[moha97]

Hello. I am still a relative novice to this hobby, and very new to headfi so please excuse if this is the wrong place to be asking such a question. If there is somewhere better, please point me the right way. I have never had a tube amp in my chain at home, and am curious about picking one up for the first time. My main considerations are the Envy, WA23, and WA33. Can anyone who has heard or owned multiple of these tell me how they compare? Any impressions would be helpful. I am also open to other amps, it's just that those 3 are the first to have been put on my radar.

 

[genefruit]

Hello. I am still a relative novice to this hobby, and very new to headfi so please excuse if this is the wrong place to be asking such a question. If there is somewhere better, please point me the right way. I have never had a tube amp in my chain at home, and am curious about picking one up for the first time. My main considerations are the Envy, WA23, and WA33. Can anyone who has heard or owned multiple of these tell me how they compare? Any impressions would be helpful. I am also open to other amps, it's just that those 3 are the first to have been put on my radar.

Quite a question and to fully answer it would be verbose and time consuming. My quick suggestion is to learn the difference between a single ended and a push pull amplifier. Then I'd read every page of the thread for the three amplifiers in question. Then I'd examine what headphone(s) and components are going to be in the chain. then I'd pick one of the three and ruminate how to get the second or third. All three are very good.

Or you can take the quick path, since it appears you're going to get the Immanis, and buy the Envy since Raal has demonstrated their headphones with it.

 

[moha97]

Quite a question and to fully answer it would be verbose and time consuming. My quick suggestion is to learn the difference between a single ended and a push pull amplifier. Then I'd read every page of the thread for the three amplifiers in question. Then I'd examine what headphone(s) and components are going to be in the chain. then I'd pick one of the three and ruminate how to get the second or third. All three are very good.

Or you can take the quick path, since it appears you're going to get the Immanis, and buy the Envy since Raal has demonstrated their headphones with it.

If each thread is as long as this one, that is quite an amount of homework you have given me haha. I am sure that would be enlightening, and possibly well worth the effort. I am hoping though to make this tube amp decision relatively soon as ideally I would want the amp and the headphone to arrive at roughly the same time, and I'm not sure I'd be able to do that if 1,500 pages of reading are required first. I was hoping someone more experienced could summarize their knowledge for me I guess. Maybe I should just take the quick path as you say and get the envy since the folks at Raal seem to like the pairing.

 

[nwavesailor]

Maybe I should just take the quick path as you say and get the envy since the folks at Raal seem to like the pairing.

Yup!

You must believe the Envy / Raal pairing is a winner or they wouldn't use that amp when introducing their new line of ribbons.
Part of the reason I signed up for Immanis was I already had the Envy with lots of tubes.

There is no doubt many other amps that would also pair nicely with the Immanis.

 

[moha97]

Yup!

You must believe the Envy / Raal pairing is a winner or they wouldn't use that amp when introducing their new line of ribbons.
Part of the reason I signed up for Immanis was I already had the Envy with lots of tubes.

There is no doubt many other amps that would also pair nicely with the Immanis.

It has seemed they pair it differently at each show though. At Heidelberg it was on the Envy, at Canjam NYC it was on the VM-1A and iFi iCAN Signature, and in Canjam Sinagpore it was on the SAEQ Armegeddon and Trafomatic Primavera IIRC. I believe Aleks said on the Raal thread that everyone should just use whichever amp they prefer, and it will shine through on the Immanis. But what about someone like me who has no idea which amp he prefers haha. This is a fun problem to have at least. I get to indulge on all of this fun tube amp info until I decide.

 

[nwavesailor]

I believe Danny had an Envy at Axpona 2 weeks ago.
I'm sure Alex knows and YES, use the amp you prefer!
It's a no brainer for me with the Envy, YMMV

 

[ThanatosVI]

It has seemed they pair it differently at each show though. At Heidelberg it was on the Envy, at Canjam NYC it was on the VM-1A and iFi iCAN Signature, and in Canjam Sinagpore it was on the SAEQ Armegeddon and Trafomatic Primavera IIRC. I believe Aleks said on the Raal thread that everyone should just use whichever amp they prefer, and it will shine through on the Immanis. But what about someone like me who has no idea which amp he prefers haha. This is a fun problem to have at least. I get to indulge on all of this fun tube amp info until I decide.

The good part here is, all of the 3 amps are great, you can't lose no matter for which one you decide.

You don't know which amp you'll prefer, do you know what it is in sound that you prefer?

If possible try to audition all of them at the same chain. Maybe look for dealers that carry all three. If that is not possible you have to go blind.

