Review: Feliks audio Elise (stock Svetlanas nos 6as7g power tubes, jan Sylvanias nos 6sn7wgta drivers, selected and chose by Luzasz) on Sennheiser hd800
First of all:
About my HP setup:
- Elise has now full break in (100/110 hours); I feel after some 60/70 hours of running sound didn't change any more
- another head-amp: a diy SS one, with added 41ohm resistances at the output to perfectly match the hd800 impedance (I tested R values from 6.8 to 100ohms)
- main source: CDplayer Teac PD501HR; not a high-end gear but very neutral, detailed, with a wide bandwidth
- interconnect: DIY pure single stranded silver wire, silver plated RCA plugs
- stock hd800 cable
About the hd800:
I regard its only flaws being
- a bit too much rolled off sub-bass range but only vs bass champions HP
- the well-known 6kHz peak: a light personal anaxilus mod on my hd800 reduces somewhat this peak without rolling off the upper treble too much; it is made of open cell foam + thin felt, thus something a bit different than the classical closed cell foam felt; I tested around twenty materials/shapes _ with and without measures _before staying at the open cell foam ring + felt sticked only on the center metal ring. In my experience any mod does nibble transparency, one must find the one that nibble the less. For the purpose of this review I listened at my hd800 with and without the mod
- a rather lean/rising global sound, resulting in a loss of flesh and presence; the mod nicely adds weight to the sound, that's intrinsically important... but also because it makes the HP more forgiving to dry recordings
Otherwise a faultless HP with pin point imaging, wide soundstages and clean clean clean overall sound; just a few words for those regarding its " too large of a soundstage width": listen to monophonic tracks to realize it doesn't lie in this area.
About me:
- my long time main hobby is to design passive filtered hifi speakers. So I'm certainly more objectivist than subjectivist; however I know that measurements do obviously not say the last word in audio.
- I prefer searching for emotion inside the recordings; I hate redounding colorations coming from some gears even if they are allowing presumed improved euphony
- to my ears, the most important things are, besides all other qualities, transparency, tonal balance and lack of harshness.
- I listen to many sorts of music/songs, from Gregorian to Asian underground but almost never to symphony and opera; I simply don't like them except sometimes in live events
And don't forget: what follows are my own feelings, related to my own setup and with the tubes in use; as sound's characteristics depiction is inevitably a matter of relativity, I used my SS headamp for direct comparisons and my memory for what I heard from Rudistor RP8, DNA sonett2 and Audiovalve RKV MK2, all gears listened on my hd800 a few months ago; though never heard hugely priced head-amps
Let's go:
analytic impressions:
- sub-bass: no doubt they are there; nevertheless ideally I feel this range could have a tad more spl; however it's not of great importance as music does rarely contain such frequencies; though I regard this range being remarkable coming from a tube amp
-bass: music stands on a firm base: this range is powerful and solid, well damped; texture is present when recording asks for
- upper bass: same as bass, but slightly forward though not at all boomy nor on the border of boominess. I prefer this than the opposite because it gives some mellowness to music; please read "mellow", not "muddy". So I would say that the global bass-range is at the same time round and solid... may be paradoxical but that's how I feel it
- low-mid to upper-mid: accurate and detailed, rich, fluid, no more no less than perfect to my ears
- low-treble: fully detailed and solid but at the same time surprisingly sweet; transition with the upper-mid is tonally perfect
- treble: sometimes some sibilance does yet occur on stock hd800 but not in a metallic/artificial way of sound; just a matter of spl at 6kHz. With my mod this range becomes simply accurate, no haze at all but more smoothness, without lowering its sharp-cutting edge
- upper treble: very extended and pure; the little loss in this range with the mod in place is obvious but this drawback is of less importance vs its benefit; however it shows up how transparent Elise is
- dynamic: Elise has largely enough power to listen to the hd800 at high spl levels without any stress
- transients and damping: admirable! even more admirable is that they are equally distributed on the entire bandwidth
- Finally, the noise: what noise? connected to my burnished CDplayer but without running a CD, volume up to the max (5,5 o'clock) the amp is ABSOLUTLY quiet; that's so special!!
