[MaxMini]

The Mentor is not that intensely warm as the Aune S17. Still it is class A and Class A is not only about warmth

The Mentor might not be that impactful or super dynamic but it has a bass that excels in control, layering, nuances, definition and refinement. The S17 can't hold a candle in bass quality.

The S17 is a bit more meaty and visceral but there is much more to the sound than these qualities. Still for more meats to the bone go for the Aune.

Of course there are other qualities to the sound, like transparency, fidelity, resolution, clarity, refinement, timbre etc, that the Mentor outperforms the S17.

Don't get it wrong, the S17 is one of my favorite amplifiers ever but the Mentor is on another league.

It's good HiFi vs High End

Simple.

Thank you for your honest statement, but personally I don't like to pigeonhole things as Hi-End and all the rest. My experience tells me that what is much more important is the combination of components in the sense of synergy in relation to a specific taste.

I see more and more clearly that Mentor is not my pair of Wellington boots. Currently, I am looking for items such as Hifiman Prelude, Violectric V281. I am collecting data, but I see that it is all a matter of certain compromises. You get something, but you also lose something. What @Majuto writes is also very close to me, it's very good to have several amplifiers.

The obvious advantage of Prelude is that it is available and I can return it, which unfortunately cannot be said about Mentor, where returns are excluded as far as I know, and we have already written about availability.

 

[Erick Muller]

Regarding the war in Ukraine, being in Poland I do not see it only from the prism of the media, I would not glorify everyone and everything that is happening there. We have several million refugees from Ukraine here, on the other hand, I know that people are still having a good time in Kiev and I think I know more about business, corruption and the heart of the matter of this war, but let's leave it. Because it should not matter in the assessment of this product.

Millions of ukrainians in poland alone or spread out in europe you mean?

I expect that Flux Labs, if it remains in ukraine will eventually move operations to the western part of the country, closer to the polish border, if not outright move into poland itself., if posible of course.

Regarding the quality of the sound between the S17 and the Mentor, it should be a definitively improvement over the S17. In a kind of related topic, my father recently got an earmen angel, he really likes portable amp/dacs for his headphone listening and I was surprise how powerful and full sounding it was, really comparable to a desktop amp, like really close, significantly more so than the usual Fiio amp/dacs that my father has, so if a portable amp/dac can get this close to my S17, then a dedicated HP amp like the Mentor should be a noticeable improvement.

The thing that you have to ask yourself is why do you need to get the Mentor if you're happy with your current setup?, unless it's to drive really difficult headphones like the Susvara or the Tungsten and you're not having any issues powering your current HP collection and future HP acquisitions, then you should better save the money or get a better DAC, like is my case imho.

 

[Majuto]

Millions of ukrainians in poland alone or spread out in europe you mean?

I expect that Flux Labs, if it remains in ukraine will eventually move operations to the western part of the country, closer to the polish border, if not outright move into poland itself., if posible of course.

Regarding the quality of the sound between the S17 and the Mentor, it should be a definitively improvement over the S17. In a kind of related topic, my father recently got an earmen angel, he really likes portable amp/dacs for his headphone listening and I was surprise how powerful and full sounding it was, really comparable to a desktop amp, like really close, significantly more so than the usual Fiio amp/dacs that my father has, so if a portable amp/dac can get this close to my S17, then a dedicated HP amp like the Mentor should be a noticeable improvement.

The thing that you have to ask yourself is why do you need to get the Mentor if you're happy with your current setup?, unless it's to drive really difficult headphones like the Susvara or the Tungsten and you're not having any issues powering your current HP collection and future HP acquisitions, then you should better save the money or get a better DAC, like is my case imho.

For evaluation we have objevtive measurements, other people's opinions and reviews, our tastes, ears and brain. If you read my last comment earlier today, you met my personal tastes and thoughts based also on other people's views, not so much objective measurements unless they have influenced other people's views. For me objective measurements are not so important.
I guess it's quite useless to try to figure out if Mentor is better amp than Aune. I think personal tastes and headphone synergy with amplifier are the crucial things here. That's why it might be problematic if you change your liked Aune for better Mentor.
Mentor propably is somewhar more detailed, it's bass articulation is a bit more solid, two mono stack is a powerhouse with bigger soundstage. Excellent properties for some headphones, like the Composer and He1000Stealth, but not for all imo, with which Aune is more enjoyable and immersive. That's synergy. So we have to try to define what we mean by better. I would use word propriate or better suitable, but the restrictive use of word better or best...well...doesn't necessarily be a very informative definition. It shines brightly in personal evaluations anyhow.

 

[MaxMini]

Millions of ukrainians in poland alone or spread out in europe you mean?

I expect that Flux Labs, if it remains in ukraine will eventually move operations to the western part of the country, closer to the polish border, if not outright move into poland itself., if posible of course.

Regarding the quality of the sound between the S17 and the Mentor, it should be a definitively improvement over the S17. In a kind of related topic, my father recently got an earmen angel, he really likes portable amp/dacs for his headphone listening and I was surprise how powerful and full sounding it was, really comparable to a desktop amp, like really close, significantly more so than the usual Fiio amp/dacs that my father has, so if a portable amp/dac can get this close to my S17, then a dedicated HP amp like the Mentor should be a noticeable improvement.

The thing that you have to ask yourself is why do you need to get the Mentor if you're happy with your current setup?, unless it's to drive really difficult headphones like the Susvara or the Tungsten and you're not having any issues powering your current HP collection and future HP acquisitions, then you should better save the money or get a better DAC, like is my case imho.

As I wrote, Mentor is not my cup of tea. The amplifier is beautiful, but the fully dual-mono design has its limitations, or to put it another way, its sonic signature.

When it comes to amps, it's all "show me your power section and I'll tell you who you are."
Therefore, in the next amplifier, FLux Labs will move away from two power transformers in favor of one, larger one. Not because the guys from Flux thought that two transformers were nonsense, but because they consciously want to move the sound towards something more massive, less clinical, more oriented towards synthesis than analysis.
That's why I'm curious how much of this cool ethereality of Mentor will remain in the new Flux amplifier, because only the new one will play, so to speak, in the Aune league and we will be able to compare apples to apples. I think we all know how it works, that it is impossible to physically generate sound with meat on bones and at the same time make the sound sources appear in hyperspace, at this level of amplifiers there is always something for something, i.e. always a compromise. Therefore, in this context, we must evaluate the Aune, which, having meat on bones, still generates very good stage spaciousness.

From the new Flux, as it will be twice as expensive as the Aune amplifier, I would expect greater transparency than the Aune. In terms of pure resolution it can at best match the Aune, because it is already above the perception of human hearing (90~120dB). Here I consciously separated transparency from resolution, because these are two correlated but different parameters. Clarity is a semi-subjective parameter, and resolution (SINAD) is strictly measurable.