[dawktah2]

I need to get moving on the wine/listening room/loft! Congrats! I need to decide whether it's going to be more wine or more listening...

 

[geraldshanghai]

what a life, listening to music via WA33 in a wine loft.

 

[geraldshanghai]

I just received my wa33 and just set it up yesterday, first impression - it's a solid unit. but the stock 2a3 tube isn't good for my ears. I need to find better tube to replace them.

 

[HiFiGuy528]

this combo here is top notch IMHO. Sony HAP-Z1ES music server, @hifiman-us Susvara headphone, all wired with Kimber Kables. WA33 rocking all stock tubes. I like to enjoy the amp with stock tubes for 4-6 months, sometimes a year before rolling the tubes.

When it comes to break-in, we recommend to just use the system as normal. The burn-in happens with the gear, your ears, and your brain. No reason to run the system and not enjoy.

 

[chaojiliqilin]

Nice to see the new flagship of Woo Audio. I am a little bit confused about the production positioning of WA33 and 234 mono. Does it mean that wa33 elite is better than 234mono?

 

[abvolt]

Wow that sure does look sweet..enjoy

 

[andyschaub]

Nice to see the new flagship of Woo Audio. I am a little bit confused about the production positioning of WA33 and 234 mono. Does it mean that wa33 elite is better than 234mono?

The WA33 and 234 Mono have very different designs, the WA33 is a stereo design, fully-balanced design using the 2A3 tubes avilablr as the least powerful but most linear of the three tubes on the 234. The 234 is a single-ended, moniblock design that gives three different tubes and multiple inpedance choices to fine-tune it to properly drive almost any non-electrostatic headphone in production. The WA33 lets you driv power-hungry headphones, like the Abyss, from a fully-balanced source. Having owned both a WA22 and WA5-LE V2 both with upgraded tubes, including Western Electric 300B's in the latter, I'd guess the 234 smokes the WA33 under the right circumstances.

The WA33 is more like the vacuum tube versioj of a Cavalli Liquid Gold.

Then, of course, there are electrostatics, plus hybrid designs like the Red Wine Audio Corvina, the best headphone amp I've heard particularly when paired with the Moon Audio Black Dragon cable and HiFiMan HE-1000's. The Woo GES (not the WES) remains a very simple but elegant design that uses transformers to turn a single-ended input into a balanced signal run through matched quads of driver Nd power tubes for the Stan SR-507's and L700's, again in the electrostatic realm.

I hope that helps.

There seems to be a myth perpetuated by one of the editors of Headphone Guru that bakanved necessarily sounds better than single-ended because you double the signal strength and, presumably, louder sound, where louder equates with better. This represents a complete misunderstanding of electronics and psychoacoustics. The balanced topology uses two out of phase signals that combine at the end to cancel noise in the system chain out and is really intended for recording studio applications.

The purer, all Class A signal of the single-ended amps (234) distorts the analog waveform less and remains truer to the source. What you prefer is up to you. As far as loudness goes, if you like louder sound, turn the volume up. Thar's what the knob is for.

 

[chaojiliqilin]

The WA33 and 234 Mono have very different designs, the WA33 is a stereo design, fully-balanced design using the 2A3 tubes avilablr as the least powerful but most linear of the three tubes on the 234. The 234 is a single-ended, moniblock design that gives three different tubes and multiple inpedance choices to fine-tune it to properly drive almost any non-electrostatic headphone in production. The WA33 lets you driv power-hungry headphones, like the Abyss, from a fully-balanced source. Having owned both a WA22 and WA5-LE V2 both with upgraded tubes, including Western Electric 300B's in the latter, I'd guess the 234 smokes the WA33 under the right circumstances.

The WA33 is more like the vacuum tube versioj of a Cavalli Liquid Gold.

