For me, it just comes down to how much uninterrupted time I’m going to have.
So my late night and weekend listening is definitely on tubes. But during the work day, if I’m only going to have 30 minutes, followed by 2 hours of meetings, followed by another 30 minutes of listening etc, then my tube guilt kicks in, because I don’t want to “waste” several hours of tube life if they’re not being used. I know it’s all in my head, but I can’t help picturing those little tubes plead with me “if you’re going to slowly kill us off, at least don’t leave us to die alone”.
And the Soloist is not a huge step down. Its class A sound seems to have a lot of tube-like qualities and I very much enjoy my time with it. But yes, Nautilus is better IMO.
I find myself liking stock tubes and the cost isn’t as overwhelming as NOS. So, I’m okay with using tubes plus I keep hearing about 100’s and 1000’s of hours when I use it an hour to three or more a day, more on the weekend, less on the week day. I don’t want to end up stock piling NOS tubes as a collection, I want to find what I enjoy to use, cost effect and then just use them, enjoy them. As I mentioned, when I do put a few hours in, I feel like I’m sitting out in the sun and run a fan across my equipment. If the Soloist was as good or comparable to the Nautilus at that price point (I looked it up out of curiosity), I’d pick it up. I know solid states runs significantly cooler.
Yes, I’m sure that once I get rid of my emotional baggage of tubes having a limited lifetime, and the logic sinks in that they’ll last hundreds or thousands of hours, I’ll be less careful. It’s a bit like having a child.
Just bear in mind that class A solid state amps can put out a lot of heat, although Burson does a very good job at building a heatsink into the amp case, so it only feels warm to the touch.
Try a “good” solid state Class A amp. I’m preferring my RebelAmp over many brand name vintage tubes with my Lyr 3. I mean really, seriously preferring the RebelAmp. If it’s a 10/10, then some tubes are 5/10 or 6/10. Others compete well, but don’t have the same detail or staging. Yes, I know the Lyr 3 is a modest tube hybrid.
Yes! I either don’t want to wait for the warm up or don’t have the time.
As above,Class A can be a step UP and a big step up from a mediocre tube. I may move into top-tier tube amps down the road, and my opinion may change.
My understanding, from reading posts by those far more knowledgeable than me, is that turning tube amps on and off for short periods is not advisable (I don’t mean to suggest you’d do this, I’m just putting the warning out there in case it helps others).
Here’s the advice of an expert:
Tube heaters are stressed every power on cycle. Tube heaters wear out over time when they are powered on. My rule of thumb is to leave on if I intend to keep using throughout the day, though intermittently. When it is likely that I won’t use the amp for at least eight hours, I turn it off.
Until it feels hot. It varies between devices and between tubes. Never less than 5 minutes, but I try to give it 15 minutes. One of my amps tends to heat its metal chassis with some tubes but stays cool with others. Most headphone amps have exposed tubes and the changes can be felt until they stabilize. My guitar amp has internal tubes so I let it run and look at a clock before using. It sounds awful until it warms up too – thin, weak, and no body.
I turn mine on, I hear it warming up and I do listen to it even if it’s still warming up, I can hear the tubes have one or two more little noises as it’s warming up, usually only a couple minutes. I never wait 5 or 15 minutes and definitely with the heat, never leave it on all day.
I’ll turn mine on several times over the weekend, It can be a short as half an hour. I don’t want to get into the habit of treating it as fragile and worry it’s going to fail any second if I use it too much. That’s the point of purchasing it, to use it.
Yeah. When I engage my guitar amp, the classical hum is very noticeable. But it’s usually gone after a while. I should have a constant microphone picking that up sometime to check if it’s really due to the warmed up amp or if it’s just me filtering that out.
This is good advice for tube amps and I subscribe to this as well, including based on discussions with A&S Justin. Minimize turning on and off. I prefer leaving the amp on if I have to break away for a few hours, rather than turning off; such doesn’t preserve tubes, but it preserves the amp. I turn tube amps off when leaving the house.
When I take a break from listening during a given day, I keep music playing at low level in order to always have a connected load - this further preserves the amp.
Justin mentioned that his amps sound better after warming up (playing) for a couple hours.
I am going to preface the below question with this: I realize no dac/amp stack can do it all. Let alone do it all well.
I would like to buy a single dac/amp stack that will power most things pretty well. It needs to power IEMs, planars and ZMF/high impedance dynamics reasonably well. To me this means:
not thx like linear which can be too much on super resolving headphones. smoother is better (I like ifi burr brown more than crisp edgy Thx.
moderately powerful (no he6se or susvara, just headroom for other normal things. Arya power is a good minimum target)
possibly class a? (Not a requirement, just seems to fit?)
It can be a stack, combo, portable or any format. Smaller is better from a space perspective.
I want to have something on my desk that allows me to buy any reasonable headphone and be good enough to determine if I want to keep it. I have, in fact, owned things that fit this description, but I want to see if I missed anything amazing enough to keep me tied to my desk.
I don’t want to break the bank. I am basically looking to spend the minimum I need to spend to accomplish that goal reasonably well.
Ideally you’d want the Soloist since it’s their flagship headamp and pair that with any balanced DAC from Schiit, iFi, or Topping. In addition, the Soloist has 3 gain levels for lots of flexibility and it pairs well synergistically with all my headphones (Clear, VC, Aeolus, 6XX). For planars, I only have the disgusting Sundara…anyway, it has loads of power. Other people have reported that they don’t hear any hiss for iems when on low gain as well. Footprint isn’t that big imo but keep in mind it does have a power brick.
If you want something smaller they have the Playmate 2 dac/amp combo at around $600…
I exaggerate and joke a little bit…I can see it as a great headphone for the price but I’m more into dynamic hps. Just preference…not a bad headphone at all. 6XX does outperform it when using the Soloist.
No, currently the Soloist is their flagship headamp (according to Burson)…the conductor, on the other hand, is an all-in-one.
I have the Soloist which is solely a headphone amp…my current DAC is an RME which could be another option. The headphone amp is the weakest part…
When I was looking at both the Soloist and the Conductor, Burson told me they’re pretty much the same quality but if I wanted to split hairs, the Soloist had a slightly better amp section, objectively speaking.
