I’ve been on quite an audio journey to get to this point. While your op-amps already sounded excellent, the rest of my hardware was showing its age, so I decided to recap my original Asus Xonar STX (the UFG-cap version, pre-MUSES). I selected Rubycon capacitors with the intention of optimizing the power supply and reducing ripple, aiming to provide the Burson V7C with the cleanest and most stable power possible, so it could truly shine.
The Kali MM-6 speakers might seem like an unusual choice for someone focused on musicality, but I aimed to use a setup that could fully reveal what the V7C is capable of, without introducing distortion. Along the way, I made a small mistake during the recap by following some advice that wasn’t quite right—I used a UES bipolar capacitor for audio coupling, where a polar capacitor should have been used. Since I wasn’t purchasing all the capacitors at once, I took the opportunity to upgrade those two UES caps to Audio Note KAISEI instead. At around $9 CAD each, they felt like a worthwhile indulgence.
The result is difficult to put into words. I honestly can’t compare it to anything I’ve heard in the past two decades—if anything, I might have to reach back to memories of the 1980s to find something remotely similar. I don’t just hear a guitar string; I hear all the subtle reinforcing nuances around it—the texture, body, and harmonics that are often missing. I wouldn’t consider myself a “boutique” audiophile; rather, my focus was on making everything as optimal as possible up to the op-amps and the two coupling capacitors.
What truly surprised me is how the Kali speakers now deliver a sense of weight and presence that I didn’t think was possible from them, especially without a subwoofer. My room isn’t acoustically treated—it has carpet, couches, and no reinforcing walls—yet the bass weight and overall fullness are genuinely unexpected. I honestly have no reference point for just how good this sounds; it surpasses anything I’ve heard in a store. It even makes me wonder what classic tube amps sounded like, and how close this setup might be to that character.
I also shared a much more detailed write-up in this Head-Fi thread for anyone interested:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/the-xonar-essence-stx-q-a-tweaking-impressions-thread.421890/page-382
