I haven’t had it long but im ready to give some initial impressions… its a beautiful piece to look at first of all and the only fault I see in the built is the tube sockets don’t feel very secure… they flex the board if you push too hard and they tilt in all directions and look off until you line them up.
what I wanted was a piece to even out the v shape I get out of my Yamaha amp and a taste of that 3d soundstage that tubes provide and that’s what I got somewhat (after burning in the tubes a bit that is)… mids came up some so its more u shaped than v shaped which im very pleased about.
im not using it balanced and im using the stock tubes so im sure there’s room to improve here as well… I have rca gta and gtb tubes I tried but it didn’t sound right to my ears maybe because I got 2 pairs thinking it would be fine because the left and right tubes do different jobs (output stage and gain stage)… anyways… the stock tubes are pretty good and I have a set of 4 Sylvania’s on the way to try out.
haven’t listened to the passive or active settings yet so I wont comment on those but overall I think this thing is pretty sweet and seems to fit right in my system which im now enjoying more than ever so money well spent I suppose.
anyone else have the freya or freya+? Thoughts and opinions?
I have no experience with the Freya but have done quite well with tube rolling my lyr to my tastes. Head fi always has great threads to leverage reviews and product sources. Here is 100+ pages dedicated to Freya and Freya + tubes.
round one was two separate matching pairs of ge gtb tubes and right off the hop I didn’t like what I was hearing… the mids seemed thinner than normal which is a big part of my focus when listening because I feel like my Yamaha does bass and treble very well but the mids have always been lacking… I have heard positive things about ge tubes with the freya+ so im sort of chalking it up to faulty tubes possibly
round two was the stock tubes with was a nice improvement but still lacked and honestly I feel like it detracted for my system as it stood before… sounded like a loss overall in refinement and while there was some added soundstage (specifically depth, this and a nicer midrange are my focus by adding the freya+ to the chain) it wasn’t to the extent I was hoping for… also heard a pretty significant hum from my speakers when music wasn’t playing… not a fan of the stock tubes
round 3 is the 4 matching Sylvania tubes… early impressions are really positive with no immediately noticeable loss to refinement and finally sounding like the freya+ is a benefit to my setup… mids are nice and full and warm (finally ) and soundstage width is noticeably improved as well… im really liking what im hearing so far
) and soundstage width is noticeably improved as well… im really liking what im hearing so far