Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2015 20:59:26 GMT
Good review mate. This pretty much sums up my experience too. It's not a night & day difference but it's there alright. I think it is probably more obvious with certain headphones. I noticed barely any change with my V-Moda M-100's but my HD 650's made it obvious. I've now sold my O2 to fund an Ember and although I could use the headphone socket on my Marantz integrated amp in the interim I'm not bothering. I'll next listen to the 650's when I can do them justice. It simply has to be an Ember for me.
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Post by richard51 on Mar 3, 2015 0:47:24 GMT
I've been listening the Ember with the default tube for a couple of days now and I'm very impressed by it. The look, the features and the sound are just astonishing. When I first plugged in the Ember and start listening, I have immediately notice big sound improvement compared to the Polaris I own. The sound was more fuller, warm, euphoric and energetic sounding, the soundstage was bigger as well. Then I began to switching between the Ember and the Polaris to compare them, but the switching was taking me long time, because I had to switch power cable, RCA cable and headphones. So I kept hearing all of the sound improvements and there was a clear difference between the amps in favor of Ember or that's what my brain thought. I think this is what you call expectation bias. Then I decide that I need them properly connected side by side, so I can switch between them faster. Found another power and RCA cable and plugged both amps in to my FiiO headphone switcher. Now the switching between the both amps became milliseconds and with the volume matched all of the huge differences I was hearing suddenly disappear. After comparing them for couple of days with different types of music I think that the difference in sound between the both amps are very subtle. The Ember is a bit more pleasant, smooth and euphoric sounding and maybe just a tiny bit more warm. Maybe with better and more power hungry headphones the differences will be more noticeable, but still in my opinion the Ember is more pleasant and smooth sounding, even by a bit. On the other hand The Polaris is very very close in terms of performance and sound, but also provide more customizable options, handles low impedance headphones better and has blacker background. So I definitely want to have them both. My first upgrade will be the headphones and then I can start think for the Ember, which I'm sure will shine even more with better headphones. I really like both amps very much and I think with all of the features, sound and wonderful design, they hit way above their price range. I want to thank again to Frans for the opportunity to hear the Ember. Please let me know where to send it next. Very interesting review.....But you dont have the 6ns7 tube...... Few people know the Ember true potential....It takes me 5 seconds to put all my other tubes(20) in a virtual garbage... The ember is a Marvel... and transform itself with a new tube......the 6ns7 is without par with the default tube....precisely for me the Sylvania Jan CHS 6SN7GT...
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Jakkal
valued member
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Post by Jakkal on Mar 3, 2015 8:01:04 GMT
Yep, I didn't have any tubes to roll now, but when I buy the Ember 6ns7 is for sure on my trying list.
@solrighal Thanks and I hope you'll be able to enjoy the Ember again soon.
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z3d
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Post by z3d on Mar 3, 2015 16:48:49 GMT
I've been listening the Ember with the default tube for a couple of days now and I'm very impressed by it. The look, the features and the sound are just astonishing. When I first plugged in the Ember and start listening, I have immediately notice big sound improvement compared to the Polaris I own. The sound was more fuller, warm, euphoric and energetic sounding, the soundstage was bigger as well. Then I began to switching between the Ember and the Polaris to compare them, but the switching was taking me long time, because I had to switch power cable, RCA cable and headphones. So I kept hearing all of the sound improvements and there was a clear difference between the amps in favor of Ember or that's what my brain thought. I think this is what you call expectation bias. Then I decide that I need them properly connected side by side, so I can switch between them faster. Found another power and RCA cable and plugged both amps in to my FiiO headphone switcher. Now the switching between the both amps became milliseconds and with the volume matched all of the huge differences I was hearing suddenly disappear. After comparing them for couple of days with different types of music I think that the difference in sound between the both amps are very subtle. The Ember is a bit more pleasant, smooth and euphoric sounding and maybe just a tiny bit more warm. Maybe with better and more power hungry headphones the differences will be more noticeable, but still in my opinion the Ember is more pleasant and smooth sounding, even by a bit. On the other hand The Polaris is very very close in terms of performance and sound, but also provide more customizable options, handles low impedance headphones better and has blacker background. So I definitely want to have them both. My first upgrade will be the headphones and then I can start think for the Ember, which I'm sure will shine even more with better headphones. I really like both amps very much and I think with all of the features, sound and wonderful design, they hit way above their price range. I want to thank again to Frans for the opportunity to hear the Ember. Please let me know where to send it next. Hi Jakkal I noticed that you compared both amps driving a pair of Fidelio L2. Before reading I though the Polaris will have an edge over the Ember for the fact that is 100% solidstate and better suited for running low impedance headphones but in fact you found that they are comparable! Maybe the differences in favour of Polaris will start to be there and start to be more noticeable at the decreasing of impedance from 32Ohm to 0Ohm (theorical) ? Anyway if at 32Ohm both are comparable I think that's a really nice catch about the great project behind the Ember!
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solderdude
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Post by solderdude on Mar 3, 2015 17:06:42 GMT
Both amps have the exact same output stage and 'do' low impedance headphones equally well.
That said, the noise floor of the Polaris is lower than that of Ember. This is because tubes have a higher noise floor. The noise floor is also tube dependent.
On high efficiency (usually low impedance) headphones some background hiss may be audible.
