Imo neither preform well on tubes. The sundara being lower impedance and planar makes it not preform that well on tubes from my experience (hybrids are fine but that’s just a solid state amp with tubes on the input stage, you could just buy a tube preamp for the asgard if you wanted a bit of tube sound)
The elex imo doesn’t perform well on an otl tube amp, but is decent on a SET or transformer coupled tube amp with a low z or low impedance out. In the end I personally still prefer solid state for the elex, but some do like it on tubes
I don’t like the Elex on any of my pure tube amps, I do like it on my Liquid Plat (Hybrid).
I’d take almost any SS on the Elex over the pure tube amps.
I find the loss of bass control with the pure tubes, to me really hurts the headphone as a whole.
Having said that, I’ve heard people who like the combination so YMMV.
I recently was able to pick up a set of Sundaras, and I have been really pleased with them. Definitely more refined than both the 4XX and the M1060. Smoother than the 4XX, more detailed / balanced than the M1060.
Sidenote, iSine 10’s on B-Stock sale? $150? Planar IEMs? Everything I read on them seems overwhelmingly positive. You had a chance to demo them? Comparisons with Elex / Sundara?
Opened box, put them on, and even without breaking in the Sundaras are amazing. You guys were right, these are a pretty sizeable upgrade from the 4xx’s.
Wasn’t able to find a used Elex sadly. Haven’t yet gotten the amp upgrade (Asgard 3), but I’m saving that for last.
The Hel will be my work desk amp/dac when we all finally get back to the office
Lastly, shoutout to Geshelli Labs for painting the box orange
Hey, so I’ve run into an issue with the amplifier. Apparently there is now no left channel on the 990s/770s and popping/ buzzing on the Sundara/4xx. I’m pretty sure the Magni isn’t properly grounded and static murdered it. Forgive my ignorance if that wouldn’t have done it. Any ideas on ways to fix / how to prevent?
Hmmm, and everything is fine on your other amp? And your dac is ok? That’s really strange
Schiit shouldn’t really have grounding issues with their new products as they are pretty much redesigned from the ground up, and I don’t even know if you could create such strong a static charge to actually hurt anything
Pretty sure. Tried two different sets of RCA Cables. One from schiit. One from an alternative. Both have the same issues. Could it be the Enog? But the Enog + Hel with an RCA to 3.5 works just fine.
That’s what I’m thinking. Contacted schiit. They blamed the rca cables. I tried two different sets. Unless I got super unlucky, or the dac is borked and only works with 3.5mm to dual rca adapters (with the Hel) there’s something wrong with the amp.
Yeah this sounds like an amp issue for sure. Try plugging it into a different outlet in the house and seeing if anything changes, also try feeding it from your phone. If not, let schiit know that you tested on other amps and with different cables and different dacs and the amp is to blame
Yea, that’s what I said. Their first response was that I shouldn’t double amp it with the Enog >.>…
Anyways, I set it aside for an hour, tried it again and it’s working but it seems like there’s a channel imbalance. Left is like 5 db quieter than right channel.
If all goes as I’ve seen, if there’s static and I stand up from the chair the popping / buzzing should start again.
??? ok idk what’s going on over there lol, perhaps the quarantine is getting to them. BTW what gain mode are you on for the enog, also does switching to high gain on the schiit do anything?
Very very interesting, I wonder if it’s actually the volume pot? If you twist it full range a bunch (when the unit is off), and then try it again, does it change anything?
I wonder if your headphone jack has something in it, perhaps also see if you need to clean the headphone jack (try spinning the 1/4 inch in the jack and unplugging and replugging it a few times as well)
I have it on permanent high gain. I tried low gain and the volume knob + switching the strength of the signal from the enog. Nothing really worked to fix the channel imbalance by just flipping switches.
To get the channel imbalance to start to disappear I have to crank the knob to 45% and at the mid strength signal from the Enog for the sundaras. But it also might be that the sound is loud enough to fuck with my perception.
How would I go about cleaning the 1/4 inch jack? Compressed air?
What concerns me more is the popping that happens when it goes down. I’m afraid it’d hurt the sundaras :////////
I mean repeatedly plugging and unplugging it is worth a try at first, otherwise take a q tip and go inside there and just brush around. You can also use a bit of rubbing alcohol if needed.
That really just sounds like a dirty pot, you can clean that as well. So first start by turning it a ton back and forth for a few minutes, and if that doesn’t correct the issue, you can try and spray some compressed air on there, but you might have to take off the volume knob and then squirt some wd40 or something similar into the pot. That would explain the static/pops (only if they occur when the volume knob is turned) and the channel imbalance. If you are somewhere where there is a lot of dust or debris in the air, stuff can get in the pot
