Leaderboard

Ping ponged up a set of Naval Aviator wings and broke in one of my SurfPreps.

LeverCraft coffee in Austin got hurt by the recent freeze and needs to raise money. As a result, they’re selling a fantastic coffee for significantly less than they normally would. Please consider buying some: https://levercraftcoffee.com/products/single-origin-colombia-las-perlitas

Set up my Rega in my son's room, on top of an Andover Audio Spinbase. But just picked up an ADL GT40a to listen via headphones, and do some vinyl rips. First up: Chameleonsvox, lead singer of my favorite band. Great 2 album live set on red and blue splatter vinyl, with bonus 7", CD's, poster, cards and more. Well-recorded too!

Hi! i would like to share my work with you. I made an dynalo amp powered by grlv power supply and a pcm1794a/cm6631a dac. Everything is totaly made by me. I also designed the pcb nd ordered it from JLCPCB. Amp offset voltage stays at max +-1mV and it is totally silent. Case is DOUK AUDIO. pictures: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1a6cbGFpN6s5EadR8DA_lb21ZFwOwzK4R?usp=sharing

Stopped the cabinet project to complete the build and do the Ng 5 Cut Test for the Cross Cut Sled. Based on the accuracy with no adjustment, I am guessing I did it wrong or did not do a long enough 5th cut.

Yeah, this. Not that it's unexpected given the amps that you used to build back in the day.

Inconel is the real deal. I'm big on using it on seriously boosted cars' exhaust valves. Was good to me despite the mile long beatings. HS

This amazing 13 y.o. pianist playing Mendelssohn. Remember her name

A broken clock is still correct twice a day 🙂 Really, if you did the initial alignment with a good square, there's no reason you wouldn't get it right on the first shot.

Pastrami sausage sandwich and fries @ Augie's Smoked Meats in Berkeley.

Sometimes I talk to myself also.

The lead singer has an amazing voice! Such range, such feeling! Reminds me of Yoko Ono in her prime.

Not typically, no.

That looks like it'll attract a lot of flying seamen!

Come on, you know you wanna spin some Three Dog Night!

This post from Søren in the Circlotron thread is useful for testing a GRHV. EDIT: Per Soren, note that these instructions are for the Circlotron, so differ from a GRHV somewhat. For the initial check, I was getting 0.5mA; Soren said maybe 1mA. For the 2nd CCS, I was getting 1.4mA. These will depend upon your particular DN2540s. The current limiting CSS he notes is not applicable on the GRHV, so ignore that portion. My boards both worked fine. The paralleling of the gain resistors (2 x 390K for a 400V GRHV) worked quite well. I put a 100K in parallel with the series string for a regulated output of ~55Vdc. Make sure you use a variac for this to limit the input voltage.

Impressive shit man.

Thanks 👍

Special smoke night: Montecristo 80 Anniversario

https://www.moon-audio.com/sennheiser-headphone-chassis-mount-connector-he90.html

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Soundtrack

Neat! Thanks for sharing. Unrelated: my girl Alyson (bassist extraordinaire) covered one of the more wack Mr. Bungle tunes (sounds very Secret Chiefs 3):

This is a repost of my impressions on another forum I've been using the ES-1a almost daily for about 4 months now. I feel that these are underrated and the audiophile community deserves to know them. Before I start my review, I just wanna declare that I have no conflict of interest with anybody in the headphone industry. I bought the ES-1a at the price of 12800HKD (1650USD) which is listed as the default price on ES Lab's web store. The ES-1a maker does not have prior knowledge about this review. A little bit about myself I like to listen to music - from pop to classical, from jazz to rock, and I am conversant in both English and Mandarin. I chanced upon this pair of headphones while I was browsing the Chinese Headfi equivalent - erji.net, and decided to purchase based on reviews of some big time Chinese audiophiles claiming that the ES-1a sits somewhere between the Stax 007 and 009s. It was a risky blind purchase (which I believe isn't uncommon among head-fi'ers), and I was just hoping that those Chinese reviewers weren't shills. The amp came in a week after I placed my orders via EMS. It came in a nice looking wooden box. Definitely an A for the effort in making the unboxing experience ceremonial, but it's a painful space-occupying lesion in my room, yet I can't bear the pain of throwing the box away. So now I'm just wondering what to do with the box. If you have any ideas, just let me know. The Chinese forum reported that the ES-1a tuning could be altered between bright and balanced by swapping earpads. I only used it with the balanced earpads, which according to the maker, was the finalised tuning. He also mentioned that the ES-1a is best paired with a solid state amp. I didn't care about his recommendations one bit. If the headphones sound good on solid state amps, wouldn't they be wonderful if I pair them with a healthy dose of tubey goodness? The ES-1a got its looks from the legendary STAX Omega. I've not seen an Omega in real life, but from Google they look pretty similar apart from the anodization color. The ES-1a is made with black anodized aluminium housing and a has aluminium ring that seemed unnecessary if not to copy the looks of the Omega. The see-through metal mesh reveals a bronze driver under the housing, and the unit is accented with some golden screws. The wire is apparently adapted from a Stax sre-725H copper cable, with a little 3D printed Y-split that bears the brand name. Now let's talk about sound. Bass- authoritative. Mids - seductive. Treble - beautiful. Imaging - stellar. Tonality - natural. That's it. I don't see the point to elaborate more because 1) my impression is subjective, and reading this review does not give you a direct idea of how the ES-1a sounds like 2) I feel that Headfi has enough overwhelmingly positive reviews on audiophile products, and this humble review wants to stand apart from the rest 3) if you insist on seeing some reviews, I would like to suggest you Google with search terms "head", "case", "es1a". Read the reviews there with discretion. Amp pairing Amps do play a significant role on the sound. With the KGHVSS Carbon ES-1a sounds more monitor-like, more detailed and more extended in both bass and treble, while with my tube amps, ES-1a sounds more holographic and trades some bass extension for a life-like presentation. Even with the lesser amps like my SRM XH, the ES-1a retains a pleasant sound signature despite detail and treble extension being completely thrown out of the window. Comparison with Stax 007A Read this section with a pinch of salt, as I clearly prefer the ES-1a over the Stax flagships. I find them comparable in terms of details when driven with some of the amps I have. I wish I have some Stax branded amps or the BHSE for the purpose of this comparison, as I believe that they are the sound many readers here can relate to. The Stax 007A here does not have the blue tac mod, as I enjoy the fun mid-bass in the Stax 007 mkii. It just makes the headphone what they are. The most obvious difference is in the treble. ES-1a is definitely brighter, and details in music are more upfront compared to the Stax 007A's slightly laidback presentation. ES-1a feels more passionate and more aggressive compared to the 007A. If you are used to the 007A/mkii sound signature, you might find the ES-1a slightly bright. If you are used to the 007mkii with blue tac mod (which I find bland), you would either find the ES-1a very fun sounding or a tad too aggressive. Bass rumbles harder on the ES-1a than on the 007A while on KGHVSS Carbon. Extension is slightly deeper too. I don't miss my planar headphones on CFA3 while I listen to Zedd or Daft Punk on the ES-1a. But I would defer listening to such tracks altogether while on the 007A. Mids on the ES-1a is detailed, but somehow the 007A does it better. On jazz tracks, 007A does things nicely by giving a smooth and slightly dark rendition to vocals. The details of the ES-1a is cuts through the overall presentation a tad too strongly. The ES-1a has a little bit of bite or impact, which might work well for some music, and backfire on some others. Soundstage feels bigger and more spread-out on the ES-1a, and this concurs with some of the Chinese reviews. Tonality-wise, both ES1a and Stax 007A sounds very natural. ES1a has slightly more defined edges and the 007A sounds smoother. Regrettably, I didn't have the chance to compare the ES1a to either the 009 or 009s for a long enough period of time to yield a reliable comparison.