Then, of course, there are electrostatics, plus hybrid designs like the Red Wine Audio Corvina, the best headphone amp I've heard particularly when paired with the Moon Audio Black Dragon cable and HiFiMan HE-1000's. The Woo GES (not the WES) remains a very simple but elegant design that uses transformers to turn a single-ended input into a balanced signal run through matched quads of driver Nd power tubes for the Stan SR-507's and L700's, again in the electrostatic realm.

I hope that helps.

There seems to be a myth perpetuated by one of the editors of Headphone Guru that bakanved necessarily sounds better than single-ended because you double the signal strength and, presumably, louder sound, where louder equates with better. This represents a complete misunderstanding of electronics and psychoacoustics. The balanced topology uses two out of phase signals that combine at the end to cancel noise in the system chain out and is really intended for recording studio applications.

The purer, all Class A signal of the single-ended amps (234) distorts the analog waveform less and remains truer to the source. What you prefer is up to you. As far as loudness goes, if you like louder sound, turn the volume up. Thar's what the knob is for.

Thank you for your informative reply. As the abyss user, though I do not have enough money to by either mono 234 and wa33 elite, I am curious which one will be more suitable for Abyss. Do you think mono 234 will outperform?

 

[matthewhypolite]

Currently considering the W33 as well. Debating whether to get upgraded tunes from go or if to do as mike suggests and run them stock for a while.

I'll be replacing my Lau with the W33.

 

[andyschaub]

Thank you for your informative reply. As the abyss user, though I do not have enough money to by either mono 234 and wa33 elite, I am curious which one will be more suitable for Abyss. Do you think mono 234 will outperform?

It depends on your source components, kind of. I used an Ayre QB-9 DSD to supply both a Cavalli Liquid Gold and a Woo WA5-LE V2 via Stralth Sakra interconnecteds. The Ayre has both balanced and single-ended outputs. The Cavalli is solid state and fully balanced while the Woo uses tubes and is single-ended (and is nearly a dual monoblock design). I personally preferred the Woo, but it had to have the right tubes, and I'm sure that the Cavalli would measure better to the extent that I care about that.

In any case, I sold the Abyss to buy a Tri TRV-CD5SE tube CD player/USB DAC and repurposed the QB-9 DSD, then liquidated the Liquid Gold and got an Ayre AX-7e to drive some near-field monitors. I have several pairs of headphones but my favorites use kind of an obscure two-driver design with a Heil Air Motion Transformer for the midrange and treble (plus Drew Baird's Black Dragin cables). I'm sorry, but I don't remember what they're called; however I think Moon Audio has some in stock.

 

[andyschaub]

Currently considering the W33 as well. Debating whether to get upgraded tunes from go or if to do as mike suggests and run them stock for a while.

I'll be replacing my Lau with the W33.

Good choice!

 

[Sonic77]

The Abyss Phi and the WA33 pair well together, can't imagine how you could get a cleaner sound. I'm using stock tubes for now, in my opinion this amp sounds more like a solid state amp then a tube amp in that it is so clean sounding, the back ground is black as night.

 

[matthewhypolite]

The Abyss Phi and the WA33 pair well together, can't imagine how you could get a cleaner sound. I'm using stock tubes for now, in my opinion this amp sounds more like a solid state amp then a tube amp in that it is so clean sounding, the back ground is black as night.

What amp did you upgrade from?

 

[andyschaub]

The Abyss Phi and the WA33 pair well together, can't imagine how you could get a cleaner sound. I'm using stock tubes for now, in my opinion this amp sounds more like a solid state amp then a tube amp in that it is so clean sounding, the back ground is black as night.

Last night, I was using the WA5-LE V2 with Western Electric 300B's, Phillips NOS driver tubes, and Sophia Princess rectifier tubes (which are beautiful). The headphones were the oObravo HAMT-1's. I have diffculty believing anything could sound much better, but I have not personally heard the WA33.

 

[dawktah2]

I don't want to take this thread too far off topic but I'm painting, and will have physical wine/listening room ready for cellar next month and ready for equipment in the month thereafter. Have to resist temptation to bail and hire out to complete...