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Met Aumkar and listened to the RR1 at CanJam today, two very pleasant experiences. The headphones sounded really nice out of both setups, one a KGSSHV (from birgir I think) and the other a little koss amp (the one that goes with their headphones, Massdrop version). I had a very pleasant listen with the smaller setup being run from an iBasso DAP (maybe DX150). I seriously would have bought that whole little setup on the spot for listening on vacation or the office. It had excellent bass and an extremely musical, engaging sound. I'll probably buy a pair of these when they are for sale. Aumkar is a great guy! Thanks for the overview and good luck.

Did some shopping at the unfortunately named “Hard-Off” store and stumbled across a bit of a treasure trove about 45 minutes outside of Tokyo.

I finally cased up my uTracer. So much nicer to work with I still have a few refinements, but it's up and running now.

Well that was a totally awesome concert - The Eagles in Birmingham (the UK one). Two and a half hours with no break - basically their iconic Greatest Hits and Hotel California albums (which I bought back in the day and still have) and a whole load of other, quite advanced sonically, stuff from later albums. The line up was the only remaining and performing member Don Henley (71) and slightly later members Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmidt, both also 71. Singing Glenn Frey's vocals was his son Deacon Frey (26), who was superb, and much to Carole's delight - Vince Gill. And the guys had lost none of their vocal ability and high notes despite their advancing years. It was the nearest thing to a hifi concert I've been to - the sound quality was excellent. One hell of an evening. This was the set list: Take It Easy One of These Nights Take It to the Limit Tequila Sunrise Witchy Woman In the City (Joe Walsh song) I Can't Tell You Why New Kid in Town Peaceful Easy Feeling Love Will Keep Us Alive Lyin' Eyes Don't Let Our Love Start Slippin' Away (Vince Gill cover) Those Shoes Already Gone Walk Away (James Gang cover) Life's Been Good (Joe Walsh song) The Boys of Summer (Don Henley song) Heartache Tonight Funk #49 (James Gang cover) Life in the Fast Lane Hotel California Rocky Mountain Way (Joe Walsh song) Desperado Best of My Love

Performing last minute gear tune-ups for Lance and his competition in Columbus. Received word last week that Lance has been named to the USA Fencing All American first team and USA Fencing All-Academic first team for this year. Hopefully if he has a good competition these recognitions will help when he meets the college fencing coaches he has scheduled with there in Columbus. He is scheduled to fence Junior Men’s foil, Junior Men’s epee, Senior Men’s foil and Division I Men’s foil. Division I will be the toughest because it will have all of the best college fencers and three US Olympic fencers competing. This is a very tough schedule so hopefully he can hold it together and feel good about his performance when it’s done. Yikes!

Not a bad way to spend the 4th of July. Happy Independence Day, everyone!

Got my new i9 iMac installed, up and running. 8 core i9 processor with Radian Pro Vega 48, 512 ssd, 64 G ram (2 sticks so I can go up to 128 if I go crazy). My external drives are in a Blackmagic Multidock 2 (thunderbolt 2). A Caldigit TS2 for an extra Ethernet connection for my Metric Halo interface plus some of my numerous USB thingys. The clean install went pretty smoothly and I've got it down to just a few days of hell. So far the Logic Pro X benchmarks I've run show that it'll run twice as many virtual instrument tracks (122 vs 58) compared to my old girl (2012 Mac Pro 6 core). Running nice and cool (I only heard the fan once during some installs and it was barely audible). I absolutely love the 5k 27 inch but I've been using a dying 24 inch, old Asus ProArt for freakin ever!

Went to a neighborhood block party, went from 2pm to past 11pm when all was said and done. Really great time, one of the neighbors set up a nice inflatable movie screen that the kids loved. In the middle of it, hosted a few folks for some Bourbon and Scotch (later had to help one of said folks home as he was quite inebriated!).

Just finished testing a new version of the battery with the LT1021-7 reference. From what I can measure, it seems quieter on the scope (mostly above 25KHz) than the LED version. It's nice to be able to test without risking the whole amp I'll probably start using the LT1021-7 in the GRHV supply as well since it needs less current to operate. I'm currently feeding it about .94mA with the base of the transistor it connects to pulling about 70uA from that as well.