listening impressions:
- a nice tonal balance with stock hd800 at low, average and high listening levels; the intrinsic lean/rising nature of the hd800's sound is here rather compensated by the strong bass range and the smoothness of the upper range; mod in place the tonal balance becomes quite perfect to my ears on the vast majority of my CD collection whatever the spl listened at
- rendered details and inner details allowing to perfectly hear undertones and slight subtleties. Each sound is related to the other in a beautiful "oneness", i.e. the decay of reverberations is perfect, enhancing their presence and substance; combined to the ultra fast transients and absence of noise, the outline of notes and the verity of tones benefit of course from this feature
- an astonishing absence of harshness, even at high listening levels. Long term listening isn't a problem: I sometimes happen to fall asleep while listening even at comfortable levels. Poor recorded tracks are more listenable than on my SS amp and my modified hd800 on Elise is now able to reproduce all types of music with never ending pleasure
- the wide soundstages and pin point imaging of the hd800 are even enhanced by the accuracy and silence of the Elise; some not very audible notes coming from a deep soundstage are quite perfectly heard and magically pictured
Another proof Elise is a top notch amp: the gap between poor and well recorded CDs is so vast that I needed more of a reasonable time to down on its right listening features
In short: it's stunning to hear such potency, speed and refinement at the same time; in this meaning recorded music gets closer to live music because Elise allows to immerge deeply inside the core of music without any drawback... isn't what we name "naturalness"?
Elise's price does absolutely not reflect its huge qualities. Ices on the cake: a marvelous sober design, a faultless finish and a great tuning potential through tube rolling. Thanks and congratulations to Feliks team!
Side notes:
- standard Sovtek 6H8C drivers sound decent, restrained frequency range but not harsh
- I hoped a nice sound from Nos Jan CLRV 6SN7 WGTA drivers (from C.G.E. _General Electric,_ made in Canada): well, all the bandwidth is OK but without the refinement of the Sylvanias and sadly a HUGELY sibilant/harsh treble even on modified hd800
- NOS Sylvanias 6080 power tubes would be great tubes if they were as powerful in the sub-bass range and as extended in the upper-treble range as the stock 6as7g Svetlanas; however this less powerful trebles are a good feature for an unmoded hd800 and their global frequency range can be a good match for those listening mainly to acoustic music (jazz, blues ...); in short: a bit too much mid centric tonality.
- NOS Foton drivers tubes: a bit more dynamical then the Sylvanias 6sn7 wgta but restreined soundstages.
- NOS Melz drivers tubes (without holes in the plates): same global sound quality than the Sylvanias 6sn7 wgta but with more powerful sub-bass range, a more linear bass range (no more enhanced high-bass range), a bit more dynamics in the extended mid range and a bit less spl in the treble range. Those are my favorites at time because they mainly add consistency to the hd800 tonality without lowering the refinement of the 6s7n wgta. Very very nice tubes!
First of all:
About my HP setup:
- Elise has now full break in (100/110 hours); I feel after some 60/70 hours of running sound didn't change any more
- another head-amp: a diy SS one, with added 41ohm resistances at the output to perfectly match the hd800 impedance (I tested R values from 6.8 to 100ohms)
- main source: CDplayer Teac PD501HR; not a high-end gear but very neutral, detailed, with a wide bandwidth
- interconnect: DIY pure single stranded silver wire, silver plated RCA plugs
- stock hd800 cable
About the hd800:
I regard its only flaws being
- a bit too much rolled off sub-bass range but only vs bass champions HP
- the well-known 6kHz peak: a light personal anaxilus mod on my hd800 reduces somewhat this peak without rolling off the upper treble too much; it is made of open cell foam + thin felt, thus something a bit different than the classical closed cell foam felt; I tested around twenty materials/shapes _ with and without measures _before staying at the open cell foam ring + felt sticked only on the center metal ring. In my experience any mod does nibble transparency, one must find the one that nibble the less. For the purpose of this review I listened at my hd800 with and without the mod
- a rather lean/rising global sound, resulting in a loss of flesh and presence; the mod nicely adds weight to the sound, that's intrinsically important... but also because it makes the HP more forgiving to dry recordings
Otherwise a faultless HP with pin point imaging, wide soundstages and clean clean clean overall sound; just a few words for those regarding its " too large of a soundstage width": listen to monophonic tracks to realize it doesn't lie in this area.
About me:
- my long time main hobby is to design passive filtered hifi speakers. So I'm certainly more objectivist than subjectivist; however I know that measurements do obviously not say the last word in audio.
- I prefer searching for emotion inside the recordings; I hate redounding colorations coming from some gears even if they are allowing presumed improved euphony
- to my ears, the most important things are, besides all other qualities, transparency, tonal balance and lack of harshness.
