Stellavox Introduces a New State of the Art Amplifier IDEM Monoblocks

[microstrip]

That said, I'd never come up to do amp shoot outs. I'd rather just enjoy music for an entire weekend.

The word shoot-out should be banned from audiophile language, as it usually carries a war message. Why do so many people always look for an absolute winner when they listen to two different components?

That said I think the participants will have a great session and I anticipate reading their findings. Just audiophile curiosity, yes! .

 

[2fastdriving]

I just got home from Mike's house. Mike, thank you for the invite and I appreciate that you value my opinion.

Before I begin, let me just preface my opinion with my background. I am an audio research owner and have been for a long time. As a "tube guy" , what I heard was essentially similar to a typical solid state vs tubes comparison. The stellavox was like you'd expect from good solid state. Fast, detailed, neutral, dynamic and quiet. The dartzeel is a solid state amplifier that tube lovers can really appreciate. It's an ideal marriage of what solid state does best and what tubes do best. It has more body, tonal density, and big soundstage, but it's not giving up much ground (if any) on the details and dynamics.

We listened to female vocals, jazz, classical, opera, and rock. We used tape, digital, and vinyl.

On nearly every one of those selections, I felt like the dartzeels were just "right" for my tastes. The tonality, the rich midrange, the smooth but not glossed over top end. The bass control. I can certainly understand what makes these darts special.

There was one song with a fast guitar (maybe Mike remembers what it was, I was not familiar with it) that I will give the edge to the stellavox because it seems to excel with fast complex passages.

The stellavox is at a bit of a disadvantage today, because it's only got 100 hours on it, and was not on active isolation. Mike is putting it on the herzan today, and will be putting more time on it. Perhaps I will get back to hear if things have changed.

This is all subjective of course, either one of these are fantastic in their own way.

Thanks again, Mike. I appreciate the invitation and as always I enjoy your company and your system.

 

[LL21]

I just got home from Mike's house. Mike, thank you for the invite and I appreciate that you value my opinion.

Before I begin, let me just preface my opinion with my background. I am an audio research owner and have been for a long time. As a "tube guy" , what I heard was essentially similar to a typical solid state vs tubes comparison. The stellavox was like you'd expect from good solid state. Fast, detailed, neutral, dynamic and quiet. The dartzeel is a solid state amplifier that tube lovers can really appreciate. It's an ideal marriage of what solid state does best and what tubes do best. It has more body, tonal density, and big soundstage, but it's not giving up much ground (if any) on the details and dynamics.

We listened to female vocals, jazz, classical, opera, and rock. We used tape, digital, and vinyl.

On nearly every one of those selections, I felt like the dartzeels were just "right" for my tastes. The tonality, the rich midrange, the smooth but not glossed over top end. The bass control. I can certainly understand what makes these darts special.

There was one song with a fast guitar (maybe Mike remembers what it was, I was not familiar with it) that I will give the edge to the stellavox because it seems to excel with fast complex passages.

The stellavox is at a bit of a disadvantage today, because it's only got 100 hours on it, and was not on active isolation. Mike is putting it on the herzan today, and will be putting more time on it. Perhaps I will get back to hear if things have changed.

This is all subjective of course, either one of these are fantastic in their own way.

Thanks again, Mike. I appreciate the invitation and as always I enjoy your company and your system.

Great reading! Look forward to reading more as more comments roll in. Thanks very much for taking the time to write...makes all the popcorn we made to watch this thread worth it!

 

[marty]

View attachment 162140

Mike,
Looks may be deceiving here but it seems there just might be barely enough room for both amps on the Herzan stands. I presume this isn't possible or you probably would have done that, yes?

The other question I have pertains to amplifier gain. My understanding is that there are several gain setting possibilities for Stella. I'm not sure how your EMM's are set up with the Darts to balance the relative gain for the mains and the woofer towers, but will that balance be duplicated when Stella is used in lieu of the Darts? I assume the answer is that the use of Stella does not alter the balance of the EMM mains and towers. So is the choice of the optimum gain for Stella chosen using any particular rationale?
Marty

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike,
Looks may be deceiving here but it seems there just might be barely enough room for both amps on the Herzan stands. I presume this isn't possible or you probably would have done that, yes?