I never had the chance to listen to the Wa33 but could listen to the Wa23 and Envy, side by side at last years munich high end. For me the Envy was the clear winner under Show conditions, when all amps used stock tubes.
Maybe I took some notes, going to look for them after work. Otherwise this is meaningless, it just says that the Envy fits more to my taste, doesn't have to for yours

When going blind I recommend the Envy for the following reasons.
1. It's cheaper for similar sound quality (when all amps are stock)
2. It has friendlier tube families for rolling.
The Woo amps have 2A3, while a good tube the really, exceptional ones are few, Takatsuki and KR, maybe some EML. The Wa33 even needs a quad, which Hits hard on the wallet.
The Envy has 300Bs, there are also KR and Takatsukis of these but even better than those, there are Western Electric and Elrogs.
Similar in the driver section, the Wa33 is basically stuck with stock tubes and one crazy expensive upgrade option, while the Envy uses 6SN7 and equivalents with adapters, where there is plenty of choice.

 

[nfandi]

Hello. I am still a relative novice to this hobby, and very new to headfi so please excuse if this is the wrong place to be asking such a question. If there is somewhere better, please point me the right way. I have never had a tube amp in my chain at home, and am curious about picking one up for the first time. My main considerations are the Envy, WA23, and WA33. Can anyone who has heard or owned multiple of these tell me how they compare? Any impressions would be helpful. I am also open to other amps, it's just that those 3 are the first to have been put on my radar.

Another thing to bear in mind is that Alex does not fly around the world with heavy tube amplifiers in his luggage. For the Heidelberg show Alex was supported by headphone.shop and the best 2 amplifiers that they could supply were the Envy and the SAEQ HSA-1c, both with the approval of Alex. You will not see any ‘legal’ comparisons with the Woo Audio products from any EU countries because the Woo amps do not carry the CE mark of compliance which means there are no dealers selling Woo amps in the EU. For NYC CanJam Danny was the host and naturally, to give people the opportunity to hear the new phones and the ‘old phones’, he had a VM-1a as a direct drive option (now discontinued); I can’t remember if he had an Envy at Axpona. The Armageddon was launched at the Shanghai Show (Dragan of SAEQ was there) and was a natural choice to be used for the Immanis and Magna, and like Heidelberg, the amplifiers used were provided by the local distributor. In other words don’t read too much into what amps were used at the various shows. Thanatos as usual has offered some wise words and as Alex has stated, he himself has a preference for SET amps, but has also said that because of the transparency of the ribbon phones they are very much amp ‘agnostic’, they will faithfully reproduce whatever your chain is doing. One thing you could do is contact Danny at Raal Requisite in Ventura Ca (if you have a spare few hours) and ask him directly what he thinks of your choices, especially, for me, why a Woo Audio amplifier has never featured in any of their recommendations. This could purely be for reasons of personal preference or circumstances or maybe there’s something in their topology that is not as synergistic as other options?

 

[Doug2507]

I hope you are a young guy and get to eventually use at least 2 of those 4 pairs!!!!

Rated at 10,0000 hours you may have several lifetimes of these Tele’s……. then again you could easily sell them. Paired with the TM will be stunning!!!!

Young enough to get many years of use but old enough to have some wisdom behind me.

 

[Whazzzup]

Just an observation on wa33 elite comparisons. Takatsuki 2a3 is friggen magnificent. The ta 274b pretty great as well. Use we 5842 for drivers and presto, instant eargasm. Course you are right, except rectifier it’s all quads and expensive. But don’t let $ affect the pursuit, unless it does, which is understandable.
Until one checks it out, keep open mind, you’ll be suprised when you do.

 

[walterboss]

Having grown disillusioned with 6SN7 prices, I'm going to try a Mullard VR135 CV6 quad with adapter. The venerable @Wes S has convinced me to give them a try.
£100 for the quad, £30 for the adapter vs £700 for some Tungsol VT99 and adapter and possibly just sidegrade in sound against my CV1988s.

Worth a shot, I reckon.

 

[walterboss]

Made a school boy error today, purples only a day in and put PSM156 in the chain along with changing from network / toslink on the Bricasti to AES. Now need to wait a couple of weeks for everything to settle then reverse engineer to see what makes a difference and what doesn't. Having said that, quite surprised at PSM156 out of the box, certainly makes for a blacker background. Had some slight glare in upper mid / lower treble initially so went on a PSM156 break in hunt on google and right enough, seems like a common thing. Either way, i'll take the unexpected darkness and see where things evolve. Sorry if a bit O/T but bit of chat about it recently in here!

Back on topic, maybe got slightly ahead of myself but have Kenrad VT-231 (JAN), RCA 5692 reds (eagles), Marconi B65 (black base), RCA VT99 & G73-R all en route just to give a newb like myself some experience and flavour. It'll take a little time to assess them all but I'll report back as I go. @walterboss , welcome to take them for a spin once I've had a listen!

Meant to say thanks for this Doug! I'll report back on the Mullard quad I just posted about.

 

[walterboss]

As I don't know what the feck I'm doing, which of these two options would you buy/ are better?

 

[turbofeet]

I'm not an expert either but I have bought quite a few tubes and it looks like both sets are quite well matched with the list on the left the better/closer match electronically.

 

[Leto Dal]

Having grown disillusioned with 6SN7 prices

Why if I may ask? ^^