ECP DSHA3F Ravenswood 3F

I will patiently wait for a secondhand unit where someone is willing to drug mule this across the border for me because I refuse to pay the stupid Canuck import tax
(I wouldn't be surprised if it hit 30-40% total ugh)

 

From the website the transformer looks to have dual windings and pins to set the voltage. Not sure why they couldn’t do 230v on this run

 

We had an option to select the voltage at the time of placing order during original run. Mine is 220v one.

 

But you

but you’re talking about the original made by Doug right? Not this Nitsch collab in the new case?

 

Voltage is selectable on this one, too, but they are all being preset at the factory. If you can solder, you can change it without too much trouble. You'll have to ask @CEE TEE what effect this has on the warranty.

 

Woo-hoo!

• 2 production samples received on July 17 are great.
• Shipping company will pick up amps from the factory tomorrow (July 27) for air shipment to NITSCH.
• Showing the 2 production DSHA-3FN amps at Bay Area Meet this Saturday, July 29th.
• Taking orders during the first or second week of August and then shipping them out!

 

I have had the privilege of listening to this project through the various stages and can confidently state the DSHA-3FN is faithful to the auditory intent of the original DSHA-3F.



The combination of Holo Audio KTE Spring 3, Nitsch DSHA-3FN and HD800-JAR has been allowing me to seriously escape for mental rejuvenation through extraordinary musical immersion.

 

More compact footprint too...this will definitely sell.

 

A very elegant, classy design. The choice of colours and that volume knob

I hope this stays exclusively within the community and doesn’t get flipped repeatedly by Headfi flippers.


I want the first 230v one

 

IT.IS.HAPPENING.



Received all the amps this past week and serialized them. They passed QC and listening tests!

Confirmed the first run is all 120V. (For the next run will be sure to have 220V amps.)

Finishing up the site photography and making the printed manuals this week.

Just reached out to people on the notification list and opened up manual orders over the next couple of days…

All of the amps will be repacked in hard cases before first orders starting to ship out on the 14th!

Here are some photos...last two show the range of walnut (dark to light), most of them are in the middle:

 

Has anybody tried the Utopia 2022 out of the 3F? So far, impressions of the Utopia 2022 seem pretty lukewarm on SBAF, but I can imagine the Utopia 2022 synergizing nicely with the 3F and a resolving, forward-sounding DAC like the Yggdrasil A1 or A2. Any impressions?

 

So... the short of it is: I picked up a 3FN from @CEE TEE because I always knew I needed a small, compact, sweet and awesome amp on my desk. Upon first listen, I have said those 2 words...

...until now. That was actually even slightly before you wrote that. Save for HE6SE, all of my other headphones just sound "right" on the 3FN. It's like technology (dynamic, planar, etc...) doesn't even matter and this whole talk about "synergy" is just a lie.

It makes even a "review" moot at this point because to me, this amp just looks and sounds like... perfection. It is truly special.

What can I say? It is truly the best solid state headphone amp I have ever seen or heard. Bar none.

 

I believe I got the very last of the first run. Super duper early impressions and must be read in order because that's how I listened and wrote the notes:

PC->SPL Mercury dac->SPL Phonitor 2 preamp->3FN->headphone

JAR660: oof this was not a good pairing, overly smooth almost veiled, bass lacking extension and thump
ZMF Verite Open: more body and thump, higher air, really great clarity overall
Audeze LCD-X 2021: greater presence than JAR660, more energy but lacking clarity of ZMF VO, but waaay easier to drive which gives it a boosted sense of dynamics, though ironically weaker thump
OG HE-6: bwahaha actually it sounds good but it chokes out beyond low-mid levels, better clarity than VO, not the same thump but more defined

I have an ETA Mini-S but lack a balanced cable for it, and also an Audio Zenith PMx2 but it is on loan with a friend. I also have an HD-25-13 with 600 ohm drivers which I haven't tried yet.

 

I finally hooked up my DSHA-3FN and have been listening a bit over the last couple weeks. It's hooked up to my Yggdrasil Analog 2 (via RCA outputs; the XLR is reserved for my speaker electronics) and source is a Pi 3b+ Pi2AES. So far the 3FN has been the best amp I've tried with my Utopias.* The amp that I had been using prior to the 3FN was an ECP T4.

I wanted to share some initial impressions and then ask for some advice from those who are more familiar with the amp.

IMPRESSIONS TO-DATE

After unhooking the ECP T4 and hooking up the DSHA-3FN, the initial impressions were:

• The 3FN places you further from the stage than the T4. T4 made sound images bigger. This larger image size combined with the T4's higher perceived bass presence was sometimes too much for me, especially on drum- and/or bass-heavy tracks. I of course always used the T4 on the loZ setting with Utopias.
• Because the 3FN places you a little further from the stage, the stage feels a little narrower laterally overall compared to the T4. This is probably a function of the Utopia's narrower lateral stage as well. I've always thought the Utopia has a pretty good depth presentation, so I'm personally fine with this as sounds remain nicely delineated in space on the 3FN still given the Utopia's great imaging capabilities.
  
