ziggz
100+ Head-Fier
Beautiful! I can’t tell cause it’s dark, what tubes?Night shots of my new glass!
Woo Audio WA22 Amp Owner Unite
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Gorgeous!Night shots of my new glass!
phthora
Headphoneus Supremus
USAF Mighty 596 for the rectifier, Sylvania Bad Boy 6SN7GTs from 1952 for the drivers, and RCA 6AS7Gs from the '50s for the power tubes. Still burning in the NOS RCAs, which are the weak link, but pretty wonderful sound as a whole so far.
skhan007
1000+ Head-Fier
After checking out the link and selecting the WA22, it’s saying the both the Susvara and Tungsten can be driven? Curious if there’s any direct experience with these two? I can vouch for the Abyss 1266 being driven quite well on my WA22.I’ve been doing some looking into the topic of the Tungsten myself. First, here is a good resource for calculating this stuff with published data for lots of headphones and amps:
https://headphoneresource.com/
If you want pretty much ideal sound, from what I’m understanding about this stuff, you want to get an amp that can do your ideal average volume with 20 dB of additional headroom so it doesn’t clip on transients. Clipping on tube amps will be way less destructive than clipping on solid state, which will produce very obvious distortion. According to the above site (from Torq on the headphones.com forum) if your ideal average listening volume is 88.9 dB or less (which is just inside the hearing damage level), you should be good to go with 20 dB of additional headroom for clean transients.
I believe this chart is based on the published specs below. They are from the manual included with the second gen WA22, but I believe the power ratings they give in the manual are from the first gen WA22 (so it may be underestimating power a bit) - the manual appears to have been updated last in 2011... Anyway:
So, the 7236 is more powerful in the WA22 (same should be roughly true for the 5998 and 421a).
P = V^2 / R or 0.700 = V^2 / 600
solving for V —> V = 20.494
The other values in that table apply to 6080 tubes. @120 Ohm we have 13.86 V; @300 Ohm —> 18.17 which doesn’t really tell us a ton about how it will behave with the higher power tubes, except to say that it probably will be lower than 20.494, as it appears that the voltage goes up as the impedance goes up at least to 300 Ohm, unless there is an inflection point we don’t know about between 300 and 600 Ohm, and we can’t directly compare those values here because they are with different tubes.
I actually wrote to Woo about it, and they told me they haven’t had a chance to hear a Tungsten, so they don’t know how it will do with the WA22, but they suggested I buy an Abyss Diana from them instead. This was a bit surprising and annoying, as the specs are published and I don’t think it would be that hard for them to give us an idea, especially since the creator of the Tungsten has suggested using the WA5-LE as the reference amp for demoing the Tungsten according to one of the reviews on YouTube, but I digress.
I have read that 20V is ideal for listening at fairly loud volumes, so we might be coming in a hair below that, but it should be fairly close to ideal, and with the mitigation of clipping offered by tubes, I think we will be happy with the results as long as we are using higher power tubes - 5998 / 421a / 7236 - especially if you prefer listening at sane levels.
I highly recommend checking out the thread on this over at the headphones.com forum:
https://forum.headphones.com/t/modhouse-tungsten-measurements-official-discussion/22645/72
Thanks for watching my TED Talk
I’ve yet to hear of anyone rocking a WA22 with the good fortune to possess a Tungsten, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time!
skhan007
1000+ Head-Fier
The next batch of Tungsten’s go on sale 2/23. Get your credit cards ready!
I’ll do a search on the Susvara/WA22 pairing.
Looks like it would have no trouble at all with Susvara, but it looks a good bit easier to drive than the Tungsten… The Susvara is very close to the 1266, but the Tungsten is definitely a bit more power hungry...
VanHai
500+ Head-Fier
As matter of fact, we had a meet yesterday 2/17/24 in Burke, VA. I brought my WA22 and fellow from WV brought his Tungsten DS, Suvara and Schiit Mjolnir 3 amp with him . According to him the Tungsten DS is harder to driver than Suvara. We both tested the Tungsten DS on WA22, he was so surprise how good the WA22 was compared to the Mjolnir 3. WA22 has a better sound stage, more clear and wonderful base. We listened quite loud at 2:00 o'clock on WA22, no problem driving the Tungsten DS balanced out to my Merason DAC1. Here are some pictures at the meet.
VanHai
500+ Head-Fier
SORRY man, you missed the meet. So many new gear yesterday for you to audit.
That’s awesome! This community just provides answers - the collective enthusiasm is amazing… Also, double cool, I’m originally from WV until moving to CO in 2015, glad to see the Mountain State representing!!
I wonder if the WA22 just sounds better because tube amps are a more natural fit for headphones that require lots of voltage, plus if it did hit the point of clipping it would be a soft clip...
Sounds like a pretty epic chance to try out some top shelf stuff!
VanHai
500+ Head-Fier
i was grateful to those 2 fellows from WV. They drove for 6 hours, stayed overnight in a hotel and attended our local meet. The reason i bought WA22 because it can drive both Dynamic and Planar headphones with authority. There is no clipping at all even solf clip and plenty of volume left. I forgot to mention that 2 years ago, i did audit the Suvara and no problem at all.
That is one massive advantage of the WA22 for sure - versatility. Are those 5998 power tubes? I’m sure that would have some bearing on ability to drive the Tungsten…
VanHai
500+ Head-Fier
Yes, they are TS 5998 power tubes with Melz 1578 driver tubes and Rectifier Cossor 53KU ( Mullard GZ37)
Very nice! The Melz looks to be in incredibly high demand. The EBay price is a little eye-watering! I’m curious on your thoughts about what makes them special. I haven’t gotten much into NOS 6SN7, but those must be amazing if people are valuing them that highly!
VanHai
500+ Head-Fier
I have at least 10-15 pairs of 6SN7 from various manufactures, but i like the Melt 1578s the most. To my ears they are super clear, clean and have the depth of resolution combined the power of TS 5998 and the warm of Cossor 53KU make the WA22 sounds so nature and very dynamic. Yes, they are quite expensive but I like them so much that i bought 1 extra pair for reserve.
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