Because of the relatively low output voltages compared to those that are present for high impedance headphones the 'tubyness' additions of tubes will be more audible with high impedance headphones (which basically require a higher voltage swing to reach the same SPL). In that case the Polaris will have a slight edge as it has a lower noise floor and about equal 'added harmonics'.
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Post by psyhead on Mar 3, 2015 18:32:37 GMT
The upcoming revision of the Ember board will have built-in supercharger + gain modules (like Polaris) which are easy to change. I was ready to pull the trigger for the Ember, but the revision sounds very promising. I think it's worth the wait.
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Jakkal
valued member
Posts: 19
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Post by Jakkal on Mar 4, 2015 10:18:34 GMT
Hi Jakkal I noticed that you compared both amps driving a pair of Fidelio L2. Before reading I though the Polaris will have an edge over the Ember for the fact that is 100% solidstate and better suited for running low impedance headphones but in fact you found that they are comparable! Maybe the differences in favour of Polaris will start to be there and start to be more noticeable at the decreasing of impedance from 32Ohm to 0Ohm (theorical) ? Anyway if at 32Ohm both are comparable I think that's a really nice catch about the great project behind the Ember! I have actually said that the Polaris is better with low impedance headphones. The Polaris have more gain options than the Ember plus Attenuation Module and because of that works great with high efficiency phones. The Ember at 0 Ohm has audible noise with Fidelio L2, so I did most of the listening at 32 Ohm, but with the new version of Ember that will be cured.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2015 10:43:48 GMT
Hi Jakkal I noticed that you compared both amps driving a pair of Fidelio L2. Before reading I though the Polaris will have an edge over the Ember for the fact that is 100% solidstate and better suited for running low impedance headphones but in fact you found that they are comparable! Maybe the differences in favour of Polaris will start to be there and start to be more noticeable at the decreasing of impedance from 32Ohm to 0Ohm (theorical) ? Anyway if at 32Ohm both are comparable I think that's a really nice catch about the great project behind the Ember! I have actually said that the Polaris is better with low impedance headphones. The Polaris have more gain options than the Ember plus Attenuation Module and because of that works great with high efficiency phones. The Ember at 0 Ohm has audible noise with Fidelio L2, so I did most of the listening at 32 Ohm, but with the new version of Ember that will be cured. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised if you ever get a pair of high impedance headphones. Having said that, of all the headphones I used with the Ember it was the Q701's that most improved. They have a relatively low impedance compared to the HD 650's but are still regarded as difficult to drive (low sensitivity maybe?). They became far more weighty and authoritative. Unfortunately the Ember could do nothing about the ridiculous spike in FR at 2k which the Q's have built-in. A damn shame actually. Perhaps a physical filter could address that but it's such a large spike I frankly doubt even Frans could deal with it. Certainly my attempts to EQ it out via software didn't yield great results. I can tone it down a bit but not without causing other problems at the same time. I don't understand AKG to be honest. Don't even start me on the headband bumps. Grrr! Gordon.
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Jakkal
valued member
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Post by Jakkal on Mar 4, 2015 10:55:37 GMT
If you don't like the Q701's, why just not sell it and put the money elsewhere (Ember ).
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2015 11:29:09 GMT
If you don't like the Q701's, why just not sell it and put the money elsewhere (Ember ). They are up for sale right now. Unfortunately it's like trying to sell a pig in a poke
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Post by musicman on Mar 14, 2015 15:52:20 GMT
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z3d
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Post by z3d on Mar 16, 2015 10:00:39 GMT
A question to Jeremy or Frans.
On the ember, with the pre-out mod done how will work the potentiometer when the amplifier is connected to the active speakers and no headphone connected? I mean, I can regulate the volume of the output through ember using it as a passive volume thing or not? Right now i'm using a nano patch + as passive volume regulator but I will be happy if I can skip it and have all the job done from Ember :-)
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solderdude
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Post by solderdude on Mar 16, 2015 10:05:47 GMT
Yes, the Ember functions as a pre-amp with volume control.
The modification is only needed when you want the RCA outs disconnected (so the pre-amp outputs are muted) when a headphone is inserted. If you don't need that functionality and don't mind to have the RCA out available all the time regardless if a headphone is connected or not the modification is not needed.
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z3d
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Post by z3d on Mar 16, 2015 12:17:53 GMT
Perfect, that's what I was looking for!
My soundcard outputs around 2Vdc (2,16Vdc and 5,65Vpkk on some measurements) and has an output impedance of 99Ω, non-inverting polarity. From there I will go though Ember and then I will exit to the active subwoofer which got 10kΩ input impedance and to which one are connected 2x active speaker with 10kΩ input impedance each.
I've read that Ember has 20kΩ/40kΩ input resistance and 0,8Vdc/1,6Vdc input sensitivity depending on gain setting: how it works? Also how much is the output impedance on pre-outs of Ember? Should I provide an higher impedance from my source (soundcard) to Ember or it will be fine like that? I'd like to have all the time the digital volume from Windows and foobar set to 0db (100%) to avoid compressions or strange behaviour.
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solderdude
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Post by solderdude on Mar 16, 2015 12:58:14 GMT
It is fine as it is.
The Ember's sensitivity and input impedance depends on the attenuator being used or not. It shows what input voltage is needed to drive the Ember to full output voltage when the volpot is full open. The gain is tube dependent.
The input voltage of the Ember can be as high as 10V or even more
The output R of the Ember RCA is 180 Ohm.
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