The other question I have pertains to amplifier gain. My understanding is that there are several gain setting possibilities for Stella. I'm not sure how your EMM's are set up with the Darts to balance the relative gain for the mains and the woofer towers, but will that balance be duplicated when Stella is used in lieu of the Darts? I assume the answer is that the use of Stella does not alter the balance of the EMM mains and towers. So is the choice of the optimum gain for Stella chosen using any particular rationale?
Marty

After our session I got help to move the darts off the active devices then let the IDEM’s play while I watched football. They are now back up to temp. both Stellavox would fit on one of my large size active devices, but not 2 dart 468's both in size and weight. so it's not possible to have both sets of amps supported by the active at the same time.

note that the power cables i use have 20 amp IEC's, so for the Stellavox i do use a cheap 20amp<->15amp IEC adapter. not a huge effect, but something.

 

[LL21]

You are definitely giving the Stellavoxes a full workout which is great. Look forward to reading more.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike,
Looks may be deceiving here but it seems there just might be barely enough room for both amps on the Herzan stands. I presume this isn't possible or you probably would have done that, yes?

The other question I have pertains to amplifier gain. My understanding is that there are several gain setting possibilities for Stella. I'm not sure how your EMM's are set up with the Darts to balance the relative gain for the mains and the woofer towers, but will that balance be duplicated when Stella is used in lieu of the Darts? I assume the answer is that the use of Stella does not alter the balance of the EMM mains and towers. So is the choice of the optimum gain for Stella chosen using any particular rationale?
Marty

Marty,

with the 97db, 7 ohm passive main towers for the Evolution Acoustics MM7 as far as amplifier gain i'm using the 22db setting for the Stellavox, 3rd step up from bottom, and using the XLR's i lowered my gain setting on the darTZeel 468's to the 26db setting. i think both amps seem happy and the dart preamp seems happy. the dart pre attenuator settings for both amps is quite similar for the same music. as the Stellavox further breaks in i will be trying the bottom two gain settings for extended periods.

 

[jbrrp1]

note that the power cables i use have 20 amp IEC's, so for the Stellavox i do use a cheap 20amp<->15amp IEC adapter. not a huge effect, but something.

I hate to complicate your thoughts on that, Mike, but I was rather surprised at how much impact a 15A to 20A adapter had on my power cables. The adapters could really be influencing things more than you might think.

My experience: I had some Elrod Master Diamond PC's with 15A ends, well broken-in, that I needed to use on my CH Precision M10 amps as an interim solution while I had new equivalent cables made with 20A terminations. So, I grabbed the VooDoo Cable 15A/20A adapters I had on hand and had music, and pretty darned good music at that. Then the new cables arrived: fresh on, they sounded clearly better than the broken-in ones + adapters. Harmonically fuller, better timbral revelation, spacially more specific, yet "fleshier" and more "rounded", better bass articulation, and more. I was shocked at the compromise I had been living with. Maybe this doesn't translate across other amps and cords, I don't know. But it sure astonished me in this particular instance, and I offer it as a cautionary tale.

 

[cjfrbw]

It's sort of a masochistic exercise, because however Mike tries to nuance and split hairs between the two amplifiers, he's going to incite audiophile banshees on both 'sides'.

 

[LL21]

I hate to complicate your thoughts on that, Mike, but I was rather surprised at how much impact a 15A to 20A adapter had on my power cables. The adapters could really be influencing things more than you might think.

My experience: I had some Elrod Master Diamond PC's with 15A ends, well broken-in, that I needed to use on my CH Precision M10 amps as an interim solution while I had new equivalent cables made with 20A terminations. So, I grabbed the VooDoo Cable 15A/20A adapters I had on hand and had music, and pretty darned good music at that. Then the new cables arrived: fresh on, they sounded clearly better than the broken-in ones + adapters. Harmonically fuller, better timbral revelation, spacially more specific, yet "fleshier" and more "rounded", better bass articulation, and more. I was shocked at the compromise I had been living with. Maybe this doesn't translate across other amps and cords, I don't know. But it sure astonished me in this particular instance, and I offer it as a cautionary tale.

Interesting point though for now I am guessing the amps are being compared as close to 'apples to apples' as can be, and the differences have to super material/major for anyone to want go from one amp to the other.

Separately, you have an amazing system. Curious...have you tried the CH DAC10 by any chance?

 

[microstrip]

Just MO, but I don't consider that tweaks can fundamentally change the sound signature of an amplifier. Although Mike is surely more interested in a comparison with both amplifiers used with active platforms, selfishly I would prefer to have comparative opinions without them, showing their performance as created by the designers.

