I haven't tested it against the A3 Pro, but I think the A3 Pro will beat it on resolution while losing out on tuneability. I don't have a Lyr+ to test unfortunately.
Yay, glad you reviewed this one. The one to beat under $1000 is the Aune S17Pro from what everyone is saying. Different type of amp though. The Garage 1217 Ember hybrid amp (also comes in a DIY version) has similar jumper settings to tweak the sound.
Hi,Lachlan! Great review! And you know what a coincidence! I’ve been reading the feedbacks of a new Oriolus BA300s portable Tube Amp and while comparing it to other similar (and rare) devices, I happened to spot your review of ALO Continental V5. It turned out to be your first review! So I am watching your first and latest review at the same moment! There you look a bit younger (obviously), the room has no headphones, amps etc., speech rate is faster than now. Nowadays you are a mature (trustworthy) expert with a well-trained voice! You keep this up!
Thanks for the lovely feedback, Alex! Yes, lots has changed since those early days. Thankfully I still love playing with and listening to audio gear. 😁
Quite an excellent review as far as it goes, except there is no comparison with the SparkoS flagship the Aries. I have an Aries and am continually struck by its superb all-around qualities like great transparency, ultra fine detail resolution, powerful dynamics, bass extension and impact, soundstage size and depth - virtually everything I measure by listening to a headphone amp. And it's compatible with virtually all the headphone types I have tried it with except the very low sensitivity RAAL ribbon type which requires very high power capability. Does the unique hybrid adjustable tube sound give the Gemini another additional desireable quality that is lacking in the Aries? That's what I'd like to know. I might get one in addition to the Aries to switch to when in the right mood. First hope would be that the Gemini is just overall superior in the complex tradeoff of various performance qualities between the two units. A desirable quality over the Aries might be having better capability to deal with mediocre recordings, of which there are a lot of. I speculate that such a quality in the Gemini might be a touch of the tube smoothness combined with high definition offered by one of the swapped high end tube types like the Bugle Boy 6DJ8 referred to, which might greatly ameliorate the harshness of some poorly recorded albums that definitely don't benefit from extremely revealing amplification. Or the Gemini's comparative smoothness might alleviate the slight hardness and grundge of an inferior DAC or music source. There are many other dimensions of a head amp review. Finally, I would appreciate a brief assessment of the difficulty or ease with which the case top can be removed in order to get at the various tweak adjustments, which seem to be essential to get the most out of the unit, and also the ease or extra fine dexterity required in actually making the adjustments. For instance, does this process require the owner to remove it from the system and put it on an easily accessible well illuminated workbench? I ask because I no longer have such a facility.
I'm glad you liked the review. I'm afraid I don't have an Aries anymore for comparison, but I can tell you that the Gemini doesn't match the Aries in overall performance (resolution, detail retrieval, etc.) It will, however, deliver a similar overall sound character and the ability to tweak that sound with tubes if you wish to. Whether it's worth having in addition to the Aries is a harder question to answer. For tube rolling, you need to remove just four (I think) full-size phillips head screws and lift off the lid. It's very easy and I wouldn't say that a full work bench is needed, but it does require moving it out of a rack type setup.
GM☕️ from Toronto. Do I see 👀 a Xduoo TA 20 Plus lurking about in the background.🤔 Great review…tho I’m still rocking the 604 😎 Take care and enjoy the week.
Yes, having it higher would have been nice. You could always use a socket saver to give it a bit of a boost. One of my channel patrons suggested that (to give credit where it's due)
How does it compare to the Schiit Lyr+? That seems to be the hybrid tube amp to beat. Please also compare the Lyr+ to the TA-20+ in your upcoming review. Thanks very much.
Unfortunately, the Lyr+ had to go back to Schiit so I can't directly compare. I think I prefer the Gemini though in both sound and the versatility of tube options and tuneability.
The audio industry is really a matter of wait and ye shall be given. This seems to me to be the spiritual evolution of the drop X Cavalli CTH with better performance and versatility. Can't wait to get one for myself
@@PassionforSoundThats hard for me cause i didnt see you compare the sparkos against the a3. I wanna go for the sparkos cause it has a balanced connection.
I'd recommend against buying a headphone amp just because it has a 4-pin XLR connection. You can easily buy an adapter for XLR to 6.3mm (or 4.4mm to 6.3mm). As for the comparison of the two amps, they're very different. The A3 Pro is about a pure sound experience. The Gemini is about deliberate colouration of the sound and the ability to tube roll.
