Leaderboard

I finally got the Spider legs for my ESL57's and after some boiled linseed oil and lacquer, they were installed yesterday: It has changed the sound quite a bit but it mostly makes them easier to live with such as cleaning underneath them and stuff like that. The panels are 49 years old at this point so the SQ is suspect but they play amazingly well for their age. Perfect balance with no noise or arcing at all. Next step will be to replace the panels, paint them and have the covers re-anodized black.

You probably quit listening to the headphones and started listening to the music again. Happens all the time with me when I begin to settle in with new gear and forget about the need to analyze it all the time.

Got a free T-Shirt

LCD2's have an impedance of around 30 Ohms at all frequencies. Utopias have a nominal impedance of about 80 Ohms, but it is not constant and peaks to over 300 Ohms at 50Hz. So think of it this way, the output impedance of the amp forms a voltage divider with the load impedance. Assume you have a 20 to 20K sweep signal of 1V. If your amp has an output impedance of 0 Ohms, 100% of the signal goes into the headphones, so both the LCDs and the Focals will have 1V at all frequencies. Now assume your amp has an impedance of 20 Ohms. The LCDs will have a 0.6V signal at all frequencies (with the other 0.4V lost across the output). The Focals, however, will have 0.8V at most frequencies. But at 50Hz they'll have 0.94V. At 100Hz they'll have something like 0.91V. In the case of Focals, this makes them sound bloated.

I've been using the Sennheiser Trinity (600/650/800S) with the two ECP amps Doug made for me, the DSHA-3 (work) and DSHA-4 (home).

Just switched from HD800s to Utopia on the mini susy dynalo and while the soundstage is different I would definitely not call it small or a bother at all to me. I did notice the smaller stage when i first had the headphones but i don't anymore, not sure what changed.

Looks better on the credit card receipt

Silly me, this is what I thought dockercon was ...

Moi?

Sometimes I think you purposely bait me for bottom jokes.

Overpriced airport fare but hey at least there's bacon (and chocolate)!

Learned to ride a longboard. Now pondering electrics.

Well, we did eat at a nice Brazilian steak house in Buckhead area. I can't confirm nor deny of what Justin and Brent attended afterward. Though I did made a few suggestions.

RIP Darkness. A real comedic talent!

I've never really understood why so many want everyone to like what they like anyway. There's no right or wrong in the audio hobby. If you like a certain sound signature, then have at it. Why do you care if someone else doesn't like it? Jim mentioned both the Beyer DT880, which I somewhat like, and the AKG K340, which I really liked. Should I chastise him for liking the DT880? I happen to find the AKG K1000 as my all around favorite headphone, though many hate it. So what? I don't make the claim that it does everything right, but it's what I find most enjoyable. Why do we need everyone to love all the same shit we love? IMO these people need there decisions bolstered. I for one prefer to be an individual and rely on my own taste (even as bad as it may be).

Grahame the swag master!

Yeah...Thoranna just had to have that one on Staten Island after the first ferry trip... Btw. The black pile next to the statue are the custom Quad covers I had made in Russia. Nicely made and fit perfectly over the speakers to block out the sunlight should it get through the curtains...

Quad's are cool, but I like the Statue of Liberty too

I'll buy one as soon as it is released but I find it kinda funny how far the price has crept up. They were supposed to be well under 2k$ but now they hope they will be less than 3k$...

