I agree w/ all you say BUT, it is fun to hear your opinions on the mismatches (due to price point etc.) too at times.
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Wouldn’t it be great to have a club, community, what have you, where it take a certain amount of “donations” to join but when you join, you can check out other items in the library.
This would have to run as a non profit and of course have financial safeguards built in, like a CC on file. But it’s these kinds of situations where I think a community would thrive.
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So admittedly out of what I’ve tried dac wise, I haven’t found any real major mismatches honestly, for most of the higher end dacs I did have some I liked more than others on here, but even the ones I didn’t prefer still sounded damn solid, I don’t think the amp is capable enough to really run into some of the synergy walls you can with the dacs I have at my desk imo
I guess a mismatch I tried was the Donald dac, but that’s not too fair since that’s more just bottlenecking the amp than it has to do with synergy
For another higher end dac, the golden gate 2 discrete is a fantastic pairing with the quicksilver, super grand presentation overall and super holographic and encompassing stage imo, very macrodynamic without losing small nuance, resolution for days that’s a bit forward but never offensively so, timbre is sweeter than normal in a good way, and it’s somehow really light on its feet while doing all this. I have a feeling something like an amber 3 would be a really worthwhile pairing for this and is in the realm of reasonableness
It would, but that’s a lotta risk and a lotta pita lol, but also lots of benefits
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lol I know, just thinking out loud. One can dream though.
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I am simply looking forward to the day we can host MEETS again. Happy to overnight and drive across a few states to spend time w/ many of you fine gentelmen in an atmosphere where we can share our love of the hobby, a beer and some good eats!
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Also really itching to go to some shows when they start back up, those are always fun
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Has anyone put up the disclaimer yet that “this is not a review” 
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Comparisons moved to link on first post
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Should be implied lol. If people consider unorganized ramblings something they can call a review, the state of audio reviews have hit a very low point lol
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You just keep on Rambling…I’ll take your “unorganized ramblings” over some of the top reviewers any day of the week! 
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Comparisons moved to link in first post in thread
Also, apologies for kinda spamming this thread, I figure I might as well put more info out on this amp since there’s not much and someone wanted thoughts so they’re going to get thoughts dammit, it really is good for the money and something to consider for sure, just trying to see if I can try and show where it compares to what’s more commonly out there
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If there is such a thing as good spam then I would take this all day, as would most members !!!
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I like the rambles. They make for good reads.
I was going to ask about a bhc but it seems you beat me to it. I know, especially if you do the work yourself and get it on sale, the bhc is a great value that punches more around the $800 mark.
This quicksilver seems to be a great value at $1k and wants to give amps twice the price a real run for the money.
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I personally wouldn’t agree imo, that puts it in competition with stuff like the echo/tuba/ha-1a mk2/wa6 2nd/ear+ hd ii/etc and personally on a technical level I don’t think the crack competes overall. You might be able to get it close with higher end caps and resistors, psu mods, and a nicer volume pot and wiring, but at that point that’s quite a bit to pay for a crack as there’s only so far you can take it. The crack is a really great value, but I don’t think it’s that good per se
It wants to yeah for sure, but if it actually does it depends. It’s in a hard spot to be, from 1-2k you have a barren market for tube amps, alot of the good tube amps start coming up after 2k+ and there’s not much from 1-2k so it’s hard to find a whole lot of comparisons that really are reasonable imo. I would just say that I think if they tacked an extra 500 bucks onto this amp it would still be worthwhile unless more competition in the 1-2k range starts to pop up
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This may be the soundstage upgrade I’m looking for over the DarkVoice. Thanks for making the post!
The only other amp where people seem to mention soundstage like this is the Figaro 339. Which so happens to be on sale at Drop. Rare times
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No problem, this would def be a big upgrade from a darkvoice overall, what headphones will you be running and what dac? Still hd600s?
I’d say another tube amp under 1k with fairly immersive soundstage would be the bottlehead crack + speedball, that might be a more logical upgrade over the darkvoice as well, but the quicksilver is a step ahead but also in a different sonic direction. The feliks echo has a spacious stage but it’s not as immersive and grand sounding as like the crack or the quicksilver. Another amp to consider with fairly fun sound and spacious stage might be the mapletree audio mellow boy octal duo. I have heard the 339 in passing and wasn’t too impressed for the price, it was an upgrade from a darkvoice with a similar signature, but also didn’t feel like it competed well for it’s price and wasn’t a good value (where the darkvoice was a better value)
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Thank you for the commentary/discussion around this piece.
Each time I got ready to reply or comment with a question, I caught a glimpse of something in your next set of writings. After the 3rd time I realized I just needed to read the entire thread. For myself, you addressed or answered all of what I was going to ask. For the moment, anyway…
Lol yeah sorry about the nonlinear stream of thoughts almost, I should have just made it into one post with some semblance of organization but I’m lazy and it wasn’t something that I wanted to do in one sitting anyway, as I wanted to just post what came to me vs try and force myself to think about it
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Dude…you should start a Channel man. Just off rip. Your sheer experience alone is valuable. Looking at your setup and the products you own…daaaamn son. I’m genuinely mindblown over here.
OF COURSE HD600s yo. All I need from them is bass and soundstage/imaging. That would make them perfect. I can EQ the bass in. That isn’t a problem. But soundstage? Can only be done by tubes.
I use a S.M.S.L. Sanskrit 6th. Since I’m soldering balanced cables, I’m going to eventually move to a balanced setup. The Sanskrit 6th most likely will be replaced. Would a DAC make a big difference with tubes? I only have my phone and 6th for reference.
As far as different sonic direction, I don’t mind what you described. That would actually play well with EQing if i decided to do so.
I had my eye on the Quicksilver Amp for a while so I may just go with that. I also have a curiousity with the Tor Audio Balanced Amps/DACs.
Thats why I be sayin dude. You would make a nutty Youtuber.
Lol I’m not really interested in doing that, I more just do this stuff for fun
Gotcha gotcha, def one of the headphones that begs to be paired with tube amps, especially otl
With something like a quicksilver for sure, that would be a massive bottleneck if you stuck with the sanskrit, or mostly any other higher end amp for that matter. You could upgrade your dac and even with the darkvoice get good benefit depending on what you choose. I would say if you go with a quicksilver, the bifrost 2 would be my pick for a reasonable price for enjoyment factor while being plenty technical, other options would be more expensive
I haven’t tried doing any eq with this amp, but I would say it could potentially respond well if it wasn’t overdone
So I haven’t heard the tor balanced, but I have heard the tor roger and while that was an enjoyably tuned and reasonably competent tube amp for the money, I don’t really think it’s on the same level as the quicksilver from my experiences
I’d say don’t get too caught up on things being balanced, as it’s more a design choice than anything. A good single ended amp can sound as good as a good balanced amp. Personally I see more benefit from having balanced inputs rather than a balanced output. For a true balanced tube amp, you will be looking around 2k+ and even then most tube amps aren’t really true balanced and balanced outputs are more there for convenience rather than anything. How most tube amps get balanced input and output is through a transformer, so typically they are internally single ended, and will convert balanced incoming to single ended if they have balanced in, or take single ended and convert it to balanced on the headphone out side of things. Whereas a true balanced amp is pretty different (and fairly uncommon in tube amps), but I’d say it doesn’t really matter all that much. All that matters is that you get quality gear, it will sound great if it’s quality regardless of if it’s balanced or not.
lol thanks for the praise but I don’t think that’s in my plans anytime soon
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