Thanks @darylc loads of info there! Im afraid Schiit gear is a no go over here at the moment, quite rightly I think they are servicing their local market before exporting just at the moment! I’m looking forward to trying various amps over the coming months, had noticed good things about the Lake People and also SPL and Singxer - I really enjoy the journey so no rush for an ‘endgame’ 
Yeah I know. But if they are gonna get predatory they can keep it. They aren’t getting it from me. This is not an essential item! If everyone just said no and let the shit rot on the shelves they would have to bring the price back down. But I don’t see that happening either, so…
Oh well. It is what it is. No Neve for me I guess! 
Yea, im in the same boat here in Ireland regarding Schiit gear. It actually works out the same price if you order it direct though, with the slight arseache of customs, most have a good setup with online customs payments.
Completely forgot about these, “extended HD600s” they have been called. Totally worth it at the price.
Cool, it’s a good experience.
Well the RNHP arrived this morning, had it warming up for a while being fed by the Topping E30, in turn fed by Rp4 USB… first listen… schiit ( 
) this thing is frightening! The dynamics are amazing, listening to Part’s Symphony No. 1 first movement: Canons and I am actually frightened… incredible slam and attack… crazy!! Micro detail is very good (I can hear right into the many strands of the orchestral mix) and the bass is strongly and menacingly underpinning everything. Flutes and brass are strident… a little too strident actually. Seems to me I need to up my DAC game to get the most from this amp! Oh… and I’m well pleased at how the HD600’s have scaled, seems there’s lots more in these old cans than I thought! 
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I’d say its a bit too colored for my personal liking but it can still be enjoyable, still think the bifrost 2 is a pretty awesome pairing for it if you can get one, another solid pairing was a holo cyan as well
Yeah the neve just isn’t up to the task for the arya, amazing with the clear though
Pretty great pairing as well for sure
Niceee glad you are enjoying it, and yeah the 600 can give you much more than you’d expect given their age lol
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++ for the Holo Audio stuff for the pairing. The RNHP just does so much right with so many headphones.
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Hopefully this link should work?!
Thanks for the ideas @M0N and @DagoRed the Holo looks lovely, and I’m thinking the new Spring 3 for my main setup at some point, but for headphone rig I was hoping to ‘upgrade’ from the little Topping E30 to maybe a third of the way to the Holo… 
- say £400 ish for now. The Schiit gear is not so easy to come by now and would be over £700 imported, like the Ares II and similar. I just wondered if any of the popular headphone desktop size DAC’s might be an improvement… SMSL, Topping and the like?
PS. And after listening again last night, this RNHP is soooo dynamic, from whisper quiet to explosive force in a nano second! I don’t think these 600’s have ever been powered so well!
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Maybe the e50 have heard good things about it but it’s to new to give a blind recommendation
Otherwise in the 3-600 $ price range it’s hard to say that many DACs are an worthwhile upgrade.
I myself am saving for a DAC upgrade in the direction of bf2 or ares II
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Yes I saw the e50s I think it was recently reviewed? They just seem to be adding more features and getting the specs even more amazing (SMSL and Topping) and not making any major improvements to the actual sound of the DACs (DAC’s sounding different, don’t tell ASR!). The Geshilli J2 looks promising, actually it sounds promising, it looks bl***y awful! I’ll keep looking, I don’t really want to go end game, I rather like the journey these days…
Honesty for that money, I’d really look into a allo revolution dac with the shanti lps, really good sound for the money with the upgraded psu, also reasonable amount of features for tweaking the sound a bit too. Personally think it’s a good place to be where it’s solidly above some of the more entry level gear. IMO there’s somewhat of a market gap between some of the good 200 buck offerings like a schiit modius, geshilli jnog, etc and the really true step up stuff from like denafrips, soekris, schiits higher end, holo etc. The stuff that sits in the middle 300-600 range tends to be either very small upgrades or more buying for features from the 200 range, the allo to me somewhat fills that gap pretty well
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@Timiambeing Thanks, will give it a listen. I have explored a few of his choral works, but not this. PS love the username! Me too.
