Great amp/dac - £250 <>
- Thread starter Techen
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Never understood tubes, Are they worth the time? How does a light bulb add colour?
And I could just buy a standard Modi 2 and a magni 2 uber for optical?
What are a few good tube amp/dacs with tubes?
The Modi 2 DAC is USB only, while Modi 2 Uber has USB, co-axial and optical inputs.
The Magni 2 / Magni 2 Uber is an amp and will only have RCA inputs, used to connect to a DAC.
DACs don't have tubes unless you are looking at some very expensive, exotic equipment.
The Schiit Vali 2 is a hybrid tube/solid state amp which uses a tube to add subtle nuances to the sound signature, while the solid state power amp section provides low impedance and gain switching.
Most purely tube amplifiers (both pre-amp and power amp stages) tend to have quite high output impedance and are good at providing strong voltage swings but fall short on current delivery. This means they are great for driving high impedance headphones like Sennheiser HD650s or Beyerdynamic DT770s but not so good for low impedance headphones like the AKG K702 / K712 which require a lot of current.
If you do want a pure tube amp then the Little Dot mk2 or 3 would be good, as would many others but the prices march northward at a frightening rate.
The Magni 2 / Magni 2 Uber is an amp and will only have RCA inputs, used to connect to a DAC.
DACs don't have tubes unless you are looking at some very expensive, exotic equipment.
The Schiit Vali 2 is a hybrid tube/solid state amp which uses a tube to add subtle nuances to the sound signature, while the solid state power amp section provides low impedance and gain switching.
Most purely tube amplifiers (both pre-amp and power amp stages) tend to have quite high output impedance and are good at providing strong voltage swings but fall short on current delivery. This means they are great for driving high impedance headphones like Sennheiser HD650s or Beyerdynamic DT770s but not so good for low impedance headphones like the AKG K702 / K712 which require a lot of current.
If you do want a pure tube amp then the Little Dot mk2 or 3 would be good, as would many others but the prices march northward at a frightening rate.
Never understood tubes, Are they worth the time? How does a light bulb add colour?
And I could just buy a standard Modi 2 and a magni 2 uber for optical?
What are a few good tube amp/dacs with tubes?
The Vali 2 only uses one tube so not much faffing around. The Vali 2 doesn't really have that inherent warmth of a lot of the other tube amps in its price range so adding a different tube won't add too much. A nice low noise tube like the JJ Gold pin into a Vali 2 will give you a nice detailed clean sound.
The Vali 2 is more high end tube amp sounding rather than the lush romantic sound of the Little Dots, or Woo amps. Just depends what you want. The Magni 2U is a good amp but it has that typical Schiit treble weirdness although to a lesser degree than most of their stuff. I'd easily pick the Vali 2 over most of their amps from treble alone.
Soldato
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I have a schiit vali and modi and although I can't compare them to much else, they have been fantastic for me.
Only the Vali 2 isn't a tube amp, it has a tube pre-amp and solid state power amp
That's true but it performs more like some of the high end tube amps rather than typical tube amps and SS amps to my ears. Funny enough the Valhalla 2 sounded more SS than the Vali 2.