It does without the speedball, still good, but very wet, and a bit lacking control.
With the speedball, it’s a much more refined amp, it’s much more controlled, though still on the wet side, but with the right headphones, it can play in the same arena as pretty much anything under $1K IMO.
Apparently this is an extremely refined form of Tubey but its a matter of cost that makes it non feasible to most
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I feel very differently about those amps.
The CTH is Cavali light, and an adequate at best amp.
The LP is an excellent clean amp At it’s original price and a bargain at it’s current price IF you use it balanced, they are night and day different to me.
“Lucid mode control”. Woah
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Also isn’t the darkvoice (with fitz mod) very tubey
I’d love if the dark voice were hybrid, buts it’s a pure OTL iirc, unless they have a hybrid in their lineup
Mmm true
I do know the little dot mark vi through xviii se are hybrid
Woah, that dot is … not little
Ok ok, that’s a contender! Woah! I’m excited now
Apps has a bit better price than amazon right now
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Nobsound NS-08E with upgraded tubes is the cheapest tubiest HYBRID amp i have heard and one i personally own because For $100 total with upgraded tubes it’s crAzy value and fun to watch the uninitiated get impressed by the glowing tubes and how decent it sounds. Which is many times better than cheap IEM’s or Over ears off a phone or tablet. Ha! Beat that one if you can💪
I looked at that. Seems interesting. What tubes do you oh like in it?
What does this term “wet” that’s being used mean?
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GE JAN 5654’s clean up the mids and high end. The bottom end eventually blooms but they need soooo many hours on them before that happened to mine. It’s good enough for grand slam total of about $85 for amp and upgraded tubes. I would honestly not spend any more money on this amp. The stock tubes never cleaned up, i think i pushed close to 75hrs on them hoping they would get better, they really sucked.
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Wet as in the opposite of dry.
Tubes can add significant 2nd harmonic distortion, this imparts a sort of depth/warmth/fullness to sound, wet amps have a lot of this, dry amps less.
Warm get’s used as well, but it’s also used to describe a frequency response change which this isn’t.
Wet - A reverberant sound, something with decay. Opposite of Dry.
Yeah, typically planars pair better with solid state and some hybrids don’t seem to really make much difference with planars. I did recently receive the xDuoo TA-20 from Drop and was pleasantly surprised how well it paired with the HiFiMan HE-4XX which was unexpected with a planar. Other reviewers on Drop noticed the same nice performance. However my LCD2 Classics and Ether CX sound kind of thin on the TA20. As expected dynamic drivers sound nice with it using the HD58X and Fostex TR-X00s. I switched out the generic Chinese 12AU7 right away with some vintage US made RCA, Sylvania and GE tubes. These are still fairly easy to find around $20-30 for a pair.
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Besides my actual tube amp, the “tubiest” sounding amp I own is the Cavalli Liquid Carbon X. It has a smooth, soft sound that softens any bright headphone. It did wonders with my T5p.2’s. It is not an amp you would buy for its accuracy, but it does sound kind of tubey.
I am actually trying to sell this amp, but after writing about it, I feel like putting it back into the rotation. 
Some tube amps are designed with planar’s in mind take the Headphonia 2A3 for instance it was designed to work with HiFiMan Susvara’s…what a combo? 