Audiophilepure

https://www.stereophile.com/content/audio-note-meishu-tonmeister-phono-integrated-amplifier

 only talked about vinyl, because I had my best experiences with vinyl. But I also used the Meishu with my HoloAudio May DAC. The combination was rich and fluid and brought me many hours of musical satisfaction and surprise.

In 2011, Art Dudley wrote in his review of the Audio Note Jinro integrated of “an abundance of that often-noted-yet-never-explained ‘SET sound’ that allows solo voices and instruments to stand musically and spatially proud of the rest of the mix.” That, certainly, is part of what I heard with this Meishu amplifier. It framed every recording within its unique space with meatiness and viscosity, drive and dynamics, deep tone and texture.

Words fail to express the satisfaction I derived listening to music through this expensive Audio Note integrated amplifier. I’ve got nothing bad to say about it—except for the air thing, if you care about that. I detected no (other) anomalies, artifacts, sonic peculiarities, or outright shortcomings. The Tonmeister, together with the Audio Note SUT I auditioned it with, took what I hear from my vinyl collection and made it better, portraying each performance as a singular, unique event occurring at a particular time and place, its secrets revealed.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/rotel-ra-6000-integrated-amplifier

Neither Rotel’s website nor the RA-6000 owner’s manual give any specifications (power, gain, and output impedance for example) for their 1/8″ front-panel headphone output. So I asked Coates for more information. “The headphone output on the RA-6000 is designed to be used with most lower-impedance headphone designs. 32 ohms is the design reference, but there’s plenty of drive for headphones of slightly higher impedances as well,” he wrote in an email. “600 ohm, low sensitivity monsters need not apply, though! The rated output is 120mW into 32 ohms full bandwidth at less than 0.02% THD. Distortion rises quickly beyond that point, with a maximum rated output of 140mW [also into 32 ohms]. Output impedance of the headphone amplifier circuit is rated at 680 ohms.” (footnote 1) The specified gain at the headphone output is 14.8dB.

Those specifications caused me to wonder: What headphones might a typical RA-6000 owner use? I didn’t have a ¼” to 1/8″ adapter, so I reached for my use-it-all-the-time, works-with-every-amp Sony MDR-Z1R headphones, which employ dynamic drivers, cost $1798, and come stock with a 1/8″ plug. Their 100dB/ mW sensitivity and 64 ohm impedance classifies them as easy to drive, and their style suggests something a Brooklyn hipster might use if they owned a Rotel integrated.