Riviera Levante Headphone Output

[barbz127]

Hi all,

Wondering if anyone has listened to some headphones from the Levante headphone outputs and can comment on their noisefloor with sensitive headphones (+99db) or any other comparisons with the headphone outs on their AIC10?

Thankyou

 

[eskamobob1]

To piggy back on this question, I (and many others) prefer aic off the rear taps even for headphones. Anyone tried susvara off the rear taps of levante?

 

[Mr. Miyagi]

Would love to get feedback as well

 

[Audio Addict]

Did you see this Stereophile review?

Riviera Levante integrated amplifier Page 2

When I unpacked the Levante, I noticed two pairs of boxed ECC81 tubes and thought oh nice, they sent spares. Not so: The pairs were different brands. The Mullard boxes were empty; the JJ tube boxes were full (footnote 2). Before turning on the Levante, I removed its top cover and verified that...

www.stereophile.com

 

[orrman]

The headphones output is miles behind the speakers taps sound quality. If I want to use high end headphones I plug them using an adapter straight to the speakers output.

 

[Mr. Miyagi]

Wow how does that sound ?

Does that sound better or the same if you used a separate headphone amp?

 

[Mr. Miyagi]

Did you see this Stereophile review?

Riviera Levante integrated amplifier Page 2

When I unpacked the Levante, I noticed two pairs of boxed ECC81 tubes and thought oh nice, they sent spares. Not so: The pairs were different brands. The Mullard boxes were empty; the JJ tube boxes were full (footnote 2). Before turning on the Levante, I removed its top cover and verified that...

www.stereophile.com

View attachment 134319

Thank you so much - kind of what I would have guessed .

 

[orrman]

Wow how does that sound ?

Does that sound better or the same if you used a separate headphone amp?

It competes with the best headphones amps out there and I owned the best available (Mass Kobo 465, Zahl HM1 and the little brother Riviera AIC10-Bal to name a few). It's annoying to replace the back cables every time but I don't use headphones anymore, only my Devores..

 

[Mr. Miyagi]

This is huge - thank you - saves another box! Can you recommend the adaptor you enjoyed ? Assume cable should be tailored to the headphone

 

[rgmd11]

This what Silvio told me last year when I asked him about the Levante headphone output compared to the AIC-10 headphone output...

Silvio
"Thanks a lot for the interest in our products.

AIC-10 and Levante share same concept so, exactly same signal (just differently routed) is present at the speakers or headphone outputs. The headphones output on the AIC-10, also have an attenuator dedicated to high sensitivity headphones.

The Levante do not have a attenuation control and the power can be 35W or 120W depending from the class of use, so, for safety reason, it has a higher attenuation.

It is not easy to compare the sound quality of the two amps also because they share all Riviera concepts, 98% of the circuit and came from the same designer. Let say that the AIC-10 is a bit more delicate and complex in the harmonic structure while the Levante has mode dynamic contrast but you really have to listen to them in direct comparison to listen these differences.

The only reason why the Levante have only a 6,3 output is because the AIC-10 has been designed for Headphones and have the speaker output as an extra feature, the Levante is exactly opposite."

 

[orrman]

This is huge - thank you - saves another box! Can you recommend the adaptor you enjoyed ? Assume cable should be tailored to the headphone

All my cables are from Double Helix Cables, Pete is one of the best in the business. He's fairly unknown yet in the 2ch world but I suspect that will change soon. I use his speakers taps to 4pin XLR adapter (no resistors, just cable) based on his Chimera cable topology. There are many other options available as you can expect. It's more common in the headphones world than you'd think.