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Loaded the truck yesterday. Left half of the skin on my face in Texas, while loading my scooter. Do not try to hold a 600 lb. bike with your face, when it slides off the ramp. But California still gets 99.6 % of me. Started out at 6:15 am, and made it about 800 miles to Las Cruces, NM. Bye bye Texas, smell ya later! Hope you made good time today too JP.

moved furniture around took furniture and yard waste to the dump moved furniture around watched carpet get installed watched paint get applied took furniture and cardboard to the dump moved furniture around went to dinner moved u-haul u-box containers around

Pressure Cooker Apple Cider Pork Loin. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Mounted the DiNotte up and the fenders but found there could not be enough clearance for the quick release on the DiNotte with the fenders mounted so I had to ghetto mount it down on the seat stay for the winter. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Got the new DiNotte lights charged. I can't say the build quality is as impressive as I expected but the amount of light is ridiculous. Like cannot look into the light without seeing spots for long periods of time bright. I can see why people complain about having to follow people riding with these lights.

0 noise. I'm using 2sk170/2sj74 [emoji1] With Toshiba Jfets is very stable, offset closed to 5~0 mVolt on both channels On R channel I'm using a THAT "good" (1 of 6) I hate this shit

Test Tone @ Home live right now: http://mixlr.com/illuminator/chat

Taking the remaining hours of the day prepping, taping and repairing Lance's fencing gear for this weekend's two day tournament in Arizona. Much wine has been consumed this evening.

Was at Newquay, Corwall (UK) to watch Bloodhound SSC doing its first public runs. Just using the Eurofighter Typhoon jet engine to propel the 5 ton vehicle to >200mph in 8 seconds. It was bloody awesome. In no uncertain terms it was bloody awesome. Next year, using the the jet engine and one rocket there will be a straightforward land speed record attempt of around 800mph, and in 2019 the full >1000mph once they have put in a cluster of three rockets. This is a long video, but the first section is well worth watching, as is Andy Green's commentary on his supersonic record 20 years ago. The first hour and a quarter is about yesterday, and then 2h to 2h15 is about the supersonic runs 20 years ago.

Time for some impressions of this rare beast. The Icelandic distributor has a set on loan and they carved an entire afternoon out of the schedule for me to try it and do some comparisons. I showed up with the HE90 I built from spare parts, Aristaeus, Carbon amp and a port modded SR-007Mk2. Since they were using the built in dac on the HE-1, I just plugged both amps into as well to equalize the comparison. Over all, I like the build quality of the headphones. Imagine a HD800 built properly and you are pretty much there. The leather earpads are super nice and the headband has nice extension to even fit my large melon. I don't think they are super comfy though as they are fucking heavy (550gr) and all of the pressure is on the top of the head. The Stax 4070 is just about as heavy but far more comfy due to the suspended headband design. The earcups get a bit warm due to the internal amps but only about 5-7°C above ambient. The cable is also pretty nice and not microphonic at all but more on the amps etc. later. Amp itself...well it is just fucked up. I get that they were trying to cater to some nouveau-riche people who just want something expensive but the wank factor is off the charts. I also have serious doubts about what's hiding in that nice marble shell... As for the headphones them selves... well the drivers look pretty much identical to the HE90 units and the few pictures of them that exist, point to that. I wanted to rip off the earpads to check further but people get antsy with something this expensive... One worrying thing I noticed though is that both sides of the drivers have porous dust covers. They look identical to the woven nylon found on the HE90 and well...I would expect solid covers. Now for some actual impressions. As I said above the HE-1 dac was the source for all the amps. To that you have to turn off the headphones so no direct comparisons were possible but I know how both systems should sound so not a big problem there. The source feeding the HE-1 was a Macbook Pro running itunes but I bypassed that with my own FLAC files and player. There are some major changes compared to the older system, this one can do bass and isn't as horribly colored either but over all...I was not impressed and the system never made me really interested in the music. It doesn't engage like a good 007 system can, where I sometimes just sit in awe even after owning a set for all these years. Here, it just doesn't pull me in. This is clearly a midrange issue as there just isn't enough presence there. First off the major issues are the bass, treble and the soundstage. Let's start with the bass, it has this annoying hump to it sort of like the old Lambdas. I'm not sure if this is the mosfet driver (could be, the Cavalli crap boxes have similar issues) or the headphones but it is a clear coloration and once you notice it, just annoys the fuck out of me. Now on some tracks it wasn't as noticeable but always lurking in the background none the less. Next up is the treble...which is both subdued and bright at the same time. I know plenty of people complain the 007's lack sparkle and with the Mk1 this was mostly true but they could be bright if the source called for it. The HE-1 manages something different, the treble is just flat and boring but then it suddenly bites hard. Now I was listening at higher levels but still nothing super loud, only about 12 o'clock on the dial. This also wasn't like the upper midrange bite of the 009's, more lower treble fizz but the source material didn't call for this. I'm so used to listening to SR-X Mk3 Pro drivers now (which are pretty much the gold standard for treble) as they are in my DIY headphones and nope, nothing like this. I suspect the amp is a huge influence here too but no way to verify that... Last major issue, the soundstage. Many will know my stance on the old HE90 where it sounds like you are listening to some people playing in dense fog and you can't quite make out where they are. This time around it is much improved but the lack of pin point accuracy is still apparent. The soundstage is also a bit too far away for my liking and it just doesn't throw the same huge headspace the 007's can. This also affects the midrange and the whole "disconnected" feeling I got from the whole system. I once reached for my phone as I was just a bit bored listening to it. Over all I like that Sennheiser built this but they really should have spent more time on the electronics. I don't think there are any improvements to moving the amps to the cups over something like the Carbon where I can burn 50+W as heat and overcome the small capacitance in the cable. Next post will discuss the tech specs of the system but I'll end with another picture of it all... It was really dark in there and I suck at taking pictures... Now for some technical discussion. I found the specs in the back of the manual and it turns out the bias is 650VDC and the amps run at +780VDC. This makes this more than compatible with Stax so I see no issue with removing the internal amps and rewiring one of these for Stax use. I have been asked to that before but I'm really hesitant to mess with something this expensive. That said, moving to proper amps which are not just the HEV70 rehashed can only be an improvement. I've never found any mosfet device with sufficiently low Cob to work in this role so I truly don't get what Senn were thinking. Some other info, the entire amp only consumes 40W per the user manual which doesn't leave a lot for the actual amps. So we have 8 tubes running with heaters plus all the motors in there. HV supply for the tubes, another for the output stage and well...not a whole lot of power to spare here. Compare that to the BHSE, Carbon or even the T2. All of them use far more power and it is just for one goal, to power the headphones. I also played around with the amp and I could swear that the volume control feels like a RK27. No way to know but how it felt when moving to the extremes...it was just like a RK27. Now as a proper volume control aficionado... ... they all feel a bit different. TKD feels nothing like a P+G or a RK50... Until somebody opens one of these up, take it how you will. It is also clearly a volume pot and not a chip or some other setup.

