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That said my first impression of the HP-A4BL with another Modded Fostex is that it's a little noisy and a lacking some power.
With music that was mastered at what I'd consider an average level I could get to a max of 87 dBs with music and 64 dBs with pink noise from the balanced output. The Single Ended output was about 3 dBs quieter.
Now with music that is mastered at what I'd consider a below average level, such as some classical, I could get to a max of about 77 dBs... and at max output there was a bit more noise than I care'd for to be 100% honest.
That said I feel it's certainly not the most capable amplifier especially driving something like a modded Fostex Planar. As I frankly expect any amplifier to be capable of outputting any music at max of at least 88 dBs. Granted many of you don't listen that loudly, and for a lot of genres I don't. But I do like listening to heavy metal at around an average of like 87 dBs and some of those tracks are mastered at average levels, some above average and others below average. An I'm talking about an average here, so that includes peaks of 93ish dBs and dips as low as 78 or so. An some of my favorite albums/tracks really do have a dynamic range of 15+ dBs and unfortunately this won't be the amp to enjoy them with!!!
So not being able to enjoy all of the music in my library at a slightly above "reasonable" level is a little disappointing.
However on a positive note when switching into my Vintage AKG K240 1980's M Series I found the output to be more than sufficient! Which is fairly impressive as that's a dynamic with around 700 Ohms Impedance!!! I also enjoyed the difference the "filter" switch made with both the Blue and my K240 M
That said, I'll have some more specifics for the unit later this week!
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