 

[Ron Resnick]

rather surprised

could really be influencing things

clearly better

Harmonically fuller, better timbral revelation, spacially more specific, yet "fleshier" and more "rounded", better bass articulation, and more.

I was shocked

I am not part of the "everything makes a difference, and you can hear every difference" group. Respectfully, I am skeptical at the delta you are describing. (Although CH on Lyra is an extremely highly resolving combination, so we all might hear the differences you are describing.)

With the very easily perceivable and dramatic differences you are reporting I will apologize profusely for being skeptical after you identify correctly which is which on a blind A/B.

 

[Ron Resnick]

It's sort of a masochistic exercise, because however Mike tries to nuance and split hairs between the two amplifiers, he's going to incite audiophile banshees on both 'sides'.

I am certain that Mike (like I) has learned to ignore audio gladiator games from audio partisans.

 

[marty]

With the very easily perceivable and dramatic differences you are reporting I will apologize profusely for being skeptical after you identify correctly which is which on a blind A/B.

The objective of any experiment is to see if you can demonstrate that a difference in the results can be shown to occur with a significant probability other than by chance alone. Ideally, you'd like the experimental conditions to differ by a single variable for testing purposes. In this case, Mike is making significant efforts to identify the sonic differences between two different amplifiers as best as humanly possible. Amplifier platforms, AC plug adapters, the pragmatic considerations that preclude doing the experiment in a blinded manner and differences in the lunar phase during testing are all variables that unfortunately cannot be precisely controlled for a variety of reasons. However, my guess is that will not impair his ability to reach a satisfactory conclusion, even of the experiment is not conducted with the precision we might wish for. In this case, the results may be like Barry Bond's home run record that has an asterisk next it. In this case, the asterisk would stand for "This is a difficult high end audio exercise done as well as feasibly possible. Get over it."

 

[adamaley]

After our session I got help to move the darts off the active devices then let the IDEM’s play while I watched football. They are now back up to temp. both Stellavox would fit on one of my large size active devices, but not 2 dart 468's both in size and weight. so it's not possible to have both sets of amps supported by the active at the same time.

note that the power cables i use have 20 amp IEC's, so for the Stellavox i do use a cheap 20amp<->15amp IEC adapter. not a huge effect, but something.

View attachment 162214

In my experience those 15A to 20A adapters do degrade the sound, and I don't play at these heady heights where I'm sure their impact to the sound will be even more magnified.

 

[Ron Resnick]

The objective of any experiment is to see if you can demonstrate that a difference in the results can be shown to occur with a significant probability other than by chance alone. Ideally, you'd like the experimental conditions to differ by a single variable for testing purposes. In this case, Mike is making significant efforts to identify the sonic differences between two different amplifiers as best as humanly possible. Amplifier platforms, AC plug adapters, the pragmatic considerations that preclude doing the experiment in a blinded manner and differences in the lunar phase during testing are all variables that unfortunately cannot be precisely controlled for a variety of reasons. However, my guess is that will not impair his ability of reaching a satisfactory conclusion, even of the experiment is not conducted with the precision we might wish for. In this case, the results may be like Barry Bond's home run record that has an asterisk next it. In this case, the asterisk would stand for "This is a difficult high end audio exercise done as well as feasibly possible. Get over it."

I agree on all points.

A leisurely in-home system (in situ) audition is the gold standard in high-end comparative auditioning. Trivial or minor differences in signal chain are dismissable, in my opinion.

 

[Iamrael]

I hate to complicate your thoughts on that, Mike, but I was rather surprised at how much impact a 15A to 20A adapter had on my power cables. The adapters could really be influencing things more than you might think.

My experience: I had some Elrod Master Diamond PC's with 15A ends, well broken-in, that I needed to use on my CH Precision M10 amps as an interim solution while I had new equivalent cables made with 20A terminations. So, I grabbed the VooDoo Cable 15A/20A adapters I had on hand and had music, and pretty darned good music at that. Then the new cables arrived: fresh on, they sounded clearly better than the broken-in ones + adapters. Harmonically fuller, better timbral revelation, spacially more specific, yet "fleshier" and more "rounded", better bass articulation, and more. I was shocked at the compromise I had been living with. Maybe this doesn't translate across other amps and cords, I don't know. But it sure astonished me in this particular instance, and I offer it as a cautionary tale.

