Donald North Audio Stellaris - The Experience

Can someone give this guy Pyrate status? @shotgunshane ? This should be in the private tube thread.

 

100 percent. The 691P-EV sounds perfect with Stratus to me after hearing many different input tubes. Plus they are dirt cheap. Thanks for the impressions on the Stellaris @bigjako. Enjoy it!

 

Yup. And May KTE > Stellaris is not too much of a good thing, from extensive experience.

 

That’s a great comparison bigjako fleshing out the notable upgrade in ‘effortlessness’ and ‘authority’ that comes with Stellaris vs Stratus - per DNAs terse comparisons. Continue to find Stratus the perfect EQ for HD 800, really filling out the center image and really love the character, as others here have promoted - a kind of vivid voluptuousness…have gathered that DNA seeks a sound that is not ‘dead’ and sounds like Stellaris is even less ‘dead’ sounding than Stratus, which is just so wonderfully alive but wet top to bottom.

Neither here nor there - but I’m a reverse Sennheiser stock cable snob - if anyone is frustrated, as I was, in using an adapter with the 4.4 balanced cable - recommend sending either the 4.4 or SE stock HD 800 cable off to Corpse Cable. I had him reterminate the stock HD 800s cable with a nice neutrik connector and consider it a great bargain in this hobby compared to the ridiculous 300$ cost for the XLR terminated stock cable

 

looking for r2r dac recommend that is not made in china or made by china
i'm getting my stellaris very soon

 

I recently had a chance to properly test the Stellaris (it should have stock tubes), and comparing it with Feliks Envy (also with stock tubes, and also I used to have Riviera AIC-10 so I have a good idea how it sounded like). I think this amp seems to sound a bit different from how @purr1n described it in the beginning of this thread, if we put Riviera AIC10 on one side (it's warm, somewhat forgiving but it's very SS in terms of grip and bass quality you won't mistake this with a tube amp) and Envy on the other side (Envy has certain SS strengths such as grip and bass control but it's definitely "tubey" sounding, you won't think this is an SS sound), the Stellaris I tested is actually leaning closer to my former AIC10 in terms of sound profile but has very minimal warmth: it's a very vivid / intense and tight sounding amp with focus on clarity and ability to bring out texture and micro details.

The overall sound is a bit hard to describe, I will try to gather my thoughts in the next couple of days...

I am just a bit surprised because from what I read the Stellaris is supposed to be traditionally "tubey" it seems but the one I heard is very far from it. If you want to chill and relax, this is not the amp for you.

 

I also don’t think the Stellaris or Stratus (V3) sound “tubey”, when I want that I listen to my bottlehead crack. To me they both sound neutral with a unique and unmatched presentation. When talking to Donald about their awesome presentation he said this is the magic of 2a3 tubes.

I can tune them with different tubes to be smoother and/or warmer though their general characteristics still hold.

 

I also want to comment that Stellaris that I tested is not very wet sounding. From what I remember EC Balancing Act (which I like very much) is drier still but it’s not as dense sounding and has softer attack notes. Feliks Envy sounds wetter to me also.

Interestingly also I find the Stellaris is able to drive RAAL Immanis (with RCD 32 ohm interface) pretty well. The combination gives excellent clarity with just enough tube flavouring but it’s a bit lacking in warmth in lower frequencies for my personal taste.

Both Sus OG and Sus Unveiled are not really a good match sadly. Unveiled is a bit better but my SAEQ Hyperion Ge is a better match with both Hifimans. The Stellaris is a better match with the Immanis.

All comparison notes are performed with stock tubes.

 

DNA does not follow the "Tube amps are rich and warm and ethereal (aka imprecise)" cliche. the Supernaut in particular would fool most blinded listeners into thinking they are listening to something other than tubes

 

Anecdotal experience of spending time with one EC amp for half a day: could have fooled me that it was solid state other than how jarringly good the headstage was (primarily using an HD600 with flat, very worn out pads to evaluate). I forgot who it was that said this recently but I agree wholeheartedly: the best tube amps could be mistaken for solid state while the best solid state amps could be mistaken for tubes.

That said, kinda confirmed I'm sadly not likely to be perfectly satisfied with an EC design, at least not one of the Studio models, mainly because they lean dry for my preferences. Shame cuz they look so cool. Already even had warmbutt Modius AKM feeding them out of the single ended outputs at the time so that was probably best case scenario to try them with. I'm almost afraid to demo one of Donald North's amps cuz I feel like that might just drop my jaw to the floor lmao.