New amp incoming

No worries.... I went back and forth a little and then stumbled on a deal from a guy associated with SimAudio. Arguably one of the best solid state headphone amps on the market. Looking forward to it :).
 
Thank you. Really looking forward to it. I really enjoy listening to my Magnepan's, more often then not listening to vinyl with them. However I find headphones are used quite often for me. A completely different and very enjoyable experience.

The DAC board is optional. The one I am getting does not have it. This is fine by me because my T+A DAC will be feeding it anyway. I prefer keeping the DAC separate. It also has the capability of hooking up my portable to the MP input on the front if I want another flavor since my Astell & Kern has two different DACs built in (flagship ESS, the new 9068, and the flagship AKM).

The balanced outputs are under the slide panel on the front. Looks pretty cool. It is definitely an over the top unit.
 
I watch a video from the guys at Abyss who were disgusting various amps, pro and cons. They were giving each a rating based on use with Abyss headphones. They rated the SimAudio pretty high. They brought it down a tad because of its size versus other headphone amps (it is a full size component). They were talking about how they have had one in the QC department and use it ALOT. It has not been turned off in years and just keep going and going. The one guy said he beats on it testing things and it just shrugs him off and keeps going.

The one thing they highly recommend was using a better external DAC. The internal optional DAC is average at best. One of the guys in the discussion said that with the internal DAC it was so so, but then he hooked up a good DAC and he was blown away... "what an amp!".

All of them agreed the volume control and flexibility, along with build quality was as good as they have seen in a headphone amp. They all liked that it can be used as a top notch pre-amp also. One of the reviews I read put it on par with some of their evolution pre-amps, but with far less flexible hookups for a pre-amp (2x RCA, 1x XLR inputs, and a 4th 1/8" input on the front, and only 1x RCA pre-amp output).
 
My wife just sent me a picture of the box. The SimAuido has arrived. Can't wait to give it a go, although it definitely need some burn in time (they suggest 300 hours, however I have read people saying that it really settles in at about 200 hours).
 
Randy Myers said:
My wife just sent me a picture of the box. The SimAuido has arrived. Can't wait to give it a go, although it definitely need some burn in time (they suggest 300 hours, however I have read people saying that it really settles in at about 200 hours).
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Awesome! It will be a busy weekend.
 
It should be fun. Love new gear, but I have really been looking forward to this guy arriving!
 
Well it will be a good long while before I can give an honest feeling on sound quality because SimAudio states it takes about 300 hours to break it in :).

Initial out of box impressions. The Moon is larger and a lot heavier. It wreaks of quality. The size does make it harder to place, like it barely fits on the stand I use for headphone amps. I like that it has a remote. I like that the balanced outputs are under the slide. Very classy. I also love the volume control. The Bryson got too loud too quickly on the control to the point that I would set the DAC on variable output to turn it down to be able to control better.

One other huge difference is that the SimAudio has a lot more power than the Bryston. The Bryston is rated at 2 W at 32 Ω and the SimAudio is rated at 8 W at 50 Ω. The higher the impedance the lower the power rating, for example the Moon is rated at 1.33 W @ 300 Ω and 667 mW @ 600 Ω.

The SimAudio volume control is a thing of beauty. Smooth, extreme fine tuning. Like 530 steps or something like that. A ton more control! All included accessories are of very high quality.

Sound quality is great so far, it is excellent but too early to say. Seems smooth, on the warm side. I would call it almost tube like. Very very quite though, no noise what so ever.

The feel of the amp is far higher then the Bryston, but I also remember the Bryston being very impressive.
 
Question, SimAudio rates the amplifier at 667 mW @ 600Ω, 1.33 W @ 300Ω, and 8 W @ 50Ω. My Abyss are 32Ω therefore I am getting 8 W with my headphones. Is this correct?
 
I purchased my GSX-mini in late 2019. It was in the first run of new production units. Rock solid headphone amp. Mine is in Satin Grey. Understand the frustration with the wait. Mine took around ten weeks to receive.

Congrats on the new SimAudio. The GSX-mini is 4W@50 ohms. My HiFiMan HE6se makes the amp work some, everything else I have runs pretty easily.
 
rrwwss52 said:
I purchased my GSX-mini in late 2019. It was in the first run of new production units. Rock solid headphone amp. Mine is in Satin Grey. Understand the frustration with the wait. Mine took around ten weeks to receive.

Congrats on the new SimAudio. The GSX-mini is 4W@50 ohms. My HiFiMan HE6se makes the amp work some, everything else I have runs pretty easily.
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The one I had on loan was in Polished Red. COOL Had the Bryston and the GSX at the house a the same time and kept the Bryston and sold my WOO WA6-SE .
 
CPP said:
The one I had on load was in Polished Red. COOL Had the Bryston and the GSX at the house a the same time and kept the Bryston and sold my WOO WA6-SE .
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Nice... I loved the Byston amp. I felt it was great. Always wondered how it compared to the GS-X Mini. Nice to know that you compared.

My buddy has the Bryston now. Kind of funny, we traded it back and forth a few times depending who was using headphones the most at the time. This time he said he wanted to keep it so I decided to get another nice headphone amp.

Was going to get a HeadAmp, but besides getting frustrated at the company (not just the time it took to get one, it was the miss information and bad communications), I came across a deal on the SimAudio. Arguably one of the best headphone amps available. The representative from the company (obviously biased) stated that it is the best headphone amp ever made. Not sure on that one, but it is darn good!
 
rrwwss52 said:
I purchased my GSX-mini in late 2019. It was in the first run of new production units. Rock solid headphone amp. Mine is in Satin Grey. Understand the frustration with the wait. Mine took around ten weeks to receive.

Congrats on the new SimAudio. The GSX-mini is 4W@50 ohms. My HiFiMan HE6se makes the amp work some, everything else I have runs pretty easily.
Click to expand...

Thank you, I am also very happy that you enjoy your HeadAmp. I have read nothing but good things about them. I actually could not find any specs on the unit or the manual even. I would have liked to know what its specs were, such as 4W @50 ohms. That would have been good to know since it is higher than many other amps. The SimAudio is one of the few I have seen with more (8W @50 ohm).
 
congrats on that outstanding amp! i always say: the amp make the music.
so how is going with the break in? do you leave it on day&night?
 
Nah, I just play it. I sounds wonderful and I believe it has smoothened out even more.
 
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