HiWire

Congrats!

In my city, vinyl is being sold to a bunch of wannabes - hipsters and DJs. The market for "serious" vinyl purchases is eclipsed by the fadsters.

That makes sense. The magic is in the tubes.

Hey - the display looks very similar to the one in my Arcam FMJ CD36. They must have used the same part. The Arcam CD36 and CD192 also use a Wolfson DAC... Where did you get the test unit from, and did you end up buying it, aerius?

Yes, I saw the announcement a while ago. I had buyer's remorse for about a minute... then I noticed that the FMJ CD37 is only a two-channel player. I'm looking for an SACD player that can handle 5.1 recordings, ultimately. Also, the extant reviews don't indicate that the CD37 is a superior player to the CD36.

Thanks for the update - these are nice-looking players. I'm waiting for acceptable SACD playback at lower prices. I guess Oppo, Sony, Marantz, and Denon are the main players at that level.

Great review.

Isn't Joe Grado making a presentation at this one? He has some kind of new microphone to discuss.

I haven't seen one here. One of my local dealers has the Pro-ject Headbox II, but they couldn't find the SE listed the last time they checked. There are some brief reviews of Pro-ject Headboxes on Head-Fi - overall, they didn't seem particularly enthusiastic. I was very interested in the Headbox II SE when my amp failed... it seems to be a good value. Please let us know your listening impressions!

So it sounds like a tube amp... j/k Good review! I wonder how their solid state amp compares to the Gilmore Light. I agree about the tone control - if you're buying an amp to fix your sound, you're probably doing it wrong.

Dull as in slow and non-energetic response in dynamics. They are slightly bright, but I suppose that might work with people who are looking for "soundstage cues" in the AKG flagship headphones. Overall, I think they're somewhat neutral, but I found them a crashing disappointment at the time.

Would these sound half decent as a system? I listened to K 701's a long time ago and kind of thought they sounded like ass*. Would having killer power on these babies do anything for them, or do they still sound like ass after "burn-in" and Nuculer Power. * ass as in they could not rock out. They were very dull sounding, even after about 1,000 hours of burn-in when running out of my amp. The sins of the K 701, in my opinion, are sins of omission. Perhaps Wes Phillips' ears are made of tin...

I don't want to sidetrack this too much, but which headphones are considered good looking? I tend to like stuff like the Sony's and Audio-Technica's, just because they don't look so huge and protrudey on my small head (not counting the MDR-CD3000). Also, their fit and finish and color options are usually tasteful (except the pink ones). Grados are almost so ugly that they are beautiful... I have been compared to a WWII aviator when interviewed on television wearing mine once.

It's as ugly as sin... I sure hope it sounds good.

Thanks, I think I'll let them sit there.

There is an old pair of Stax SRM-30's sitting at an audio store. Are these any good?

I like the Simaudio Andromeda the best out of these pics... the SuperNova also looks pretty good.

At least they're not charging more for them. I wonder if this will force Sennheiser, AKG, Beyedynamic, etc. to release competitive models to stomp the newbies into the ground. They must be losing market share already to the growing IEM companies (e.g. Etymotics, Ultimate Ears, Westone, etc.).

I'm a bit slow on the uptake - but I think the Sony engineers slipped a bonus into the design of their power supply for this PCDP. The Sony D-EJ2000 includes an external battery pack using an 1.5V AA battery, in addition to the internal 1.2V NH-14WM gumstick battery. Earlier, I reported that the battery pack has the odd effect of charging the gumstick battery when both power sources are used together. A couple of weeks ago, I realized that it might be possible to get more power through the headphone out by using both power sources simultaneously - it turns out that my theory was correct. Basically, it makes external headphone amplifiers redundant for this player - you can drive headphones with impedances of 16 - 64 ohms without too much difficulty by using both batteries. I don't know if you are actually getting a full 2.7V of power, but there is certainly an improvement from using the stock internal NiMH battery. This design might also translate to other Sony PCDP designs incorporating external battery packs, although I wouldn't expect much of an improvement in sound quality from players using digital amplifiers.

You could try one of the Go-Vibe variations at Jaben.

I looked at the Channel Islands VHP-2 + VAC-1 combo a while ago. Justin's reputed delivery times made me a little antsy. Also, I agree that Headroom's amps look funny. I preferred their previous case designs.

Perhaps Sony should focus on producing a portable SACD disc player. They have the technology.

They should have called them God cables. Let's not beat around the bush - it will obviously make that Norse demi-lamp wire sound tinny, closed-off, and artificial. Golden Ratio. Damn. That shit is magic.

All righty, then. I'll call my dealer on the corner.

Has anybody tried these? I haven't found a lot of impressions by searching the web so far.