I auditioned RebelAmp and was really happy with performance and signature, are there any alternatives or should I just go for the Rebel?
If you already enjoyed what it had to offer through a demo, I’d just go with it and not really complicate things tbh. Would be a different story if it wasn’t what you were looking for, but if you’ve already heard it and already enjoy it without really any qualms, might as well stick with it and go from there. There are alternatives of course, but if you don’t really have any complaints with the rebel after a demo not really sure if it’s worth looking into. What headphone and dac are you currently running?
In that price category you could audition the Sinxer SA-1, Schiit Lyr 3 if you want dive into tubes or Flux FA-12.S All around the 500,- mark. Pesonally I would go with the Rebel or the Lyr 3…
I have RME ADI-2 DAC fs v1 and Focal Elear launch model (I believe they have changed some things later on) but I buy and sell phones all the time I also have AAA789, I think that amp over corrects on impedance dips, every phone I use with it has some weirdness that directly correlates with frequencies on sharp impedance drop.
How do Sinxer SA-1 and Flux FA-12.S compare with Rebel signature wise?
Any more input on this?
Sinxer SA-1 isn’t class A, it class A/B with class A bias so booo on false marketing just the fact they aren’t honest with specs makes me not wanna even consider it, regardless of the performance.
There isn’t a lot of info about Flux stuff but if the specs are correct it would mean that some of their headphone amps could emit more than 80 watts of heat, and the design of the units does look like it could handle that sort of thermal load, impressive; If someone has any experience with Flux please do share.
The singxer is going to be more neutral a bit warmer smoother leaning, less energetic overall from my experience, stage wise wider but more vague and less deep when it comes to placement. More control and grip but less macrodynamic than the rebel. Resolution wise from rough memory it was in the same league, timbre was about similar as well.
For the flux, the flux is going to be more warmer and still forward compared to the rebel, flux will hit harder with more authority and a bit more control from my experiences, tonal density is going to be thinner on the rebel, timbre is going to be a bit better on the flux, dynamically the flux feels a bit more energetic, but overall the rebel might feel a bit cleaner, flux is smoother. Similar resolution
Personally from my experience I was a bit underwhelmed with the singxer, and did like the fa12s more as I thought it offered a bit more in organicness and liveliness, less dry and lifeless
Does indeed get warm, although not unbearably so from my experience
Honestly for an elear I don’t know if the flux would be my first choice, it’s a really nice amp but I’m not sure if that’s exactly the sound I’d personally be after with an elear, but it’s a good alternative. For focal stuff at the 500 buck mark (or used to be, apparently they raised the price) the rupert neve rnhp had pretty excellent synergy with the focals overall, although will have a smaller stage than the rebel or flux, but much more depth but that’s really the only detriment in comparison with those other amps with an elear imo. Otherwise I do find it more capable overall than the rebel or the flux, at least with an elear (but if you wanted to go for other headphones that might not hold true, the rebel or flux is a better all rounder when it comes to synergy with a wider range of headphones)
I’d also give a look to a lake people g111 for something more neutral overall that works with a wide range of headphones in this price bracket, also great synergy with the focal as well
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Thank you so much 
from what you said Rebel would work the best for me since I prefer more neutral and transparent amps, and more phones lean towards warm so warm amp could be too much. Only concern with Rebel is power but from a bit of searching it should be enough for most things, and a few phones that don’t work with it sound the best on speaker amps anyway.
I do buy/borrow a lot of phones but the only ones I kept is Elear because amazing holographic imaging, 
Arya & Sendy Peacock though.
Then I’d just stick with the rebel or look into the g111 at this price point
I would be concerned about the arya with honestly any of the 500 ish buck amps, personally think the step up to the next tier is really beneficial for those headphones (something like a violectric v281/v280, burson soloist 3xp, auralic taurus mk2, etc), not heard the peacock so I can’t comment there
Just a quick glance around forums and reddit and ppl seam to like rebel+arya paring 
I dunno if they would together though, there isn’t much info about it.
The cheapest thing auralic makes is 2.400 eur 
, and burson soloist 3xp comes with a dac which is a bit of a waste since I like my dac.
I haven’t checked out v281/v280 but violectric are supposed to be “hifi” branch of Lake People and they have reputation of making warm sounding things.
Haven’t tried the arya specifically on the rebel, but on the larger amount of other amps in that price range they really haven’t impressed me personally. Perhaps it could be some magic pairing for the money, but I’d be doubtful. It’s not really a power problem (at least with things like a fa12 or g111 but the rebel might be a bit more on the pushing it range power wise), but more just not up to the level of technical ability to really allow the arya to show it’s strengths from my experience
the auralic is no longer in production, you can typically find them sub 1k eur/usd on the used market. The soloist 3xp shouldn’t come with a dac and is an amp only (you might be looking at the composer which is a dac amp combo, internal dac of that is meh so I wouldn’t suggest it regardless). I would mention something like a bryston bha-1 but that will lean pretty warm so likely not what you are after there
They do, but with your dac it shouldn’t lean too far that way, shouldn’t be that big of an issue. If you wanted something pretty dang neutral then their newer series of amps is better for that (but haven’t come down price wise yet like the 380). Also you might want a bit of warmth or something to tame the brightness of the arya so it ends up neutral, you don’t need to have something that leans full on warm, but calming the treble and adding a bit more warmth to the arya does help it out. You want to consider the entire chain rather than the components on their own, something might be warmer in isolation, but paired together with a specific chain the end result could lean a different direction, all depends on what you are going with though
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I agree, something neutral or just a touch worm (like rebel) should be good.
I also glanced at Sinxer SA-1 topology and it appears to be in class A to about 0.5w after that it switches to A/B I might be wrong on that though.
Class A has all of it’s power fully usable without performance degradation unlike other topologies; Looking at Arya impedance measurements https://headphonetestlab.co.uk/modal.php?id=media/HIFIMAN/Arya/impedance_HTL.svg they seem to be around 28ohm and doing a bit of math we get RMS power of ~10mw, multiply that by 10 for power required for attack just to be safe (most planers hang around 4-6)
and we get 100mw (0.1w) of power at 28ohm required to drive them, so rebel should be able to handle them I hope
In theory yes, in practice it really depends, you can get great sound from a or a/b, all depends on the quality of the amp, but staying in a is preferable and where most amps do their best work
So again in theory that’s true, but if that leaves enough for large dynamic swings is another topic (and what something demands on paper vs how it reacts in practice also is another topic), and it doesn’t factor the quality aspect of things which typically is the more important aspect anyways (which is really what I’m more concerned about here)
True that’s why I used 100bd spl instead of ~75 db which is what I listen at, keep in mind every 6 bd perceived loudness doubles, every 3bd power requirement goes up by 2, and for speakers every 2 meters SPL drops by 6bd.
Rebel sounds nice, pretty detailed and transparent, dynamic, and slightly warm, haven’t had a chance to compare it with other amps, other than AAA789 though.