Airist Audio Heron 5 Loaner (CLOSED)

That would fit well with my schedule. I'm hoping to have two or three weeks off from corporate responsibilities around that time.

 

Thanks Luckbad! Any idea if the low and high outputs on the front are for gain purposes, impedance, or both? I'm surprised I had to turn up the volume knob so much with the output power and gain that the Heron 5 has. Maybe they did actually fix it after the meet.

 

I thought the designer said at the NY Meet that the "high" and "low" outputs are just for impedance , not gain. However, there was definitely a huge difference in volume between the two so maybe I misunderstood him. I was saving my comments on the amp for the NY Meet impression thread (which I hope to get to soon), but I thought for the price this did not really have enough power for orthos. I had to really crank it for adequate volume on my Oppo PM-2 which are pretty efficient. Otherwise, I thought it sounded OK but didn't blow me away. I can think of much better choices for me personally at that price point. But the founders all seemed really nice and interested in trying to make good products FWIW. Oh well, I guess I basically gave my impressions after all.

 

If the timing works, maybe it can be at the SoCal hangout.

 

Yeah but even that statement is kind of vague. You could interpret it a few ways. Hmm... well if you had to crank up the volume with the PM-2 that could mean two things (or more), assuming that the gain and output power are to specifications:

1. The music player's digital volume was not maxed out.
2. Their prototype dac wasn't outputting enough voltage.

 

$2000 is a pretty insane price for their first amp ever. We'll see if it has any potential. If you've noticed, none of us from the NY meet had anything to say about how the amp sounds.

 

You are probably onto something. The specs posted above say 5W into 32 ohms (I think) which should drive the schiit out of the PM-2. But the amp sounded weak. I attributed this to the amp (and I believe there were some similar comments over at HF), but maybe the issue was up the chain. Not sure how they could have let that happen as it definitely affected my impression of the amp they were trying to promote.

 

Maybe they should have read and memorized every page of Jason's book on Head-Fi before going into the audio business.

 

Well they've already broken schiit's sales rule with their black friday sale..

 

It's a true wire with gain amp! An open window into the music.

Unfamiliar recordings (mostly classical and audiophile music like sphinxvc mentioned in the meet thread), prototype dac (ladder dac, 28bits claimed), loud ambient noise, issues with volume/gain. It was just too hard to tell.

 

That's it. It's the Keyser Soze amp. Poof and it's gone.

 

Hmm, that's quick!