Slight risk of bias as I bought these (although I wouldn't make a big deal out of it as I've owned stuff 5x the price and pretty well hardened by now) but wow these headphones are pretty fawking good. Frist of they're built really well, like better than most headphones at any price. My Utopias were made of mostly plastic and the headband felt kinda fragile. These headphones are solid as can be. The earpads are breathable, don't get hot/sweaty (downside there is a bit of leakage) but are still soft and conformable. The headband puts absolutely 0% pressure on top of my head and the weight really isn't a problem at all. I like when my premium headphones have some weight to them, people who complain about these should try Audeze XCs. The entire headband/joint/spring assembly is brilliantly engineered and feels very premium. The metal ear cups are really nice as well although my pair did come with 2 very minor little imperfections in the finish which is unusual for an apple product. The ANC/pass-through is super intuitive as expected and there is no audible hiss in the active modes unlike most if not all of the competitors. Finally a precise, rotatable dial for volume adjustment instead of these laggy touch pads or cluttered button layouts where you still don't know which buttons to press even after years of ownership. The sound out of the box is aight. Solid ass bass, bit boosted although it's down in the sub regions. The treble is a bit muffled with some sparkle up top. Sound is pleasant and obviously default tuned to be inoffensive yet detailed with most mainstream music. Leaves a bit to be desired for critical listening. BUT here's the thing most people won't do or even know about. There is a hidden setting on iOS devices that unlocks the full potential of these headphones. With the "balanced tone" option these headphones are essentially corrected to almost perfection. The excess sub-bass goes away and the treble fills in without compromises. Now, these headphones can be used for critical listening. Thank you Apple you beautiful sons of bitches for thinking of us audio purists with these headphones even though this setting is not marketed/easy to find and at this time isn't available on Mac OS. Unlike most AirPods-settings that sync across the cloud, this is a device-specific setting which is kind of a shame. But I'll just use my iPad or iPhone as it's just wireless/plug & play anyway and I stream everything. I still don't understand the case. Either it's so brilliant and amazing my mind can't even comprehend or it's just a turd that 10+ apple designers somehow collectively fucked up. Either way these headphones are worth the price IMO.

It's probably not going anywhere. Various iterations were either unstable or too noisy. Circuit boards for the Raal experiment (code named "Bridgeport") have been ordered. I should know more about that in a few weeks. Also, there is some thought to doing a very small run of a 10 year anniversary version of the L2. The basic circuit would remain the same, but there are a few changes that should serve as an upgrade to the original.

Hey @naamanf - A humidor might make a fun project for the CNC router and laser...

Here is a (my) version of Kevin’s opamp RAAL driver. Board is kitchen made. Some parts are smd but schematic is same as original. Only one channel working and it’s powered by lab power supply max 3A. Occasional when playing, not very load , leds indicating max current hit are flickering. But I've two 340W Mean Well supplies at hand. Mouser don't sell them supplies to ordinary consumers in Europe so my wife bought them for me. Lucky me.

Made it out to a private track rental last night at Houston Raceway Park. The outfit always does a nice job. Only thing I missed was the catering...no no given the current situation. My son shot a vid of my first pass. I'm in the Jeep Trackhawk running against a Redeye. It was hot and humid...density altitude started at north of 2900ft, but I had a blast all the same. HS

So, uh, who isn't player Valheim at this point? It's taken over my Steam friends list.