Headphone Amplification

Per a ravenous consumer on HF, Justin is making an upgrade version of the BH - any clues? Justin, would you comment?

Ok, so we all know about the various issue SP has delivering product on time. Several long standing members here have had rather large issues but everything always seemed to get sorted out, with the exception of Elephas. And, quite frankly, because I've always found Mikhail to be a nice guy when I've seen him at meets I've treated this all pretty lightly and figured that he'd just gotten behind again or underestimated the amount of time that it was going to take for a custom build. That was until today when I read some of the more recent posts in the SP thread on Head-Fi (thread starts here). What I find most troubling are the posts by Elephas, tom hankins and Kan…

Pictures of the A-10 have been released. Looks interesting to say the least... http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f38/10-thunderbolt-ll-fully-balanced-electrostatic-amp-pre-amp-417185/

I've been the proud owner of a Cavalli Audio Liquid Lightning for over a month now. Now as most will know, this hasn't been exactly a dream of mine but the owner practically begged me to take it and the price was low enough to waste money on it. The normal market price on the Mk1 model has dropped well below half of retail (2400$) at this point and this one was even cheaper. What finally made me buy it is the very unhealthy discussion about this piece and the clear attempts of the manufacturer to kill any negative discussion about it. My views will be questioned because of my history with Cavalli but that's exactly what should be done to any impression that is read. …

First things first - I have no direct affiliation with this product or the vendor but I'm friendly with the designer. If that makes me biased, so be it, I guess I'm biased. Now, onto the amp. Basically it's a single ended amp with transformer coupled inputs and outputs to provide balanced operation and was designed to drive anything from IEMs to the K1000 (via selectable outputs). The tube compliment consists of a 7N7 input tube and two 307A output tubes. More details are available on Todd's site. I'm certainly looking forward to giving it a listen at CanJam even though it far exceeds the ability of my wallet.

From RSA's site: Another amp/dac combo for your portable applications. So many of these are available now. I rather save my hearing for my home/work rig.

Well, since I'm technically a MOT* I'll just post a pic: My impression is that it's orange. *MOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOT MOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOT MOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOT MOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOT MOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOT MOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOT MOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOT MOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOT MOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOT MOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOT MOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMOTMO…

I am trying to wrap my mind around what must go into a solid-state amp to explain a $4250 sticker price. I understand that chassis costs are often one of the largest expenses, but I look at that chassis and it seems many DIY amps on here are more impressive in that regard. It's certainly far short of the RSA A10, looks-wise. Unless there is a few ounces of platinum inside, this seems pretty outrageous. Or am I missing something?

Was meandering over at H-F and noticed another new little amp that grabbed my interest, the Schiit Asgard FET amp. Looks like it might be a fun little amp to play with. I'm contemplating getting it as it's pretty cheap and has a decent amount of power to use as a small SS living room amp. We're still waiting on internal pics but was wondering what the gurus here think of their design philosophy.

Well, the Curse of the CanJam has claimed another victim. After being banned from the meet, Mikhail seems to have jinxed the SinglePower amps in attendance. First Neil's, now my SDS-XLR is dead. I really hope that Andy's amps are not next. Have you checked the amps? I set it up yesterday for the first time since CanJam and had a very strange incident where the left channel did not seem to be working on the K1K and then I switched in my K701 with Black Dragon and the left channel was still out. I swapped the driver tubes and still no left channel. Even though the left channel had been out on two cans, I decided to double check and swapped left and right and th…

I recently built this Bottlehead kit (actually, I had it at Chicago), and I have to admit, it's crossed my mind a few times to sell my beloved Zana Deux since I started listening to it. The kit is about as easy as they come (more cutting/stripping wires than anything else) and I did it in about 4 hours. Here's the killer part. The cost of the basic kit is just $220 and an upgrade kit with CCS boards for both the 12au7 and 6080 cathode follower is another $100. The stock Crack has a strong tubey character but with killer bass and liquid mids and highs. With the upgrade (called the Speedball), the sound becomes more transparent and fast. The frequency extension sounds …

Found this lurking around the other place. I know nothing, just thought I'd share. Lost link to a Dynalo amp? - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio Acoustic-Fun Kevin Gilmore backed it up in the Head-Fi thread.

