Audiovalve

[GWNG8]

Anyone have any experience with this German brand?

https://www.audiovalve.info/

[mulveling]

I had their RKV Mk II tube headphone amplifier back about 13 years ago. It was a nice lush sounding powerful amp, not top-tier in detail or transparency though. Sweet match with Sennheiser HD600 and HD650, if you're after a seductive tubey sound. Smoothed out some of the rough edges and nasty hash you could hear with these headphones on most digital sources of that time.

More recently they've made a couple of dynamic & electrostatic headphone amplifiers (i.e. a "drive any headphone" all-in-one), the "Luminaire" and "Solaris", that were pointed out to have a flawed/compromised design -- particularly on the electrostatic driver side. Even so, a few people reported excellent sound quality on these amps with Stax SR-009 electrostatic headphones (the best headphone, IMO). Again, the warmth of the Audio Valve amp was cited, and in the case of the supposedly "bright" SR-009, a warm amp pairing can be seen as an asset. Unfortunately, these newer Audio Valve headphone amps never seemed to get into the hands of those with the accepted "best in class" high-end electrostatic amplifiers (e.g. the Headamp Blue Hawaii SE, a KG T2, a KGSShv Carbon, or a Grounded Grid). And any Stax-made amp (e.g. 717, 007t, 727, etc) is not even close to a usable benchmark against these reference electrostatic amplifiers. You really need one of the amps I listed to have any taste of the high-end. And given what I read about the design flaws of the Luminaire, there's no way I'd hook my SR-009 up to one of these amps and risk potential damage (which may be why we have no such comparison).

I have no experience with their 2ch gear, but it generally looks cools, and I fondly remember my old RKV Mk II days -- looking at those red circuit boards through the acrylic top. To be honest I've almost re-bought the RKV a couple times, though mostly for nostalgia. I've held a passing curiosity for things like their preamp and phono stage. That said, used examples of this brand on the audiogon marketplace seem to stick unsold for a while, unless *heavily* discounted -- that's just my impression from lurking audiogon classifieds over many years.

These days I'm very happy with my American-made tube brands (Audio Research, VAC, Rogue, and Headamp), and have no need to look at Audio Valve gear.

[GWNG8]

Thanks. Doesn't seem like a brand that has caught on over here.