Makes me wonder why the narrative changed all of a sudden. The Envy is a very good amp that they didn't give much credit. After a few people mention that they have never heard grain, the test unit may need more time on it, and several other reviewers who have reviewed both, clearly place Envy...

G73's are my favorite driver tubes as well. 1960s Mullard ECC82's are next with RCA red base being very close to the 12AU7 driver tubes and my best 6SN7-like driver tubes.

I tend to enjoy Koji's reviews but like I mentioned on a Facebook post today, I respect his testing process and the high end gear that he's had the opportunity to review, but his opinion and that of his team is still subjective even if he feels his testing is objective. Just because him and the...

Susvara is very insensitive so you're not likely to hear any noise regardless of gain setting. Now that I received my Envy back from repair, I hear the slightest noise on HI gain and nothing on MED and LO with Sennheisers. The amp is totally silent now externally.

Cable Matters Premium 2 pack XLR cables. They are OFC cables and have good reviews but are advertised as microphone and speaker cables. That could be why there was improvement when I replaced them.

I use the PYST Snake Oil XLR cables that Schiit sells. Found them to be a significant improvement over the previous Amazon cables that I was using although they're not very expensive. I believe in quality cables but it's not rocket science and you don't have to break the bank to get good sound...

I've had both and there was no difference in sound. The black glass were made a little bit later, I think in the 60s and were used to reduce the light signature for military application. Other than that, everything is mostly the same.

The other thing to remember is that system synergy matters more than how much something costs. A $20K system that has synergy will sound better than a $100K system with no synergy. One can use an $18K DAC that sounds great with one amp and sound terrible with another amp. A $3K DAC might be...

Humming should not occur using RCA or XLR. I have not experienced humming using either.

Thank you

Tha Thank you

I've been considering May KTE. Is it true that I will need external upsampling to get the best out of May?

It's unfortunate that you have the hum issue. I have an OG A2 that's almost 2 years old and I have never had an issue.

Do you have a link for the review?

I'm going to go back to his review and check it out. I usually enjoy his reviews but I've never heard anything too bad said about the Envy previously so I'd be interested to see his thoughts.