Headphone Amplification

To make a long story short, I was banned from SuperBestAudioFriends.org (eddie current fanboy club and circle jerk community) by their lord and savior Marv(Purrin) and ZeroFeedex(total bully, back when changstar existed he changed my avatar to an IRL photo he found online from when I was younger and changed my username to my IRL name. He also constantly kept changing my user status to derogatory statuses that were insulting, all for simply voicing my opinion.) I was banned because I posted a thread explaining a situation about an amp I purchased second hand from Eddie Current asking for help to get the issue resolved. I was called a scammer and a liar and immediat…

What is a reasonable price for a used KGSS?

So I'd like to get a small desktop amp to power my SR-44 setup from my laptop and I was wondering what other options aside from a T-Amp might be out there? Budget (Sub $100 would be preferable) or something along the lines of the Starving Student Millet for speakers would be awesome if such a thing exists.

Well I just got done doing tests on the HD650 using my ECM8000 measurement mic and dummy head and room EQ Wizard (that some of you have seen). I kept the mic and headphones in the same spot and tried the following: HD 650 running Balanced from the GS-X (of DAC3 Balanced) HD 650 running SE from the GS-X (of DAC3 Balanced) HD 650 running SE from AE-2 plugged in with wall wart(off DAC3 SE) HD 650 running SE from AE-2 running off battery (off DAC3 SE) I attempted to volume match all 4 configurations but ended up having about .3 db (at 1kHz) variation that I could take out using the software so they all have the same value at 1kHz. Attached are the frequency response…

Raffy is looking for a pair of TS 5998's for his SP and I have a pair that are supposed to be NOS. I would be happy to help him out but I don't know how to test these on my tube tester. I have a B&K 747B. I tried testing them with the 6as7 settings but they both test low this way. Since they are not equivalent to the 6as7's, I am not so surprised (I think this has happened with every pair of 5998's I have tested this way). So can anyone help me/us out? Pretty please.

Has anyone an ideal as to when this unit will come out and an estimate for it's price? Thanks

the Rawsonte First Watt F5 clone off Agon. He immediately removed the listing as soon as I paid, so I don't have a photo, but I can't believe I caught his ad exactly when he put it up and got it I plan to drive various things with this 25 watter, including HE Audio He1.2b electrostats, Sennheiser HE60, and my various speakers. Offical F5 photo

At the SF meet, I heard the WA5 with a pair of K1000s and really enjoyed it. So now I'm looking for an amp to drive the K1000s and HD800s to the top of their game. The WA5 is one choice. The Balancing Act is another, but that doesn't have speaker posts, which I would like to have for additional functionality. The ZDT is a third option, but may not be as good a choice for the HD800 and may come up just a bit short on the K1000 as well (if I understand the tubes used in that amp compared to the tubes used in the BA or the WA5). But beyond that (and I would definitely welcome any comments on choosing between those three), I am a solid-state guy. Is there a solid-sta…

Needless to say, I invested in one of these works of art and well... it didn't disappoint. External build quality is way beyond the Cavalli Mk1 unit I had but inside...yeah.... So if anybody thinks this is good for 300$ they need their head checked. Every expense was spared here, just look at the high quality sockets used. I mean, who hasn't heard of the legendary "Hooya" sockets let alone "ZWEE". I mean quality stuff... Circuit looks to be identical to the LC minus the internal switcher. All the same issue as well plus the super cheap volume control...

Hey everyone, Ok, so I have an SR-71 which I am happy with for the most part, but currently both my DAP's are good only from the headphone out (Rio Karma/iAudio X5); this leads to a problem I'm experiencing with piano passages and clipping. It happens too often for my liking and unfortunately, Ray Samuels hasn't been able to help other than to suggest that I drop the volume out down to 25% of full volume (at that output I have a hard time driving Grados with the amp) or to get a better source So instead, I've decided that maybe I need to get a new amp. Can someone suggest something helpful to me? Is Ray right(only solution is a better DAP)? Is there a better soun…

Anyone had experience of using them? Problems or concerns?