Received her Wednesday afternoon and we've been getting along just fine so far! Like a lot of my favorite gear, its sonic presentation was unexpected at first and took some getting used to. This happened with the L3000, Qualia, and my vinyl rig - often it takes several listens to really get a handle of whether something so new is truly going to be wonderful in the long run. The one exception would be my SDS, which was pretty much love at first listen. I'm still in that evaluation period with the Zana Deux, but it's already bestowed some truly magical listening sessions and several spine-chilling instances. What got me about the Zana was how it's unlike other tube amp…

Of course it is an arbitrary and ultimately an unimportant question, but it is something I was thinking about today. When do you consider an amp "high end"? I seem to have a pretty firm grasp on what makes a source or a pair of cans high end, but the amplification thing always eludes me. I know when I see the insane Singlepowers like the SDS or Maestro, or a custom job like tkam's, I think that is high end. But what else is out there, really? And then this makes me think, does the law of diminishing returns kick in faster with an amp then a source? Past the $2000 mark, where is there really to go in ampland?

Several of us own them, and there seem to be many differing opinions on amplification. So I thought it might be fun to see what people are using. Post about current or previously owned K1K systems you like. ATM I'm driving mine with an Opera Audio a120 integrated. That's really the only amp I've used thus far, but the plan has always been to use the Beta22 once it's finished with repair and recase. Even though I've little to compare it to, the Opera is a quality unit. I've heard that a good 300B amp is a fantastic mate for the K1K, but I doubt I'd ever spend that kind of cash. So what are your favorites?

Because of a thread on Head-Fi (see link) it got me wondering, only I wanted to add a poll. I know that a poll is somewhat useless as they are misleading since not many people, or maybe even none, have heard them all which will ultimately lead to a misformed / incomplete picture. Nonetheless I would like to try and ask the people who are voting to explain why they voted the way they did, what else they've heard from the list and what sound(sig) they're after. When you feel I have left out an option which cannot be missed on the list, feel free to add your thoughts and please eloborate. A little background: I still have to save up for a desktop amp and had my mind set…

A couple of pictures from Craig to get it started: Very Moth-esque.

Check it out, people! (click the pic) Not yet named officially but called the WES (Woo ElectroStatic) for now.

Justin's Pico Slim gets leaked, and so Ray announces a direct competitor that's "in the works"... News - Ray Samuels Audio

Here's Step 4 of my 12-Step Plan: How To Stop People From Laughing At Your Amplification. Step 1 was simple: Join the head-case forum. Be polite and humble. Try not to cry too much when people laugh at you and post mean things. :'( Step 2 was to refrain from posting too much at head-case, in case someone points out your inadequate amplification. Sure, it's good, clean entertainment for everyone but you don't want to be the butt of the jokes all the time. You can continue posting at Head-Fi as much as you want, your posts will blend in nicely with all the other idiot posts there. Step 3 was to divert attention from your amps by posting exclusively about headphone…

This is my fist posting for this forum. I hope it’s to your liking ! Apart from the audio qualities, I am also interested in the technical qualities of equipment. So my posts sometimes will be a bit technical. Just skip the uninteresting bits. If that is almost all: so much the better. That way you have more time left for enjoying the music ;-) Quite recently I finally managed to obtain a Stax SRA-12S pre-amplifier with built-in ES headphone amplifier. According to the previous (first) owner the amp got very hot. Well, since it is supposed to run quite hot, I was not alarmed and bought the SRA-12S unseen (well…. just a photo). Unfortunately one channel of the …

So, I'll start. What's the deal with the 4 pin connection, and slew rates being improved? Is it by virtue simply of the 4-wire connection, or is it a byproduct of having the two transformers as well? Does it have the same virtues of a balanced setup as far as greater separation and less crosstalk? Please feel free to wax on to a non technical type, I'm here to learn. Do I need to consider a ZDT rather than a ZD if I have no plans to run speakers off the amp?

I figured I'd start a topic on this where people can actually find info about the amp. I'll quote Kevin's post from the DIY thread in below. As with so many other of these projects, curiosity got the better of me so I actually bought one of these amps. It had gone back to Cavalli to be fixed so no claims possible that it was an early unit and the new ones aren't like this at all. That is the usual Cavalli defense plus that we are doctoring the pics to show his crap in an unflattering light. Well for some pics I'll link in Kevin's post now: So let's discuss what is wrong with this thing. First of all, it's not actually balanced, more a quad of single end…

I couldn't decide if this was a DIY thing or not, but I'm going to post this here since it also involves tube-configuration questions and most folks might not read a DIY thread. So my lawyer has purchased an MPX3 that includes the 5687 adapters. As a part of my yearly retainer I will be attempting to add preamp outputs to this amp. The question came up during negotiations as to what the best tube combo would be given that this device will be much more preamp than headphone amp. So what say you, masters of the SP domain? Also, can anyone come up with a plausible reason that I can't just tap the headphone output for the preamp output? I've read other SP modding thread…

I can't stop laughing... this is the silliest amp I have ever seen.