That would come in extremely handy

No idea but I came up with two versions of an electrostatic amp that has the Dynahi front end awhile back. They definitely need more tweaking so I will revisit, but I have been too busy learning CNC stuff recently.

^^^ I know this day! Strength, it will pass.

Damn it, JimL. Must you always be right? First, you intuitively guess a bad DN2540 on the input tail CCS and were right. Then you intuitively guess 12AT7 issue and, again, were right. I put in all of the known good tubes from my prior amp, and the new amp is now acting and adjusting perfectly. Rock solid and steady, even with SE config (cold input tied to ground). And even with the filaments still elevated. I did not think at first to try that because I had already put all those good tubes in the new amp and it did not help. But that was when I still had a bad DN2540. JimL, you absolutely rock the STAX world!! mwl168, jose and mypasswordis, thank you too for your help. I very much appreciate this wonderful community.

I very much prefer a layered and deep soundstage over a bloated one. I also wouldn't call the Stax sets the colored ones as well...I could hear the big far imprint of the amp all over. Mosfets sound like shit basically...think Cavalli and you know what I mean.

Bump in the low mids, like old Lambdas (I think about my Lambda Signature), check. Lacking some excitment compared to Staxens, kinda german coldness in the mids, check. Sometimes biting in the highs in spite of flat high mids (Sennheiser tone for me), check. All around I pretty liked them, but there's indeed something a tiny bit too cold / distant compared to what may be a coloration from Staxens. Don't completely agree with your assessment on soundstage though, but looks like you're a man of deep layered soundstages more than volumic ones. Eager to see you daring tear them apart and hardcore modify them Ali

It's been cranky for about 3 1/2years. That'll change in about a week.

Yeah, no way on that paqui chip. That looks terrible. Fish n chips however, look great! Tonight had Rock shrimp and bay scallops in a spicy tomato sauce over spaghetti

I *might* be getting a 2nd cat, have a call with the breeder shortly:

Great time with Al & Steve! Good food, great friends, incredible fall scenery and I do believe the three of us wore Nitro out.

A tale of two Als. Had a very nice dinner in the park with the Als. Al (Voltron) grilled sausages and asparagus, and we had my macaroni recipe. And Al (aimless1) brought his beautiful dog Nitro.

For what it's worth, I found the OPPO Sonica and Auralic Vega more similar to each other than the Bryston BDA-3 to either of them. So in terms of DACs, going with the BDA-3 would be a different sound while going from the Sonica to the Vega would be along the same direction. You're probably already aware the Sonica does use the ES9038PRO while the Vega and earlier OPPO HA-1 use the ES9018, and the BDA-3 uses two AKM4490 chips.