I want a seperate volume dial for the Aleph, at the minute its run off the second set of pre-outs on the NAD. Means I have to fanny around with the switchbox and I'd like rid of that irritation. Cheapest pre-amp i've spotted is the little pro-ject box at

So as a counter point to the Massdrop amps, I also bought one of these Audio-GD units used. The R2R15 seems to have been replaced by the R2R11 which is more SMD based but it looks very similar. So this cost 350$ new, is not balanced but has a discrete R2R dac, discrete headphone amp and can also be used as a single source preamp. The Chinese version of the product page is still active: http://www.audio-gd.com/R2R/R2R15/R2R15CH.htm I must say it does look really fugly in real life (as so many of the Audio-GD product do) but it's amazing that they can do this for 350$.

Reports from Craig as follows: The Zana Duex: Yes I am making the ZanaDuex, it will be firm at $1800.00. Separate power chassis. The caps used are the paper, poly soy caps. You will not find them on line. They were made custom for Moth, in America. I have enough to make 12 Zana Duex's. The first proto will be hand wired from the input jacks to the front switch. The production amps will use relay switching at the rear panel. The tube compliment is one 6SL7 and two 6C33C-B's, and two 6DM4A damper diodes. Now onto the new EC-H:The EC-H does not sound as good as your ZanaDuex, but may offer an alternative for people not wanting to get a second mortgage to support this h…

Man this is a killer amp and as many of you may know I am one fickle motherfucker when it comes to gear. Having gone through a number of amps this year I am really struck by this amp. It sounds absolutely amazing with the balanced HD2s and RS1s. It does a wonderfull job with the k1000s as well, it is super linear without sounding dry at all. To refresh folks on what this amp is and the story, I had been in talks with Craig to design a balanced amp after hearing the Zana. After several months he came up with an amp that used a 12ax7 driver and 6c41cs as output tubes with my choice of Tango or Electra print output trannies. So after I demoed the amp in SoCal Craig shi…

At what point should you start to worry about how hot your amps (and other components) get? For example, my HR Balanced desktop runs hot, as expected, and so does the Desktop Power Supply. Further the DAC1 also runs pretty warm, which is also expected. Regardless of the fact that it is expected, it still concerns me. Should it? At what point do you consider the heat as a sign of a problem, or the imminent cause of one. Er, aside from fire that is.

Hi, I have one amp with those and there may be room for improvement: it uses some Elma electrolytic of 4700mF (and 16V rating if memory serves) on each channel life wire. They seem to block around 25V of DC (rough measure before the cap) so it does not seem a good idea to just bypass them (just joking ). I am looking for some advice, there is quite room for alternatives and even 'groups' of caps if someone gives me a good reason to get rid of those electrolytics... Thanks!

When using Normal Bias Stax SR-Lambdas, or any normal bias stax can; can the sb energizer, paired with a great amp, deliver sound on par with a stand alone stax amp? Or will it always be lacking? example: Pair a fully restored Fisher 400 tube amp -> srd-7sb -> sr-lambda (normal bias) What level of sound can you expect from this? would the performance be on par with anything modern or classic? and is the srd-7sb the weak link here? is the standard srd-7 preferred? I have been pondering this, as it can be much easier, and less costly to find and restore an old tube amp then to buy or build a new amp. The Fisher for example is a well regarded amp. is …

Has anyone here heard a Woo 3 with top of the line super duper exotic tubes? I'm just wondering how it would compare to something like a singlepower. It would be alot more convinient for me because of the size, but I don't want to lose out on SQ. By the same token, how about an Earmax?

Just because my turntable only has one headphone out, this prevents me from having to pull cables every time I want to listen to a different amp. Does a preamp actually do anything to a signal, or is it just a fancy switchbox? This has always confused me.

Not a bad deal at all. Seller wants a local pickup. If I was in the Bay Area I would probably pick it up. Any Bay Areas interested? It is on sale on the other site. Seller is located in Sacramento. FS: SinglePower Extreme - Local preferred - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio

Here is something that has been cooking for a while but I've been just too busy to do anything about it. So JR Audio out of China have been building our amp designs for a while now and I started to hear horror stories almost immediately. They naturally have no right to use our designs and work in their crappy products but since when has that stopped anybody... I have been looking for one of these amps for a while now as I want to rip it apart and well... one owner contacted me. I'm going to ask him to come here and tell his story which is quite the tale. Let's just say Caveat emptor... So here is the amp and it arrived dead which will soon be clear. It is the K…

Hi, Has anyone tried the Antares? How does the circuit design and specs look? http://high-amp.de/html/antares.html Thanks

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3213610#post3213610 Congrats Stephen!!