NKOTB - TTVJ/Millett 307A Headphone Amp

[4N6]

More B-52/307A comparisons...

I have been A/B'ing the two amps using the 840C CDP. The differences with every CD I have used have been consistent, and for the most part, pretty easy to identify.

The tonality of the two, as mentioned previously, is different. The 307A tends to the brighter side, with a seemingly lighter touch with instruments and vocals. This is in no way a thinness, as there is plenty of body and three-dimensionality to the sound. It just seems that the 307A "lets go of the notes" slightly quicker than the B-52, which has a warmer and fuller character. The warmth is addictive and makes some of the more "digital" sounding CD's a little easier on the ears. The B-52 definitely is an amp that you can listen to all day, with very little listening fatigue. The brighter character of the 307A had me at times reaching for the volume control, especially with poorly recorded CD's. Not ruthlessly revealing, but certainly an amp that will tell you everything that is going on.

Which brings us to the other main difference, the reproduction of musical detail. The warmth of the B-52 seems to mask out spatial details, which then leads to a flattened picture of the musical landscape. I did consider that the overall brighter nature of the 307A could be adding an illusion of more detail. But with that thought in mind, the perceived detail retrieval and reproduction via the 307A was real, and all instruments and vocals had a more unique position in the soundstage along with more surrounding air and body. Hall reverb, whether natural or artificial, was better reproduced by the 307A, further adding to the larger soundstage.

Enough for tonight. I hope everyone had a great weekend. Mine was pretty terrific with my first listen to the "King of Headphones." Hopefully I can find myself a pair of these at some point. Have a great week!

[909]

i haven't heard the 307A, but i seriously doubt that amp has any hint of brightness, harshness or even thinness, but more likely you are hearing your source unfiltered for probably the first time.

[kevin gilmore]

The differences you are hearing between the 2 amps is almost
directly the difference between the designs.

1) B52 is a SRPP OTL design with smaller value output caps than necessary
to drive low impedance loads.

2) TTVH is a Single ended pure class A transformer coupled output.

You can find a number of amplifiers built the same as above, and each would
sound far more like similar amps of the same design than the alternative design.

The distortion signatures are very different between the 2.

[riceboy]

Let me first start off by saying thank you to 4n6 for having me over to listen to some sweet gears. Also, thanks for the great beer to partake in.
Now on to the impressions

Here is what I listened to first:

Audio Research CD7 - 307A- (can)

SA5000 Balanced with Silver Dragon:

When I listened to Eric Clapton unplugged with the song "Hey Hey" playing I noticed Clapton's voice more laid back and natural sounding. The guitar had a some body when he hit the strings. With the song "Tears from Heaven" I noticed the that Clapton's voice was very natural sounding and the guitar did reverberate throughout the song. I was surprised by the separation of the vocals and guitar during the tracks. I listened to some other tracks as well, but overall I noticed that it had good separation of the vocals and instruments. Everything had it's own space and there was good tone and substance in the music. The tubes did warm up the highs as well.

R10s:

When I listened to Clapton Unplugged with "Lonely Stranger" it was fantastic. Everything had it's own space with greater clarity than the SA5000s. The sound was a lot more natural and had a more real tonality to the vocals and instruments. The SA5000 felt like they lacked some body and airy goodness that the R10s had. Not to say the SA5000s aren't good, but it really is hard to compare the two different sounding cans. This is what I heard with other tracks as well. When listening to Diana Krall Live "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" the tone is beautiful, detailed, exquisite, and full of life. You could feel the energy from the bass player strumming on the strings. Then Diana comes in and you could hear every vocal expression articulated beautifully with the piano sounding all too real. I did notice that the 307A made the R10s a lot more detailed than I ever heard them. But I feel that the Dragon from SinglePower had a little more warmer/darker sound that I personally like, but the 307A is seriously just a wonderful amp.

SR225 Woodied:

Okay I really wasn't expecting much from this can but the 307A really made this can shine. I know that 4n6 didn't have a chance to listen to them with the 307A, but there will be another time for sure . When I listened to Diana Krall live again with "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" there was a very wonderful low end that was controlled and tight. I couldn't really believe it. The bass player sounded so dynamic and the strums on the strings was very tight and controlled. Diana's voice was very clear and clean. This is by far the best I've ever heard the SR225 or any Grado I heard with another amp by a long mile. With the amount of Grados I own/owned stemming from the SR60, SR80, SR225 twice, SR325i, MS2, MS1,HF-1s three times, RS1s twice, GS1000 twice, and HP2s twice, I thoroughly enjoyed these woodied SR225s. Even the cymbals sounded clear and natural without the edgy high end. Let's just say that this amp really, really brought out something beautiful in these SR225s. Diana's voice in "Look of Love" had a uncharacteristic misty dimension and charm to it that I never heard a woodied Grado ever produce. The amp just draws you in and makes you want to listen to more. Then I had to put on Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" and again his voice was warm, inviting, and very intimate. The tone of his guitar was just killer. Then I moved on to Sam Phillips "Fan Dance". It didn't disappoint there as her vocals were so picturesque, real, and so silky smooth. The Grado as you all know has a small sound stage, but this amp really, really does a marvelous job in separating the vocals, tones and instruments so very nicely. The natural sounding reverberations of some the guitars just made me grin inside .