• The 3FN felt more resolving. I haven't A/Bd the amps directly or anything, but there was the impression that I was hearing more music, more detail/growl in bass guitar, easier to hear little things in the mix, etc.
• The 3FN does feel neutral, but not in the annoying way that I felt my Ragnarok 1.5 was. The highs are not super edgy like they've been on some amps. it's not a warmpoo, super pleasant listen, but it's way more listenable than the Ragnarok if that makes sense. I can listen a decent amount louder than I did on the Ragnarok and even a little louder than I did with the T4.

QUESTION RE: SOURCES

After re-reading most of this and related threads, I'm beginning to wonder whether the Yggdrasil Analog 2 is just too aggressive of a source for the Utopia, regardless of amp. As you can see in the footnote below, I've cycled through various amps over the years, and have never really been super happy with the synergy overall. All of them have been used either with the A1 cards or A2/OG cards. I've had an Yggdrasil since November 2015 and upgraded from A1 to the A2 cards back in June 2018.

I've seen recommendations of using a warmer/darker DAC with the 3F/N. Seems some people prefer Holo DACs in NOS mode. I think Yggdrasil LIM could be a good match tonally perhaps, but with what I've read re: simplification and significant reduction in resolution I'm nervous to try that.

I'm very interested in trying the Yggdrasil More Is Better cards, and may send in my A2/OG to get upgraded to the new chassis, MIB cards, and Unison later this month so I can compare. It seems that replacing the A2/OG cards with MIB cards could tone down the dynamics of the Utopia a little bit, which while paired with the 3FN is probably a good thing. Plus the MIB appears to have a more cohesive and less aggressive sound overall than the A2/OG. (May not pair as well with the Maggies, but willing to try it out. I've been very pleased with the sound of the A2/OG + Coda gear with my Maggies)

So for those of you that are familiar with the OG DSHA-3F and/or the Nitsch DSHA-3FN, what are the specific (solid-state) sources you have found to have the best synergy with the amp, ideally when paired with Focal headphones?

///

* List of amps I've owned or demoed on loaner with Utopia: ECP T3 (regular and then upgraded; preferred regular), Schiit Ragnarok 1.5 (low gain only; anything else too much for Utopia), Schiit Asgard 2 (in a closet), Nitsch Magni Piety (in a closet), Schiit Jotunheim 2 (loaner), Schiit Ragnarok 2 (loaner; liked some and disliked some vs. Ragnarok 1.5), AAW Black Amp (loaner; really good, but no balls/kick at all), Bryston BHA-1 (too much gain and thought Ragnarok was better), Schiit Lyr+ (loaner; really liked this actually, but worried about reliability and headphones blowing up given other experiences I've read with Lyr 3 and the like), and ECP T4 (like an improved T3, but still don't love the pairing with Utopia and I don't know why). I have not tried a DNA or EC tube amp. I don't have space for EC tube amps in my rack, and I hate the smurf blue of DNA tube amps. If DNA amps could be ordered in black, I may get over my dislike of tubes and get a Starlett or something.

 

Try Metrum Adagio or Sonnet DAC. It may be what you are looking for with DSHA3F

 

I have your exact chain and here's what I do to make it a bit less aggressive:

1. ZMF Pads: These make the Utopias slightly more mellow, slightly bassier, and have slightly better soundstage size.
2. Yggdrasil NOS mode with HQPlayer upsampling: I have found that using the Yggdrasil in NOS mode with HQPlayer upsampling makes the sound a little smoother and more liquid (I use the poly-sinc-guass-xla filter FWIW).
3. Neotech cables (see this SBAF thread for some impressions from others): I make my own interconnects and headphone cables with Neotech UPOCC wire and they are an improvement in every way IMO, but they make the sound a bit smoother and less aggressive.

I hope that helps!

 

Oh, I also just remembered that this USB card that @purr1n recommended helped smooth things out a bit, too.

 

@zonto ... I know you say SS source, but I love the SFD-1 mkii with my 3F (but I use OG Clear, not Utopia).

To build on @Ksaurav402 suggestion... I had a Metrum Amethyst that I imagine would have synergized well with the 3F from a tone standpoint, but might have been a little closed in sounding (I'm hypothesizing, I got rid of the Amethyst a couple of months before picking up the 3F). I think there is a reasonably Metrum Onyx in the for sale section now...

----edit-----
link to FS Onyx listing