I don't have a question for Andrew but I have a question for you. What is the unit on the top shelf to your left that has 3 tubes showing, a red knob to the right and a vu meter in the center?
All my cables are 4.4mm balanced as that is adapter friendly to both XLR and 1/4 inch SE. Certainly better than the old 2.5 A&K standard. This allows me to go back and forth between SS and Tubes easily. I see 4.4mm becoming more of a default on Amps in the industry vs XLR and hope the trend continues.
yes, i moved to 4.4mm many years ago... back then was still a new thing but me and my friend determined 4.4 is the future.... so all my iem and headphones cables are terminated 4.4 with loads of adapters
Yes, 4.4mm is nice, but I'm not sure it will completely replace XLR. The XLR socket is a more stable and long lasting connector type so for full sized desktop units, I suspect we'll see it live on, hopefully with a 4.4mm socket right next to it for convenience!
Nice. 1st question, triode is it? Next is bout iem u touched.. hm my system is 4 pentodes but no hiss or hum wut so ever.. well sparkos need time on overcome this.. Thats y i said over n over again bout 'IEM only' cuz their r the most sensitives. Never thought 25yrs back i was a computer troubleshooter, always tweakin with jump n nowdays sparkos used it as tweak towards audio system which is nice comeback nostalgia. Hmm the opamps do rollables? How bout vivid frm burson does it applies? Other things is maybe their 1st try, hope futhers model is Bal n perhaps input too..or maybe crazy bluetooth5.4 in?.. A tips.. i wonder when people's used elite to valuate??.. Those headphones wutever u put into it just sound the same which is good., in manner of hard to tells different.. Pls use sumthin like diana.. or the new mr.. Ha dats will tells..hope u've got the point im sayin audiophiles.. I wonder geshelli r doin sumthin on tubes.. ha2.. I think u point on comparin those expensive n this mid r not important Just ask em to focus on flaws that IEM detected while connected.. ha2 dat 1 important even mo.. Then again compared to xduoo. Bra just count the tubes on xduoo n this.. U r pretty funy sumtime..in fact all the time. All of this make reminds me the xd05 pro.. Hmm dac chips rollin'.. N opy rolls too indeed.. They r new too yet transportable as lotoo mjolnir Ha2 im laughing with tears of humouric situations.. Only crazy audiophiles will carry those around. Naa for me gemini worth 599 not more..if u like to tweak with mo tubes sound or less is even easier just take 1 of ur best delta sigma or solid state then just hooked it to tubes amps.. This way u can even control the volume of 2 separated devices separately.. U know how to do it or not?? Seems like ur jump tweaks a bit workshops kinda risk towards normal audiophiles user.. Stop on reviews bout tubes rollin cuz ask sparkos to put at least 2 tubes matching 2 opamps bro thats mo important..even u see!! Sory did i heard the xduoo on ur comin rev is high end??.. Wa33 is example of highend not those.. U get when im sayin u r funy bra?.. Again defending single tubes enough.. Bra just make it even ok.. Do u know how bal borns..to make it even bra.. really funy man..u. Not bout savin spends in tubes.. We just dont cares on that. n y into it at 1st place? If u asked more.. Peace!
I'll discuss this with Andrew more in the interview soon, but he's told me via email that the pre-amp output is via both the tube and solid state stages.
Would this amplifier help me for beyerdynamic's DT 900 Po X ? I like this headset but I'm finally surprised that it has much less much less feeling of wide sound space like the DT 990 pro.
I used the DT 900 ProX only plugged into my MacBook Air m2, this computer has the advantage of having a 3.5 mm output for high impedance headphones. But I recently plugged these Beyerdynamic headphones into my old HI-Fi amplifier from the 1980s (from the great vinyl era), which is a "NAD Stereo Amplifier 3020i" (the MacBook connected by RCA jack with this old ampli), result : the sound comes out with more tone, less flat, I can increase the bass, etc. My audio source is always that of videos watched directly from my MacBook Air.@@PassionforSound
Yeah I just want to know what it's like as a preamp? you can use 300 Ohms as an output as a preamp. What is the highest gain ? I've got a pro power amps it can take 9V, being low impaired is what you want nowwhy of trying it out? Ask him can you drive a 6 volts out or more on the the RCA or phono socket, if you change the output resistor if needed? I just want to buy the circuit bored, ask him what is the maximum voltage it can take from the power supply
I'd recommend emailing Andrew directly on that one via the website (see link in description) as that's a more specific question than I'll be getting into in the interview.
@@PassionforSound, being a monastic priest can get rather lonely. ;) Incidentally, I just got the Sennheiser IE 100 today. I have mixed thoughts on it. What would you rate them percentage-wise? I'm sending back the IE 200 but I may get another pair if they are priced right.
I don't mind the IE100, but I don't love them either. In terms of a tier list type ranking, they're probably a B tier for me which means they're ok, but not one I'd personally reach for often because I found them a little lacking in top end refinement.
Not yet. Burson have just emailed.me tonight about it and it's now on the way, but it's a prototype unit because they're still making a couple of final aesthetic tweaks (colour of the case and accents, etc.) I'll have a first impressions live stream soon!
Pointless in most use cases since it does not have internal DAC and is highly dependent which source you are using. If my source is some low end Realtek and I'm not pointing out FLAC etc lossless stuff, then this one does not help at all. Put some decent USB type C input DAC to it and then it makes a lot more sense. Listening music with Verum V1's.
Just because it doesn't have a DAC, doesn't make it pointless. Putting a digital and analog circuits in the same chassis is always a compromise so I'd prefer separates whenever possible.
@@PassionforSound I didn't write plainly pointless. Putting digital and analog in the same chassis is not compromise but smart move in sense of wire length, avoiding noises from external sources and ground-loops etc stuff although, ground-loop can come from USB itself some times. Obviously Sparkos has know-how to build it and I can truly give them kudos about their op-amps that I use in parallel with Audiophonics stuff. That is why I even bothered to check this amp at first place since I love their other equipment a lot.
One of the biggest challenges that is faced when combining circuits is the issue of digital to analog crosstalk where the digital signal bleeds into the analog stage. There are things that can be done to minimise it in a combined circuit, but the easiest way to guarantee to issues is with two separate chasses. And then there's power supply. The power supplies for analog and digital have quite different requirements. If you're going to do it properly, you'd end up with two power supplies in the device and it would be bigger and more expensive as a result. I have no doubt that Andrew could make a great all-in-one, but it would be a very different product at a very different price I expect so not really a drop-in addition to the Gemini without damaging what is doing so well.
@@HeadonistHeadphones Okay, I know that tube fairly well. It is clean and robust - it is one of the few tubes that work in my Audible Illusions Modulus preamps.
Whenever I hear someone talking this zero feedback bs be him manufacturer, designer or reviewer, I switch off. Ask Bruno Putzeys about it. Look for his paper 'There's no such thing as too much feedback'. A good circuit with good open loop performance can only get better with feedback. A bad circuit does not. As simple as that. Feedback is required. Audio is the only electrical engineering sector which such bs is talked about seriously. Cunning marketeers talk about this and ignorant reviewers and customers keep parroting this stuff.
That is absolutely true in most cases, and our discrete op amps were designed to have as much open loop gain and feedback as possible. However with this tube design, we wanted to hear the tubes and their sonic impact. Feedback would have served to minimize their effect and impact on the sound, so I opted to not have any feedback in the Gemini for that reason. And that is the ONLY reason. When we talk about solid state things - you are correct. Use Feedback and as much of it as possible. I hope that helps to explain our deign philosophy on this unit. It was a special case.
@@andrewsparks3157 Well, you should brief and enlighten your reviewers better then, so they don't parrot idiotic ideas about feedback destroying music.. If one likes one's (euphonic or not) distortion, one can have one's distortion but that is altogether another matter. Bashing feedback as if it was the mother of all nasties is stupid and counter productive for the advance of this industry. My personal opinion is that often people don't like the naked truth and prefer a distorted sound profile glossing over what they hear, purely because of the nastily recorded and produced music they tend to listen to. No feedback is not going to solve this fundamental problem.
What I said in this review holds true for my preferences. I've got multiple amps using feedback and no feedback and I tend to enjoy the character of the sound without feedback. Preferences are subjective, not law. I didn't say feedback is bad, just that I often prefer zero feedback designs like this one, the Bottlehead amps and the Enleum AMP-23R. If you watch again, I think you'll find that I specifically said that there are also exceptions to my experiences regarding feedback so again, not a law or a statement of fact - just sharing subjective preferences. Please refrain from the abuse.