K340 Headphiled:

Overall everything had it's own special space with the mids and highs sounding fantastic. The only thing is that it lacks the low end, but it really does make it up with realistic and warm mids and highs. It did sound wonderful with most of the tracks I threw at it.

Cambridge 840C - B52

R10s:

When listening to Diana Krall "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" the piano and bass player had a more darker and laid back tone to everything. I felt that the 307Abrought everything more to the front, well the B52 had a relaxed sound. I didn't have a lot of time with this amp, but I would say that I would prefer the 307A because it had greater detail and a more upfront presentation with excellent energy.


PrimaLuna - Cary SLI - 80

JVC-DX1000

I listened to Sam Phillips "Fan Dance" and this can and amp is a perfect match. I mean the mids are beautifully detailed, not thin, with nice, tight low end bass. I never heard the DX1000 sound so good. I then put on Sam Phillips "Wasting my Time" and you could just feel the reverberations, warmth, and ethereal balance of the violin strings. The low end from the violin alone is pretty amazing. The synergy between this can and amp is a truly a wonderful pair. I would be very happy to listen to this duo and understand why 4n6 uses this rig at work. Fantastic.

SR225s woodied/GS1000:

With both cans and playing Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" I noticed that the body that the 307A presented with the SR225 wasn't there. The vocals were a lot more laid back and I felt the Grado didn't have quite the synergy as with the 307A.


In conclusion the 307A surpassed my most humble expectations as it is a wonderful sounding amp. For me it really made any can that I threw at it that much better with it's strong suits in giving the cans a lot more detail, separation and sense of realism, with a more energetic presentation.

Also I really enjoyed 4n6s "man cave" with his gorgeous tube powerblocks and exquisite sounding speakers. I could spend all day and night in there


Some of the cans



The Dragon with R10s



Beta22 with the 840C



307A front view



307A from the side



4n6 man cave



I love these speakers




4n6 with the R10s



Me enjoying the R10s and the 307A goodness

[guzziguy]

I see that 4n6 has a prayer rug before the altar of equipment just like Reks.

[laxx]

Wouldn't you if you had that gear?

[EdipisReks]

Originally Posted by laxx

Wouldn't you if you had that gear?

i wouldn't pray to a B-52

[laxx]

But it's replaced with the Cary SL-P05 in that spot isn't it? =]

[n_maher]

Originally Posted by EdipisReks

i wouldn't pray to a B-52

You might if you were hoping it wouldn't burn your house down.

oh snap!

[PFKMan23]

Originally Posted by n_maher

You might if you were hoping it wouldn't burn your house down.

oh snap!

[ldj325]

I was surprised to hear from an a otherwise knowledgeable acquaintance that the TTVJ Millet is in essence a single ended amp that achieves the balanced state via transformers (as opposed to the 2 amps in one box concept used by some other builders). If this is the case, I suppose that it would mean that the balanced inputs would need a transformer to bring it down to SE to go through the amp, and then another set of transformers to achieve a balanced output.

Can anyone confirm or negate that this is the case?

If it is, it would seem to me that other than a possibly lower RF noise signal coming into the amp, that having a balanced source could be a disadvantage since the signal would have to pass through an input transformer, as well as an output transformer, whereas an SE source would only need to go through the output transformer. Is my thinking correct on this point or not?

What I do know from my experience with another tube amp that definitely used the design of SE amp to balanced via transformers on the output, is that IMO there is still a benefit to how such an amp drives balanced headphones. So I am not looking to restart the argument that the only benefit of balanced is the RF rejection of the input transmission line. And whatever the architecture, I thought that the TTVJ Millet sounded excellent, so I am not dissing the sound quality of the Millet in any way. But I would like to know about the architecture all the same.

[recstar24]

Originally Posted by DrJ

If it is, it would seem to me that other than a possibly lower RF noise signal coming into the amp, that having a balanced source could be a disadvantage since the signal would have to pass through an input transformer, as well as an output transformer, whereas an SE source would only need to go through the output transformer. Is my thinking correct on this point or not?

Now I don't claim to be the expert on such things, but from my very limited knowledge base, having a truly balanced source would actually be an advantage because whatever common mode noise is on the line going into the input transformer would be completely eliminated. Also I believe you are right about lower RF noise, the input transformer should operate somewhat as a low pass filter below 40 khz or so (depending on the size of the input tranny itself) that would filter out a lot of the high frequency noise and hash that DACs can exhibit.