It would pretty easy to make two identical 20 amp > 20amp and two 20 amp > 15 amp IEC adapters to level the playing field.
I think since this cat has already been let out of the bag it’s the only way to satisfy and bring to a viable conclusion.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I hate to complicate your thoughts on that, Mike, but I was rather surprised at how much impact a 15A to 20A adapter had on my power cables. The adapters could really be influencing things more than you might think.

My experience: I had some Elrod Master Diamond PC's with 15A ends, well broken-in, that I needed to use on my CH Precision M10 amps as an interim solution while I had new equivalent cables made with 20A terminations. So, I grabbed the VooDoo Cable 15A/20A adapters I had on hand and had music, and pretty darned good music at that. Then the new cables arrived: fresh on, they sounded clearly better than the broken-in ones + adapters. Harmonically fuller, better timbral revelation, spacially more specific, yet "fleshier" and more "rounded", better bass articulation, and more. I was shocked at the compromise I had been living with. Maybe this doesn't translate across other amps and cords, I don't know. But it sure astonished me in this particular instance, and I offer it as a cautionary tale.

In my experience those 15A to 20A adapters do degrade the sound, and I don't play at these heady heights where I'm sure their impact to the sound will be even more magnified.

It would pretty easy to make two identical 20 amp > 20amp and two 20 amp > 15 amp IEC adapters to level the playing field.
I think since this cat has already been let out of the bag it’s the only way to satisfy and bring to a viable conclusion.

thank you.

i respect these sensible points and while in my own mind i don't view it as a relevant factor, probably at some point in my process i will borrow a couple good power cords, or take them from my system, and A/B with my current power cords with the adapters. i suspect what i will hear is that i prefer the current Evolution Acoustics "SYSTEM" level power cords with the 20 amp -> 15 amp IEC adapter to other power cords. which if the case then i can not worry about it.

it's the right thing to explore and remove it from concern as it's easy to do.

ideally i could borrow an identical set of EA "SYSTEM" level 15 amp IEC power cords (but they are rare), or 4 of some other brand, 2 15 amp IEC, and 2 20 amp IEC, to level the playing field. but that is just too much work. and overkill. IMHO.

 

[Kvali1]

how about the following notion … if one is to replace an already amazing pair of amps in this case the darTZeel for another pair of pricey amps in this case the stellavox …
I could have the visiting team (Stella’s ) be slightly at a disadvantage (no active isolation base , adaptor to PC) ….. and if the visiting team still out performs the home team then it’s a real /clearer win? And if not , is it really worth making a big change ? If the delta is very narrow ?
That said I would posit that the break in period is crucial though .

I know the above is not the purest audiophile approach , but it’s not a light lift to swap pricey amps and the delta should not be subtle .

I know we heard from one of the guests already , I am looking forward to hearing more from everyone who got to experience it!
and especially Mike who’s lives and breathes his amazing system daily!

Thank you for sharing and thank you for putting up with our silly comments !

 

[Mike Lavigne]

It would pretty easy to make two identical 20 amp > 20amp and two 20 amp > 15 amp IEC adapters to level the playing field.
I think since this cat has already been let out of the bag it’s the only way to satisfy and bring to a viable conclusion.

i did a search on line for a 20 amp IEC -> 20 amp IEC adapter, they logically seem not to exist. as you mentioned would have to be custom built. any thoughts on where i could source those. and i'd likely need my 20 amp to 15 amp IEC adapter from the same people. or who could build one? i wonder how much tooling or 3D printer design time to make one?

i could stack adapters but that is a dead idea.

I hate to complicate your thoughts on that, Mike, but I was rather surprised at how much impact a 15A to 20A adapter had on my power cables. The adapters could really be influencing things more than you might think.

My experience: I had some Elrod Master Diamond PC's with 15A ends, well broken-in, that I needed to use on my CH Precision M10 amps as an interim solution while I had new equivalent cables made with 20A terminations. So, I grabbed the VooDoo Cable 15A/20A adapters I had on hand and had music, and pretty darned good music at that. Then the new cables arrived: fresh on, they sounded clearly better than the broken-in ones + adapters. Harmonically fuller, better timbral revelation, spacially more specific, yet "fleshier" and more "rounded", better bass articulation, and more. I was shocked at the compromise I had been living with. Maybe this doesn't translate across other amps and cords, I don't know. But it sure astonished me in this particular instance, and I offer it as a cautionary tale.

how impressed are you with the VooDoo level of adapters? any hunch on the advantage over the cheap Amazon level stuff? sounds like not much.