After my sample had stopped at Elise's London haunt, it skipped across the narrow Irish sea to County Clare's Shannon airport. I'd just taken receipt of Unveiled versions of HifiMan's Ananda, Arya, HE1000 and Susvara. A 3m XLR4 leash of Lavricables' best Gran line with 3.5mm plugs for the cups was enroute as well. The hifi deities had certainly been busy synchronizing a show. I felt like the mayor of Las Vegas with free chips for all casinos. Other than four HifiMänner, for headphones I had two each Raal and Final—Immanis & Magna, D7000 & Sonorous X—FiiO FT7 and aune SR7000 thus a mix of planarmagnetics, ribbons and dynamics. For premium amps I had Enleum's AMP-23R. First, I still felt the need for more on the brand and Dionysus. I sent an email to Mr. Zheng Jinqiang as the contact Elise Audio put me in touch with at the factory. Ahmed had warned that their own communications involve AI and software translations to not expect fluent exchanges. With the PRC's Fire Horse New Year's celebrations in full swing by then, I'd wait for the factory to reopen.

Whilst Gemini AI misidentified the 10 translucent components with vertical coils as bespoke high-voltage film capacitors, a proper engineer I asked called them high-current relays. I'd not seen such before and didn't know what they were.

Under the bottom cover, the slim-Jim mystery resolves with three Chinese-made MeanWell switching power modules. The smaller one generates 24V, the two larger ones conceal that rating beneath red foam rectangles creating damping against the bottom plate. Marginal sleuthing suggests they're medical-grade MPM-90-48 issue capable of 90W max power at 48VDC/1.8A. Their no-load power consumption is less than 1/10th of a watt, efficiency 93%. The dozen caps per channel are 330µF/63V issue, the Alps Blue potentiometer beneath the floating headphone-port board is a four-gang balanced type. Each bank of output transistors consists of eight devices so four per half wave. Dimensions are 40cm wide and 29.25cm deep without volume knob. Height without footers is 5.8cm, 7cm with. Weight is 5.5kg. And that's all the fly on the wall saw and said before the bonnet closed again with just four screws.

Once connected to my desktop, all overkill worries died a most sudden death. In low gain, Susvara Unveiled attained cruising altitude at max. On 200w monos in their own low-gain mode, my 83dB speakers hit 1'00". With Dionysus at medium gain, the speakers backed off to 10'30", Susvara made it to high noon all without any noise. Also, the taper on the non-stepped attenuator was ideally shallow. No premature evacuation. No distress signals. Where early Silenos feedback called these parameters misjudged, Dionysus was clearly recalibrated. That said, high gain is mostly 4×4 super-traction mode for when we're headed for the gnarly weeds of insufficient source gain encountering recordings never eclipsing -20dB hooking up with ModHouse Tungsten-type loads.

In high gain, Susvara Unveiled managed 10'00", FiiO's FT7 topped out at 8'30". And yes, these gain settings also apply to the pre-outs. In preamp mode, three-stage gain prior to the master attenuator is very useful to enjoy maximal adjustment range relative to our amplifier's voltage gain and its load's sensitivity.