Graham Slee - Ultra Linear Diamond Edition Headphone Amplifier

[Southall-1998]

Sorry to be wasting thread space. But can't help myself asking...

Have some members on here tried the Graham Slee ULDE?

https://www.hifisystemcomponents.co...solo-ultra-linear-de-headphone-amplifier.html

https://www.hifisystemcomponents.com/headphone-amplifiers/diy-solo-headphone-amplifier-upgrade.html

S.

 

[Jimbob54]

Sorry to be wasting thread space. But can't help myself asking...

Have some members on here tried the Graham Slee ULDE?

https://www.hifisystemcomponents.co...solo-ultra-linear-de-headphone-amplifier.html

https://www.hifisystemcomponents.com/headphone-amplifiers/diy-solo-headphone-amplifier-upgrade.html

S.

Needs to be hellishly good to charge nearly £700, which you have to think after shipping and taxes would cost outside EU customers over $1000.

On the basis that £500 (or even £100) amps have passed transparency with power for days, I just dont get what the sales pitch is.

 

[dpippel]

Plus it's single-ended only, for those who care about such things.

 

[Human Bass]

140mw at 32ohms with 1% of noise and distortion lol.

 

[Jimbob54]

140mw at 32ohms with 1% of noise and distortion lol.

Its a very expensive distortion box

 

[bboris77]

Any product that has the words "ultra" and “diamond” in its name makes me feel uneasy. It would be awesome to do a proper 3-way blind test between it and say the A90 and the Heresy.

 

[Jimbob54]

Any product that has the words "ultra" and “diamond” in its name makes me feel uneasy. It would be awesome to do a proper 3-way blind test between it and say the A90 and the Heresy.

Haha. How about sapphires? https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/£13k.14731/post-457691

 

[A Surfer]

I will say that as Slee crafts discrete circuits, with all the risks and rewards that come along with it, that when I had the modest little Novo on hand for several months I was pretty surprised at how nice it sounded. Mind you that was quite a few years ago so not sure today if I would feel the same way. But yes that kind of money seems very hard to justify, but for some people who love how he tunes his gear, maybe for them it is worth it. I couldn't see myself being one of those people.

The Novo I was talking about was actually won by a friend of mine as a door prize donated by planetofsoundonline.com for a head-fi meet I hosted a number of years back. Quite a nice gathering and lots of fun. Anyway, after he won it he loaned it to me for a few months so I did get some decent time with it. I think the headphones that I owned at that time were the DT880 600ohm variant and an HD650.

 

[bboris77]

Haha. How about sapphires? https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/£13k.14731/post-457691

Assuming those are real, at least you know what you are paying for

All joking aside, if an A/B/C blind test between devices with wildly different price points and distortion profiles proves that a listener cannot hear the difference, it would mean that one should just buy the cheapest one that has the features they need (balanced vs single-ended, sufficient power, nice volume pot) and spend the rest of the money on transducers.

 

[bboris77]

I will say that as Slee crafts discrete circuits, with all the risks and rewards that come along with it, that when I had the modest little Novo on hand for several months I was pretty surprised at how nice it sounded. Mind you that was quite a few years ago so not sure today if I would feel the same way. But yes that kind of money seems very hard to justify, but for some people who love how he tunes his gear, maybe for them it is worth it. I couldn't see myself being one of those people.

The Novo I was talking about was actually won by a friend of mine as a door prize donated by planetofsoundonline.com for a head-fi meet I hosted a number of years back. Quite a nice gathering and lots of fun. Anyway, after he won it he loaned it to me for a few months so I did get some decent time with it. I think the headphones that I owned at that time were the DT880 600ohm variant and an HD650.

I have a Graham Slee Gram Amp 2 Se phono preamp and except the ridiculous name, I have no issues with its performance. It would be interesting to see how it measures, but I am not about to send it in to @amirm all the way from Canada. I compared it directly to the Schiit Mani and the Art DJ-Pre II, and the latter 2 had major RFI issues at my house, so I just could not keep them. The Graham Slee unit is very resistant to both RFI and EMI and has relatively low noise floor with vinyl.

This guy hated it though, although one has to suspend a LOT of disbelief to trust his opinion: