Someday… 
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the SE out of the bakoon is not a negative at all
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The Bakoon 13R is the one I want to try the most and yes it doesn’t do balanced XLR, but a lot of people are just driving Susvara and HE6 directly out of speaker taps. @Carm is doing it this way, and using XLR to speaker taps, if that is what you really want. (Hopefully I tagged the right person!)
In other news, I just got my Jot 2 back from repair and paired it with Bifrost 2 and Susvara today, with and without HQPlayer.
The Jot 2 with the Susvara can be a bit fatiguing I think. It’s a very clear and well defined amp and I think it’s perhaps too forward in its upper midrange and presence attack that may push the Susvara a little over (since it already has a good amount of gain in this area as most Hifiman already do). That said, it’s surprisingly resolving with the Sus, more so than my other amps, and has a decent amount of punch with its good dynamics.
The 6000A integrated amp is more tonally balanced across the board, and extends deeper, while sounding much softer and musical. The highs also sound tamer than the Jot 2.
I’ll have another DAC coming this week to play with…
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I should have mentioned that I plan to replace the Susvara cables (balanced XLR) since all my other cans are terminated with balanced XLR and would rather not have to play musical cables when rotating cans/amps. This wasn’t a knock on the sound out of the Bakoon’s SE output.
I think you’ll like them… maybe even better than the Lawtons 
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Different. 
The Susvara was the best headphone I’ve heard, and I’m guessing that I’ll really enjoy the HE6se. Especially with enough power from the Krell.
It should be fun. I just hope the Clear MG don’t get forgotten. 
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you can always use adapters with balanced cables. plus speaker taps are safer with xlr… if you want to go that route/rabbit hole. 
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You can also use one of these for convenience.
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So far the best AMP’s I have experienced so far with the Susvara are the A90 4.8W@50ohm and the Jot2 4W@50ohm
Thinking about grabbing the Burson Soloist 3x Performance. Dispite Burson saying it only does 4W@ 32ohm- Burson Soloist 3X Performance | Headphone Reviews and Discussion - Head-Fi.org
Or a Flux Labs Class A amp that does 16W into 32Ohms - FA-10 PRO Class-A Headphone Amplifier
My understanding is that its about Current and Voltage, the Susvara technically only needs .5Watts to hit 110DB. I am confused by this, could someone with more knowledge than I elaborate a bit?
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Amplifiers generally increase in distortion the closer to their limits they get. As they approach their limits, distortion tends to rise ever faster, sometimes exponentially so.
To avoid this, you generally want to have your amplifier running in its “sweet spot” (i.e. the area in its performance curve where it exhibits the best compromise between distortion, noise and dynamic range) for as much time as possible.
While this “spot” is different for every amplifier, and is typically closer to its minimum output than its maximum, a reasonable rule of thumb is to figure out what your typical listening level is, allow 20dB for peaks, and then double the power required to hit that number with the headphones you intend to use.
So, let’s take the Susvara (60Ω and 83 dB/mW sensitivity). If you listened at a typical level of 85dB, you need just 1.585mW. To get your 20dB headroom for peaks, that raises to 158mW. Which in theory puts you at needing 320mW max.
But, being a “rule of thumb” it’s just a simplification, and in practice things can be rather different. With the Susvara, I’ve generally found that once you’re at about 4W into 60Ω (a far cry from the rule of thumb), which yields a lot of headroom for any sane (or safe) listening level, more power on its own doesn’t get you anything. And in real terms 2W into 60Ω is ample for most high-quality amps.
But that’s all also just about power (i.e. I * V) … and there is more to an amplifier than it’s power delivery capabilities. Slew rate and current-capacity/reserve seem to matter to an unusually high degree with the Susvara (and the HE6 variants).
Edit: Adjusted my numbers since I accidentally quoted for 100dB rather than 105dB as the 20dB headroom on a nominal 85dB listening point.
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Does this also apply to SE in, SE out, and low gain?
I’m actually not using speaker taps anymore for the Bakoon; just plugged directly into the headphone jack in front. Plenty of volume, and I can always enable the high gain mode if I need to but haven’t felt I have to yet.
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XLR in XLR out best performance on that IMO for the jot2.
Don’t need high gain, can get the knob to 12, 1 o’clock, high gain does not go higher than 4-5 o’clock for me at least.
Thanks for the data point. I was curious if the issues he noted also manifested in the configuration I described.
My understanding of the Bakoon is that you can ‘unlock’ the 25 watts to the 1/4” output by a pressing a certain sequence at power up.
That’s a sweet amp.
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haha I’m trying not to think about (let alone go down) that rabbit hole! Which is why I’m focused on headamps for now. But who knows what the future holds? I have 3 receivers that are collecting dust since I’m exclusively listening to headphones these days.
I forgot where I saw it but someone had cables made for the Susvara that plugged directly to spkr taps, similar to a banana plug I think. To be sure I have my facts straight, I found the article here. It also explains how to unlock the gain on the Bakoon to provide extra power to the front SE output.
I made a cheap speaker tap cable by buying these two things:
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Hey as long as it sounds good right? I have too much clutter on my desk for full sized receivers but I’ve added these to a wishlist so I can revisit if I’m ever bored. First choice would be an old SAE R102 haha.
I am using the high gain out of the SE output with my susvara…best I have yet heard my susvara…the amp is wonderful and its small footprint and remote make it irresistible
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That’s awesome. I’d love to own that same pairing someday.
Cheers.