Leaderboard

Thursday Olympic fencers from Italy, France, Czech Republic, and possibly Mexico along with two olympic coaches will begin arriving for a week and a half training camp here at our club. Lance will be fortunate enough to be able to fence with some of them to get himself ready for some upcoming national tournaments. We will be hosting the Christmas eve dinner which may end up being pretty huge. Shits about to get real.

From my Soviet friend- For men, what is the difference between a golf ball and a G spot. Men will keep looking for the golf ball.

Enrico Rava & Joe Lovano - Roma To me one of the best jazz releases in 2019. It's available on Tidal and they have that MQA shit as well.

Checking this out today and its a lot better than I thought it would be!

Oh, unholy carp, they have the entirety of Max Richter's Sleep in Master on Tidal. Good night, my friends, see you in the morning.

Grahame, scrake!

So in trying something new, HeadAmp is now offering the Spirit Torino headphones from Italy. These are my 3 favorite models...I'll have to do a lot more listening to see which is definitely the favorite, but all of these shine in their own way. The Radiante is a closed back and may be the most interesting of the bunch. Anyone going to be at the DC meet next weekend? I might also look at doing a loaner program for these. Very few people have heard them yet

At the DC meet today Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There are a few other pads that allegedly work with the 007, like Kennerton Audio's ECL-01 and ECL-02, and ZMF pads (I know someone using ZMF auteur pads on a pair of 007s). Have you tried any of these pads?

Terrible match IMHO. Also the Ether Voce pads. The best pads I came across for the 007 were the 009 pads. Actually they proved to be the best for all my headphones. I love those pads - especially after I removed the white reinforcing layer from the internal foam. Same mod works great for the 007 pads as well. Best generally usable ear pads in the industry IMHO (not counting special ones like Focal or Sony or Phenomenon). I have dozens of obsolete pads from other makers that I collected over time, but the 007 and 009 pads stand out. So if anything, I'd move *for* them, not away from them :).

Long, but excellent article on William Gibson, in anticipation of his upcoming novel, Agency: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/16/how-william-gibson-keeps-his-science-fiction-real?verso=true

This has been a killer of a week for me so I'm late with the impressions. Then all of sudden we had a holiday today so I finally have some free time. I'm too lazy to find my camera so I'll take some pics later. First off, this is set nr.4 so I very much view it as a "work in progress" but...they are pretty awesome. From the first impressions and until now they keep reminding me of the SR-007. Clearly power hogs (I measured the system with stock cable at 160pf) too and a bit dark sounding. Now in my book this is a welcome reprise from all the bright models out there now. Doesn't mean the treble is subdued or anything like that, it is just not as apparent as with the L700 or 009's for instance. This also gives it a fuller sound and well...that bass. The cups are ported so the bass could have been compromised due to that but not so here, it's deep, tight and tuneful. It doesn't match a closed SR-007 but I frankly don't mind that...I can always grab my 007's if I want to listen to them. These are a bit more tuneful with more presence higher up. One of the first tracks I tried on them is the one which 009, 009S and 009BK all fail miserably at, but no issues here. They replicate the snare drum perfectly and same goes for everything else I've thrown at them. The midrange is perfectly fine and really showcases the difference in mastering on some tracks. The soundstage is just about perfect, follows what the tracks should sound like and doesn't pull a HE90 on us. Not quite up to the layering of the 007's but then again...that is the gold standard. Overall they are very neutral and do what any transducer should do, get out of the way. For me the biggest compliment to any headphones is me willing to listen to them as well, I have a lot of headphones at hand. I've used these almost exclusively since I got them, only swapping out to do comparisons. Now for fit and finish, I have no complaints. The headband is very sturdy with nice spring steel for the main span and they fit my head nicely. A bit snug but then again, I have a melon for a head. I did bend the arc a bit and now I can use them for hours at a time. The housing is attached to the earcups with a single M4 bolt and I did experience some rubbing there. This joint wasn't really supposed to move but for my use, they fit better that way so I place a nylon washer between the two parts and that has fixed this. I've already relayed this to Aumkar who should be arriving back home soon. The only major issue I've had is with the cable or rather one of the connectors. One channel started to drop out and after some troubleshooting this was traced to the mini XLR plug. I bought some new ones and made a quick replacement cable this morning and now it works perfectly. To keep the cost down the mini XLR does work for this but yeah... I'd like something better but given the cost constraints I get why they use it. Same for the cable, getting anything which works for this is difficult and costly. The cable is still better than what Hifiman are using so yeah... I'm not too worried about that. So over all, I'm very, very impressed and I will be working with Aumkar to see if we can't improve on these small issues.

Today was a very special day. They say, never meet your heroes but today I met the man, the myth, the Legend of the Spritzer. I flew down to Reykjavík to deliver the first production RR1 to ever leave Indian shores. It was an honour to meet Birgir, I still remember reading his posts 7-8 years ago when I got into the hobby and owning an Electrostat seemed unfathomable. So, delivering my Headphone to the STAX Mafia is an occasion to celebrate. Had commissioned 2 custom KGSSHVs. Our primary Amp of choice for upcoming shows. Really fortunate to be lucky enough to visit Iceland. Even though it was a short business trip, will be back with the family someday.