but its really hard to pass up on tone control with tubes as a preamp.
With my favorite gear in my audio chain, the Valencia amp feels right at home and just gives me a very familiar feeling just like when I listen to my speaker setup which also has an Orchard Audio power amp in the chain. And that feeling is audio bliss, happy listening everyone!
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Solid Write-up. Glad you have one to play with! As for noise like this with sensitive IEMs. It can be quite hard to eliminate with Valencia sitting at the end of the chain. Most normal setups their wouldnāt be the power available to amplify those minute sounds so your comboās matter depending on what gear you are pushing. A hard to drive headphone you wonāt get any background noise from most sources.
I think I mentioned in the first post here and certainly in my video that I use XLR Chokes on the input side for the various headphones I want to test. Essentially giving me High-Low or H-M-L on Valencia even if the pre does not have this built in. Might be something to look into.
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Thatās good. Leo amp deserves more attention, itās a really good amp. Itās hard to describe how clean this amp sounds, but to me itās one of its addicting trait. Hopefully when it release, people will talk about his amp more.
I took a peak at headfi and saw what they were talking about. Looks like today topic is preamp in a headphone chain. To me, preamp in a headphone chain feels unnecessary and I think it complicate things because you got to worry about bottleneck in the chain and how good the amp and preamp synergies. But itās a double edge sword, because the reward feels pretty high to me. The preamp can take the chain to new heights if you find the right synergy.
My old setup below before I added room treatment in my room.
It took me a while to find this setup which I liked to call my ultimate soundstage chain. 2A3 tubes in the preamp to an OTL amp to an ear speaker headphone. I had to play with tubes to make sure it works well for not only the headphone, but the headphone amp as well.
With Leo amp, his amp is transparent and always provide plenty of power to my gears. You can just go to town with whatever unique preamp you have without worrying about synergy with the amp, which I pretty much already did with his speaker power amp the Starkrimson Ultra 2.0. I pretty much heavily rely on Leo power amp and my Platimon speaker to hear more of my tube combination and see which tube combination I like the most. I pretty much settle on RCA UX-245 with RCA 6SN7GT smoked glass for a more old school RCA sound in my audio system. 2nd favorite is the Psvane Horizon 2A3 with the sylvania 6SN7GTA chrome top pair for a more modern clarity sound with a really nice sparkling highs.
Bottom line, Leo amp is really fun to just play around with if you got some unique preamp you always wanted to hear and you donāt want the amp to color the sound.
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I spy Platimonsā¦ Which I run with a Starkrimson Ultra. I am currently only using a Topping DX9 as DAC/PRE to that setup but its pretty much perfect. Only improvement I found was the OA Limited LPS Monoblocks I reviewed.
I have a Black Ice Tube DAC / CD Transport I want ti put in line but then I need to find another pre for the setup.
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Platimon and Leo amps are pretty much a match made in heaven, transparency at its finest. I also saw your OA limited LPS review video, man I wish I had 6K lol. It sounds like 1 amp I really want to try.
ooooooo, that looks really interesting. I feel like every preamp always add its own sound to it since you gotta make a preamp unique somehow. Looking forward on what you think of it if you ever find a combo for it.
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Valencia is truly a microscope to your audio system. I never realize how much quieter the Psvane Horizon 2A3 tubes was compare to my RCA UX-245 tubes. When swap to my 2A3 combo instead of the usual 45 combo, the noise floor gotten much quieter to the point where itās barely audible when I use my iem. Iām talking that I had to focus to hear that barely audible noise. I unplug and plug it back in to make sure if it was actually noisy or not.
I did this all while using the Jomo Audio Nautilus iem since itās the only iem that sensitive to hear my chain like that and plus I wanted to try my new cable that I just got today. Btw, the Jomo Audio Nautilus with Valencia is freaking amazing. I feel like it enhanced all the best features I like about the Nautilus which is the bass thump, female vocal clarity, and soundstage depth. Super overkill for iem. But hey, it sounds freaking fantastic and itās basically noise free. I will probably buy a 4.4mm extension cable so I can use my iem with Valencia in a more conventional setup since I have to put Valencia near me as my iem cables are pretty short.
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I found a really cool interview video of Orchard Audio and they do talk about Valencia in the first part. I do agree on what Leo said, his amps are so neutral and transparent that itās basically like having straight wire with gain. I will say his amp does do something besides that. I think his amp really brings out the best (especially bass) on either my headphones or speaker. I am not too sure if itās just a power thing or what. I just get the best bass performance I heard on my DCA Stealth headphone. I can feel my DCA Stealth trying not to break character to not be a visceral headphone, but that headphone canāt help but vibrate because of the bass tracks on the Valencia and itās still the cleanest bass I heard for Stealth. Going to his speaker power amp, Starkrimson Ultra, my Buchardt S400 MK II speaker and Platimon speaker bass performance gets crazy good that I get shock on how huge the bass can sound on these bookshelf speakers. Transparency and power is probably the two words I would come to mind when I think of Leo amps.
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Any chance we can see under the hood? Curious what the layout is on this beast besides the board preview from earlier.
Maybe another Valencia owner or Leo could show it. I looked at the unit itself and there is a lot of screws from the top chassis and the sides just to lift the hood that I donāt really feel comfortable just unscrewing them.
Getting set up for Chicago. Anybody whoās in the area and wants to hear Valencia or Eris or play with Magia or my DDHi-Fi connector collab or even the new Defiant IEMs come on down to Axpona.
Currently trying to figure out if I can use a switch box to demonstrate different DAC or source/pre flavors into a single Valencia. Topping d90 Mark 1 is my reference boring source. It just goes ape shit from there.
Iām thinking I should just bring headphones made by creators and small boutique manufacturers.
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Once the cases arrive at the assembler in Arkansasās probably Monday. We should get full final pictures with the full final board later in the week.
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I will have 8 Valencia to Sell at Axpona next weekend! Show price will likely be the preorder price of $1600 and we will absorb the tax and obviously no shipping.
Also 16 Pairs of Eris
Also 10 ddHiFi Adapter Toolkits - https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256808290240228.html?gatewayAdapt=glo2usa4itemAdapt
Also 10 Magia Cables (Various) including some with the new Hart Audio Ends. Apos x Z Reviews Magia Cable
Also 4 Brand New sets of Juzear Defiant IEMs - ā¦ Juzear Master Thread
Hope to see some of you in Chicago! Here is the Layout of the 3 setups I will be Demoing
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Looking forward to it!
Also in room 452ā¦ Active vs Passive Speaker demo
Orchard Audio has teamed up with Creative Sound Solutions (CSS), Danville Signal, and Hollis Audio Labs to present a cutting-edge 3-way active speaker system based on the acclaimed CSS Flagship Criton 3TD-X floor-standing speaker. This innovative setup features the Danville Signal dspNexus 2/8 digital crossover with filters designed by CSS and programming supported by Hollis Audio Labs. The active setup is powered by six Orchard Audio amplifiers, utilizing one Starkrimson Mono Premium (150W) amp for each tweeter and midwoofer and a Starkrimson Mono Ultra Premium (500W) amp for each pair of woofers. To demonstrate the superiority of this digital/active approach, a standard Criton 3TD-X speaker with traditional passive crossover components will also be on hand, allowing attendees to hear the difference in real time. Visit Room 452 to experience this unique collaboration and the future of high-fidelity sound.
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