So many things wrong with this

Kaldas Research This was my first booth I went to at CanJam. I was super excited to listen to them and talk to Aumkar about them. At the booth, they had RR1 with a KGSSHV Carbon hooked up to a laptop with their own music source and another RR1 with the Koss energizer and an aux cable for our own music. As such, I spent most of my time with the Koss energizer. Before I dive into my first impressions, I have an L300 at home, but had not used it in a week. I was not able to a/b compare the Koss energizer with the KGSSHV carbon. Build/Quality: I love the build on these. Compared to my L300, these feel a lot more sturdier and look better in my opinion. Even though the retro look of the Stax has its own appeal, these just look more modern and don't feel like they'll break when i hold them in my hands. Aumkar set the height to one size for canjam, which was a hair loose for my head, but nothing to complain about. He probably did not want people to adjust the sliding mechanism as these were probably his only 2 pre-production units, and he probably didn't want them broken. He told me that the chassis is CNC'd from aluminum(not sure on the metal), and it felt like sturdy and durable. The headphone was comfy and i don't think i felt any glaring hotspot. I'm also not very sensitive to headphone weight. For reference, I can wear my OG HE-400 for a few hours without complaints, so I may not be the best person to evaluate this. I also liked how the RR1 uses mini-XLR plugs on the headphones and a stax pro bias connector for the plug instead of being hard wired or using some new connection. My only downside is with regards to handling this headphone, and it is quite minor. In front of the RR1,there is an interesting sheet on how to pickup the headphones. You are supposed to have your hand over them vertically when you pick them up instead of horizontally. I think it was to proctect the e-stat drivers, but I could be wrong. Aumkar can correct me on this if he views this post. Wish I had taken a picture of the sheet. This is the only complaint I can think off in regards to build/quality, and it is minor and maybe a little nit-picky. Sound: Most listening was done off the ESP95x. The first thing I wanted to test was the bass extension on these as that is what everyone has been raving about. Hot damn these have bass for an e-state. Now its not like Fostex bass, but it is nice tight bass comparable to the VOCE. I have not listened to the Sr007 Mk1 so I cannot draw a comparison to the bass on that. When I put on "Why So serious" by Hans Zimmer and fast forwarded to ~3:25, I was able to get it to arch(wet, flabby noise on e-stats), but compared to my L300's it extended deeper and didn't arch as long. Honestly though, that song destroys a lot of headphones so I'm not too concerned that an e-stat couldn't handle the section from the very beginning. I'm curious to see if the KGSSHV would've helped the RR1 with that section. Now with bass done, lets move on to the treble. These have the great e-stat treble that I have come to adore. Orchestral pieces sound great with lots of "e-stat air". Nothing comes of as overly piercing or underwhelming. I wish I had my L300's on me so I could compare them side to side. I know they at least meet it, but cannot comment if they are significantly better. I won't comment on mids as i am still gaining my footing around this area and did not really try to evaluate them because i was having a hard time hearing my own music as is. Some guy next to me really loved "The Weeknd", which I do too, and had it on very loud. As a result, I could hear the song very audibly and clearly bleed into my music. I also won't do soundstage for this same reason wayy too much ambient noise and am not comfortable just yet. However, I will say that it didn't sound super upfront or narrow like my HD6xx. I did not test imaging because I forgot too. Oops. I also wish I could've a/bed the Koss amp the KGSSHV amp to see how they impacted sound differences, but it would've been difficult, awkward, and rude to take up both amps simultaneously. Before I jump into some final impressions, I just wanna talk about Aumkar quickly. It was a joy talking to him, and I wish I had asked him more questions about e-stats in general as he was clearly very knowledgeable about them. He dropped everything to pursue making the RR1, and i wish nothing but the best of luck to him. I I appreciate how, he is not rushing to take people's money as he does not think his own product his ready. He also states that the price on the RR1s will not go up at all. He is a breath of fresh air in the headphone world, and I deeply appreciate that. These are a day 1 buy for me simply to support him. If I somehow find another chance to listen to these and do a complete 180 on my impressions, i will still buy them simply to support him and his company. Even if the RR1 turns out to be a failure, which I do not think it will be, I have full faith that his next product will be even better than this. Final Impressions: These are a phenomenal value at $500 dollars. The bass is tight and extends well whilst still keeping that e-stat treble to die for. I think this competes with the L300 and Koss ESP95X in price range, and if it does, i think it will firmly trounce them and be the king of its price bracket. These are a day 1 purchase for me. I've attached some pictures. Apologies for the potato quality in advance.

Went for a nice walk on the beach this morning. Spent quite a bit of time watching a pod of dolphins and a squadron of pelicans hunting/feeding.

Cube farm neighbor pissed off a coworker. He leaves on vacation. This is what he will come back to. Don't piss off your coworkers.