I was just being a dick. And no, not 'nuff said. You guys realize that I don't really use the Extreme, right, because I pick up radio in my apartment, in the place where I would use it? I've mentioned that before. I had the meet today. I was honestly expecting people to love the Utopias, that maybe I was just weird, and I didn't really talk about them before people started listening, as I didn't want to poison the well. Amps included the KG reworked Squarewave XL, my nearly-maxed Headroom Desktop stack (just missing the SA) , a pretty well stacked DIY Dynalo (I guess these are all ill-suited amplifiers?), some other things, professional gear, that I can't remember, and the Extreme, and several sources. Other people's opinions were pretty much in line with mine. The audio engineers both agreed that they could never use the Focals to mix, as the compressed soundstage made instrument and voice separation very difficult to identify, and that placement would be difficult. The weird aggressive honk in the midrange was also mentioned, and audio engineer friend #1, Simon, asked me if I thought violins sounded like violas on them. He is an audio engineer at my old conservatory, and spends a lot of time listening to acoustic instruments. Strangely, the Extreme was what most people liked the the Utopia the best on, as the honk was less obvious (it also helped that it was hooked to the Electrocompaniet that I'm borrowing from Jim, which I think is excellent). Two peeps, JP and Simon, had previously not liked the HD-800 much, due to the mid-treble tizz, but the SuperDupont mod pretty much fixes that (after listening for the last few days, I definitely prefer the real mod to the Shure olives), and they were greatly preferred. Even HD-600s were preferred, because instrument placement was reasonably accurate, three-blobs be damned, and instruments sounded right. The RS-1s were enjoyed, though nobody thought they were accurate (which, of course, they aren't, but they sure get timbre right, for a lot of instruments), and they certainly have a neat way of placing instruments in space, even if the soundstage isn't very large. I felt quite vindicated. You can believe my report or not, I don't really give a shit. Thank you very much, Todd, for lending them to me. I hope that you like them as much as most people seem to. I was really expecting to. I'll get them back to you in the next couple days. To summarize, I really just don't get it. I think the Utopias are anti-hifi, measurements be damned. They make everything sound the same, and it can be pleasant (the punchy bass is great), but it's not accurate, and I can't hear the room where things were recorded, because there is such a compressed and weird soundstage. Being Mr. Empirical Evidence, it's a tough thing to say, but at the end of the day, I have to use my ears to listen to things. These are the world's best KSC-75.

They are earspeakers, too. But the K1000 are the epitome of earspeakers, at least in terms of form and function. They're even intended to be run from a speaker amp, not a headphone amp. Plus they have that flip out way that they do, so that the soundwave is coming at your ears as if from speakers. I don't care what any of you all say.

It's not just the bass seal, the high frequency wavelengths approach rhe distance between the driver and the microphone so it's highly directional, and I think something is weird about those measurements as well as the lack of seal. Definitely not an easy task to take measurements that accurately represent what is happening in people's ears, which are all different anyway. And it's certainly still more objective than the typical head fi review.

That's a strange name for a titty bar. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

What is wrong with the measurements we took at Ali-pacha's place is the distorsion. A few measurements exhibit "normal" distorsion but a lot don't seem correct. that's why it could be interesting to redo them. That been said, amateurish measurements like mine are not that accurate in term of distorsion, the only thing I can see and show is when things are really wrong. not subtleties. so incorrect distorsion plots in my measurements don't matter much imo. When I decided to measure Stax headphones, i did a choice and make the coupler in order to ensure the best seal. In my opinion it's better to have consistent results even of the hypthesis is not easy to reproduce IRL. at least I can show when the headphone is leaky by design ( 007 mkII vs MKI for example or le L700 I had on loan) . measnurements made with improper seal just teach us nothing else than "OK , the seal is bad" . Another issue with Stat headphones is the "null" we can see here or there in measurements. When the seal is good, those null are stronger and could be misinterpreted by idiots as FR issues whereas those are measurements issues. We all know how to know IRL on our own head what is the effect of a good ( strong fart for example) and broken seal ( boomy mid bass ) . my 2 cents.

It's certainly not out of character for people here to shit on things they don't like. And shitting on grados has been a part of the hobby for at least the last 15 years.

While your source may be excellent your amplifier is ill-suited to lots of things given it's high output impedance. Maybe the Utopia's are one of them? The quality of the tube you have in there isn't going to help with that, either. And one person posting an opinion that isn't the direct mirror of yours is hardly the equivalent of anti-vaxer behavior. I don't know what axe you're trying to grind here but it's a huge bummer.

Arganese CL3. Very decent, after 9 years in my humidor. I got about three inches of ash, but that fell off while I was trying to take a pic, of course, so all I have is a pic after the first 15 minutes. 120 minute smoke.

Missed last night's ep - but will catch up today. Matt LeBlanc is a first rate, top drawer anchor for the show. All shuddering memories of the ginger one are fading from the memory like a bad dream.

Mine will feature a double mains wiring with a separate voltage selector in the amp chassis. Only way to do it properly. Yup, Supremes.

I am sick and tired of all you guys and your nice casework so it's time I shit on the thread: I'm glad this isn't headfi so I don't have to preface how stupid this is on multiple levels. I'm sad it doesn't fit in baby's first audio rack that I just purchased, but maybe it's better that I can't leave it there. this amplifier has certainly changed my mind about ac coupling, I'm so impressed.