[justin]

Originally Posted by DrJ

I was surprised to hear from an a otherwise knowledgeable acquaintance that the TTVJ Millet is in essence a single ended amp that achieves the balanced state via transformers (as opposed to the 2 amps in one box concept used by some other builders). If this is the case, I suppose that it would mean that the balanced inputs would need a transformer to bring it down to SE to go through the amp, and then another set of transformers to achieve a balanced output.

Can anyone confirm or negate that this is the case?

If it is, it would seem to me that other than a possibly lower RF noise signal coming into the amp, that having a balanced source could be a disadvantage since the signal would have to pass through an input transformer, as well as an output transformer, whereas an SE source would only need to go through the output transformer. Is my thinking correct on this point or not?

What I do know from my experience with another tube amp that definitely used the design of SE amp to balanced via transformers on the output, is that IMO there is still a benefit to how such an amp drives balanced headphones. So I am not looking to restart the argument that the only benefit of balanced is the RF rejection of the input transmission line. And whatever the architecture, I thought that the TTVJ Millet sounded excellent, so I am not dissing the sound quality of the Millet in any way. But I would like to know about the architecture all the same.

I don't know anything about the design of the Millett amp, however most sources with both balanced/unbalanced outputs have their unbalanced outputs go through an additional active stage (usually an op-amp as a differential to single ended converter). So if what you say about the Millett amp is true, you're going to convert to single ended either in the source or the amp. I'd probably pick the transformer assuming it is a high quality one

[Eddie]

If the transformer output is floating, like driving a headphone, it is a perfectly balanced line. Since we are talking about the balanced output, how the signal gets there can be as simple as an unbalanced line driving a transformer. In the case of the 307A, the 307a is run SE with the transformer as the plate load. Looking at the 307a it is running with an unbalanced input, and true balanced output. Running two solid-state amps to get a balanced line can never be as accurate because the amps have to be perfectly matched, and each amplifier will still present a reference to the power supply rails, where the transformer output is isolated from grounds, or grounds through the power supply.
My two cents best sound at the Florida meet.

[swt61]

Just a side note. Those K340s look like the pair I made Cocobolo caps for. If so those used to belong to Mikah (Redleader), and are not Headphiled, but DIY modded.

[bhd812]

Originally Posted by guzziguy

I see that 4n6 has a prayer rug before the altar of equipment just like Reks.

YUMMY!!!!! V-12 mono's!!!!


tasty!

those have always been on my dream list, back when i had a dream in highend audio..
hopefully i can kick these pricks out that live above the bar soon...

if i do then they are back on my list!! or should i say i atleast will have a list again..

[4N6]

Originally Posted by bhd812

YUMMY!!!!! V-12 mono's!!!!


tasty!

those have always been on my dream list, back when i had a dream in highend audio..
hopefully i can kick these pricks out that live above the bar soon...

if i do then they are back on my list!! or should i say i atleast will have a list again..

The Cary V12i monoblocks are the best amps I have owned by far (compared to Bryston monos, Parasound JC-1 monos, NuForce Reference 9 V2 monos, and Musical Fidelity amps). The sound with the SLP-05 preamp in the chain is gorgeous. I love that Cary gear!

[Asr]

The 307A was just "reviewed"* in Issue 17 of Tone Audio, which can be downloaded here: http://tonepublications.com/MAGPDF/TA_017.pdf Review on page 135. The reviewer loved it, of course.

In the same issue they also reviewed the Lehmann Black Cube Linear.

Also in the same issue, some really interesting music reviews. (One of two major reasons I read the mag, the other would be the amazing photography.)





* in quotes because Tone Audio's reviews are consistently terribly inadequate

[Icarium]

Originally Posted by 4N6

The Cary V12i monoblocks are the best amps I have owned by far (compared to Bryston monos, Parasound JC-1 monos, NuForce Reference 9 V2 monos, and Musical Fidelity amps). The sound with the SLP-05 preamp in the chain is gorgeous. I love that Cary gear!

How were the Parasound JC-1 monos? I've been thinking about getting a JC-1/JC-2 combo. What did they do better and what did they do worse?

[Voltron]

Originally Posted by Asr

The 307A was just "reviewed"* in Issue 17 of Tone Audio, which can be downloaded here: http://tonepublications.com/MAGPDF/TA_017.pdf Review on page 135. The reviewer loved it, of course.

In the same issue they also reviewed the Lehmann Black Cube Linear.

Also in the same issue, some really interesting music reviews. (One of two major reasons I read the mag, the other would be the amazing photography.)





* in quotes because Tone Audio's reviews are consistently terribly inadequate

I haven't looked at the mag yet, but I saw an advance copy when I was at Todd's. Their reviews are weak, and his emphasis on how you would need to "hide" the the TTVJ amp from your audiophile friends seemed awkwardly naive, plus stupid. There is another review in the works that will have a little more depth and get a much broader exposure.