- I listen to many sorts of music/songs, from Gregorian to Asian underground but almost never to symphony and opera; I simply don't like them except sometimes in live events
And don't forget: what follows are my own feelings, related to my own setup and with the tubes in use; as sound's characteristics depiction is inevitably a matter of relativity, I used my SS headamp for direct comparisons and my memory for what I heard from Rudistor RP8, DNA sonett2 and Audiovalve RKV MK2, all gears listened on my hd800 a few months ago; though never heard hugely priced head-amps
Let's go:
analytic impressions:
- sub-bass: no doubt they are there; nevertheless ideally I feel this range could have a tad more spl; however it's not of great importance as music does rarely contain such frequencies; though I regard this range being remarkable coming from a tube amp
-bass: music stands on a firm base: this range is powerful and solid, well damped; texture is present when recording asks for
- upper bass: same as bass, but slightly forward though not at all boomy nor on the border of boominess. I prefer this than the opposite because it gives some mellowness to music; please read "mellow", not "muddy". So I would say that the global bass-range is at the same time round and solid... may be paradoxical but that's how I feel it
- low-mid to upper-mid: accurate and detailed, rich, fluid, no more no less than perfect to my ears
- low-treble: fully detailed and solid but at the same time surprisingly sweet; transition with the upper-mid is tonally perfect
- treble: sometimes some sibilance does yet occur on stock hd800 but not in a metallic/artificial way of sound; just a matter of spl at 6kHz. With my mod this range becomes simply accurate, no haze at all but more smoothness, without lowering its sharp-cutting edge
- upper treble: very extended and pure; the little loss in this range with the mod in place is obvious but this drawback is of less importance vs its benefit; however it shows up how transparent Elise is
- dynamic: Elise has largely enough power to listen to the hd800 at high spl levels without any stress
- transients and damping: admirable! even more admirable is that they are equally distributed on the entire bandwidth
- Finally, the noise: what noise? connected to my burnished CDplayer but without running a CD, volume up to the max (5,5 o'clock) the amp is ABSOLUTLY quiet; that's so special!!
listening impressions:
- a nice tonal balance with stock hd800 at low, average and high listening levels; the intrinsic lean/rising nature of the hd800's sound is here rather compensated by the strong bass range and the smoothness of the upper range; mod in place the tonal balance becomes quite perfect to my ears on the vast majority of my CD collection whatever the spl listened at
- rendered details and inner details allowing to perfectly hear undertones and slight subtleties. Each sound is related to the other in a beautiful "oneness", i.e. the decay of reverberations is perfect, enhancing their presence and substance; combined to the ultra fast transients and absence of noise, the outline of notes and the verity of tones benefit of course from this feature
- an astonishing absence of harshness, even at high listening levels. Long term listening isn't a problem: I sometimes happen to fall asleep while listening even at comfortable levels. Poor recorded tracks are more listenable than on my SS amp and my modified hd800 on Elise is now able to reproduce all types of music with never ending pleasure
- the wide soundstages and pin point imaging of the hd800 are even enhanced by the accuracy and silence of the Elise; some not very audible notes coming from a deep soundstage are quite perfectly heard and magically pictured
Another proof Elise is a top notch amp: the gap between poor and well recorded CDs is so vast that I needed more of a reasonable time to down on its right listening features
In short: it's stunning to hear such potency, speed and refinement at the same time; in this meaning recorded music gets closer to live music because Elise allows to immerge deeply inside the core of music without any drawback... isn't what we name "naturalness"?
Elise's price does absolutely not reflect its huge qualities. Ices on the cake: a marvelous sober design, a faultless finish and a great tuning potential through tube rolling. Thanks and congratulations to Feliks team!
Side notes:
- standard Sovtek 6H8C drivers sound decent, restrained frequency range but not harsh
- I hoped a nice sound from Nos Jan CLRV 6SN7 WGTA drivers (from C.G.E. _General Electric,_ made in Canada): well, all the bandwidth is OK but without the refinement of the Sylvanias and sadly a HUGELY sibilant/harsh treble even on modified hd800
- NOS Sylvanias 6080 power tubes would be great tubes if they were as powerful in the sub-bass range and as extended in the upper-treble range as the stock 6as7g Svetlanas; however this less powerful trebles are a good feature for an unmoded hd800 and their global frequency range can be a good match for those listening mainly to acoustic music (jazz, blues ...); in short: a bit too much mid centric tonality.
- NOS Foton drivers tubes: a bit more dynamical then the Sylvanias 6sn7 wgta but restreined soundstages.
- NOS Melz drivers tubes (without holes in the plates): same global sound quality than the Sylvanias 6sn7 wgta but with more powerful sub-bass range, a more linear bass range (no more enhanced high-bass range), a bit more dynamics in the extended mid range and a bit less spl in the treble range. Those are my favorites at time because they mainly add consistency to the hd800 tonality without lowering the refinement of the 6s7n wgta. Very very nice tubes!