Took about three hours to refinish the existing weird old house mailbox with a modern model. Tried to use the existing post, though it was super crooked so I might end up ripping it all off anyway. Before After I absolutely suck at carpentry and have none of the right tools.

RS1800. Rare Bird! Anyone who knows me didn't have to guess that I couldn't leave this picture alone for long. Current state of my tape rig; RS1500 with modified tape path, Flux Magnetics half track playback head (on this headblock), internal playback amps are bypassed so the heads are direct to,.. Bottlehead Repro Amp- all tube IEC/NAB playback amplifier Below is a Micom/3M Flutter Meter/Analyzer Cued up- Tape Project #11 Linda Ronstadt Heart Like a Wheel

Went to see Nicholas Nickleby at the Bristol Old Vic. This is a massive version of the Dickens novel for the stage. Part 1 started at 1:30pm, and Part 2 finished at 11pm. Total intervals were just over two hours. The amazing thing is that it was staged by recent graduates of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School - so very young professional actors. It was absolutely stunning, first off. And an titanic act of memory - it is 7 hours in total, and many of the main characters are on stage for much of that (Nicholas, Kate, Ralph). Ralph Nickelby in particular was impressive. The monstrous money focused manipulator is in his fifties - so it is a tough role for someone in their early 20's - but he carried it off perfectly. A great day out!

I finished this one a couple a weeks ago (when it was still spring) and I'm just getting around to uploading (lot of low freqs here).

Customs.

I got through the full Dirac setup and splurged for the full frequency range correction to let me correct above 500Hz. The system sounds fucking amazing. It's like an audio scapel! I can pull the entire image apart and hear everything. It sounds as good as anything I have ever heard. I need to build a filter with the few dB roll off rather than dead flat. I had to cut out the back of my rack to get it to fit but it does fit now. The BluOS features have also made my Squeezebox Touch obsolete.

Got sick of cords all over the place. DIY'ed a charging drawer using a cheap conference room table fixture from Amazon. Much cheaper than the commercial products that run around the $300 mark.

No, Dusty, those are not the Moth night lights, those are Moth M-304-TL power amplifiers. Moth Audio web site (May 19, 2010): 35 watt single-ended class A1 no feedback interstage transformer coupled monaural amplifier. Specifications: Topology: One triode for voltage gain, transformer coupled to the output power triode. Only thermionic devices and magnetic circuits are used. No coupling capacitors and no feedback. The output power triode never leaves class A, operation and is used at half its rated plate dissipation for longer life. Tubes: Four 6D22S rectifier "Svetlana" (Russian) One 5Y3 rectifier "Sovtek" (Russian) One 5842Q voltage gain & driver "Sylvania" (USA) One 304TL output "Imac" (USA) Wiring: Hand wired point to point for all circuits. Cardas solder user throughout. Capacitors: Polypropylene in soybean oil for power supply circuits. Output Transformers: Custom manufactured for Moth Audio Corporation. User selectable: 2,4,8, & 16 Ohms. Connectors: Cardas rhodium plated RCA for unbalanced input, Neutrik gold plated XLR for balanced input. Silver-plated speaker connectors. Chassis: Zinc plated 18-gauge, cold rolled steel with a heavy wrinkle black powder coating. Polished and black anodized 3/16" thick aluminum top and bottom plates. Brass plaques are custom etched and filled. Indicator pins are 24K gold plated. Glass Bell Jars: .25" thick hand blown Pyrex with acid etched logo. Power Output: 45 watts, 5% THD @ 1kHz. Total Harmonic Distortion: Less than 1% 40 - 20 kHz @ 35watts. Power Supply: Low-flux leakage design using toroidal power transformers as well as toroidal inductors. Frequency Response: (-3dB Points) 10Hz - 40 kHz . Input Sensitivity: 1.5V for 35 watts out. Input Impedance: 100k ohms unbalanced. 600 ohms balanced. Power Requirements: 105 - 125 VAC 60Hz (210 - 250 VAC 50Hz.) 400 Watts. Dimensions: 20"H x 15.75" W x 23" L Weight: 75 Lbs. Warranty: All components carry a 3-year parts and labor warranty. Tubes carry the manufacturers' warranties.

Leonard Bernstein - West Side Story OST [50th Anniversary Remastered]

A couple more from the M240 combo above (with Richard Serra sculpture). Then a couple treatment experiments from the Sigma sd Quattro H (with 50 Art). Assuming these are being viewed on phone so finished in Snapseed.

Nothing like hard porn in the morning