The Pendant is another one I’m oh so tempted to try. I may have to pick one up if I see one on the used market and maybe do another amp fight. 
4 Likes
Just to note the 6080 is not fully burned in and neither is the amp. I used to listen to a few headphones on it, not putting in the time with it. Amp comparison would be the VC sounding better on the Euforia then the WA33 which was fully cooked. The WA33 has more headroom than the Euforia but a tiny amp compared to a 50 lb beast. The rarity of tubes is 3 that are popular: the Bendix 6080 TS 5998 and one that took me months to find TS 7236.
7236 sounded the best. The 5998 has a little more punch imo.
1 Like
Yeah, I’m not going to close the book quite yet. I’ll switch back and forth for a while and see how things evolve, and report back if something shifts a lot. Do you still have the 7236 and 5998 around, or did someone pick them up?
Or alternatively, ZMF is currently selling a demo unit of the ampsandsound Leeloo Monoblocks, which I believe are like a monoblock version of the Pendant. The price ($2999) is fantastic compared to the MSRP of $4400. Someone needs to buy it asap so that I can stop tempting myself to upgrade my brand new and wonderful-sounding Pendant.
https://shop.zmfheadphones.com/collections/amps-dacs/products/a-s-leeloo-monoblock
4 Likes
I have the 7236. That one is tough to let go as no one is really selling it. I read a review and the reviewer used the 7236 and the gold psvane drivers. That review got me hooked on the Euforia AE. I put about 2 hours on them.
1 Like
Someone send me a T4 and a Pendant and I’ll do a 2k amp shoot out… hint hint. Actually I’d probably lose me mind doing that.
@andris did you you change everything all at once with the Woo or did you try power first then rectifier or vice versa? Just curious if you felt one change had a greater impact than the other.
And it begins…
2 Likes
Haha!
Hmm… the thought of corrupting your mind is enticing. (evil grin)
2 Likes
Solid work/review! Lower impedance Utopia is likely to pair better with a transformer coupled amp such as WA5-LE. It would be interesting to see if the Euforia would fare better with higher impedance cans, which OTLs tend to pair better with. 300B advantage is like brewing a beer with galaxy or citra hops, or brewing coffee with Ethiopian/Kenyan/Colombian beans 
3 Likes
Quick additional tube rolling update. I borrowed the pair of 6SN7-GTB Sylvania driver tubes I use in the Woo WA5-LE and stuck them in the Feliks Euforia AE and noticed a marked improvement over the PSVane Gold CV-181 tubes that come with the amp. The amp is cleaner and faster, with virtually none of the “fuzz” I mentioned before remaining. It’s still slightly more veiled than the Woo, and a bit of that warmth is still there, but it’s a cleaner/smoother warmth, and definitely a hair faster than the Woo on trailing end of notes. For funsies, I put the PSVane Gold CV-181’s in the Woo WA5-LE (so Gold Lion 300B power, Brimar 5Z4G rectifier, PSVane CV-181 driver combo), and I still prefer the Woo to the Euforia. It’s still a lot more transparent and the transients are crystal clear and super fast. I think the Woo is a tiny bit more veiled than before with the PSVanes instead of the Sylvanias in the driver slot, but the Euforia definitely gains more from the Sylvanias than the Woo loses from the PSVanes.
3 Likes
Just out of interest, did you burn in the Psvanes? My Psvane Treasure Globe 6SN7 took quite a while to sound good. It had a horrible spike in the mids that was giving me a headache, and I thought I’d made a very expensive mistake, but then after a few days it all smoothed out.
Maybe? I’m not sure. I’m the second owner, and I think the first put some 50 hours on them, and I have maybe another 10 at this point.
Some of the PSVane tubes I’ve used take over 100+ hours to burn in and I usually give them twice that.
They are among the worst tubes to burn in, they start OK then get good then sound bad then take forever but eventually get good again.
Having said that I liked their EL84’s, but could never really like their 12au7’s.
4 Likes
Quick observation on the Woo WA5-LE, fed by cd-quality through absurd-resolution files, a Bryston 3.14 DAC, Audioquest Fire interconnects, Abyss 1266TC and Meze Elite headphones. My Woo amp is the upgraded version with the higher end ingredients. I replaced the stock Psvane 300B power tubes with the new Western Electric replicas, which are reportedly absolute duplicate, made to the original specs on original and re-built machines. The new tubes were an extraordinary improvement in every musical and sonic way…as in, a significant upgrade to the amp. Way beyond the Woo as heard in the writing of this review.
I have yet to roll the other tubes. But…yes, far better with the WE 300B, no downside.
3 Likes