[FloridaBoy]

Originally Posted by decooney

re: Orchid, "forward". The sound and presentation is definitely system dependent and related to your other gear as well when it comes to where sound is situated and where it's coming from in the sound stage. Mine tends to be less forward right now, with Orchid.

This weekend I did some testing and was able to change the sound (with the Orchid in play) from forward to less forward, now sort of "mid hall" as I've heard FloridaBoy say. That's about right and how I would describe it.

Change:
Simply rotated in some more modern JJ Groovetube tubes on the inputs of my tube amplifier as a test. The modern tubes produce a more "forward" sound in my tube amp. Then, rotated back to 1960 NOS Sylvania Black Plates my amp runs EL84s and 6922/12BZ7s on the front end. In doing so, was able to reposition the sound to more of a "mid hall" sound.

So, it kinda also depends on the amp type, tube type, other factors and the MHDT Orchid seems to do fine to respond to the tube changes. Now, if I had a solid state amp that was bright or edgy, I'd probably be looking to pull out the GE 5-Star Triple Mica tube out of the Orchid and replace it with the WE396A tube. With my tube gear the GE tube sounds better overall in the Orchid DAC. If I get another SS amp some day, will re-try the Orchid with the WE396A tube in play. Again, all system dependent according to other things going on in your particular system as I'm learning with the MHDT DAC/Orchid so far.

The Abbas is now more forward with the capacitor change. Different caps will be going into the Orchid soon. So it may not be possible to generalize.