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Just to update folks here, I know this isn’t such a busy topic as it was, but just for anyone passing by…
I am finding the E30/RNHP/HD600 pairing really hard going, I find I am always turning the volume down, and then the dynamics go a bit and the benefits of the RNHP sort of get lost. The reason I have to keep the volume under control is the sheer dynamic volume this amp shoves through the HD600s (at around 9 o’clock mark). It very quickly becomes so strident and hard, violent even, and after a while induces quite a headache… I was persevering a little too much at 9.2 volume I suppose!
Obviously the little E30 DAC is the weak link here (sorry Audio Science Review boys but the best measuring doesn’t equate to the best sound, test tones aren’t music!), also I’m feeding it via a RP4 USB out direct (Ropieee from Roon) so I realise we are not talking state of the art! I might try the RNHP in the main system (Lumin U1 Mini feeding Denafrips Pontus II) but that frightens me as it could cost me dearly if it performs as well as I hope it would!!!
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Ok now it’s fun time! RNHP is on it’s way back, it really didn’t fit my DAC (or my headphones maybe?) and an SPL Phonitor One plus a Lake People G111 are on their way from various parts of Europe - which I hope will go smoothly - damn Brexit life was so easy before!!! The SPL I got cheap as open box so just couldn’t refuse the opportunity to play with both side by side…
Thanks all for the advice, especially @M0N who obviously only sits at the computer all day helping out everyone on here! 
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Nice, will be curious to see what you think about those 
(and I personally think it was your dac moreso than anything, also did you end up trying the neve on the pontus?)
Haven’t had the time to lately lol
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I’m still really interested to know if anyone has paired the RNHP up with an Orchard Audio Pecanpi Streamer, and if so, what the results were. I know the RNHP is very DAC/Source picky and was hoping they had good synergy.
I’d like to use a Pecanpi as a secondary source to my turntable for more casual listening sessions for both headphones and loudspeakers. My thought process is that the Orchard streamer with its built in DAC would be a step up in sound quality from my current streaming setup of:
Television running Spotify > Schiit Modi 2 > Neve.
I’m hoping it would also handle my FLAC file collection a bit better than:
USB External Hard Drive > Tablet > Schiit Modi 2 > Neve
I’ve been enjoying my Neve for the last six months using a pair of Audio-Technica ATH-A990Z cans with ZMF pads but have a pair of OG Clears arriving any day now due to the many glowing recommendations of their pairing on this thread from @M0N and the rest of the Neve/Clear crew. I see myself using the Clears exclusively until I add a slightly relaxed/warm of neutral closed back set to my collection for my more relaxed listening. I’m a huge fan of ZMFs but don’t know if they will play nice with the Neve so I’m leaning towards the LCD-XC 2021 which I hear pairs well and is a good compliment to the Clears rather than an overlap in sound.
If anyone has any experience with the Pecanpi and the Neve or Clears in general I’d appreciate your input. Otherwise, I know the safe bet based on past recommendations on this thread would be to replace my Modi 2 with a Bifrost 2. I’m not against this set up, but with the streamer I can remove the tablet from the chain and my rack, cleaning things up a bit.
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Yes I did try it out fed from the Pontus… serious underwhelmed… I think that was just too much over egging the pudding! My speaker system has always been bright, so the Pontus II (and before that the Ares II) nicely helped with that, whilst also delivering a more believable rendition of actual musical instruments (compared to the delta sigma DAC’s I had before). Not only that, but my Line Magnetic tube amp has loads of input gain, so I needed attenuators in the line feed to get any use out of the volume knob at all! All in all that stripped the Neve of anything approaching realism - poor thing thought it was being fed from a wet piece of string I think!!
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My ZMF Eikons do not love the RNHP amp as much as I would have hoped. They’re not bad but I think you will enjoy the LCD X headphones with the RNHP. I swear Neve created that amp for those headphones and it’s so good, I had to spend HUGE money and get Abyss headphones to match the enjoyment I had with them.
RNHP + LCD-X could have been end game… until I asked more questions and then RIP wallet, you all know how that goes.
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Any recs for what would pair with Eikons? I have Auteurs and LCD XCs, and the more i look into it the more it sounds like im not gonna get an amp that will pair well with both. I’ve been considering the Holo Cyan and just count on the R2R to bring some spice (if they ever restock) or maybe a MLP and tube roll until im happy.