TheSloth

Though that's a good thing to have, might I suggest that the thread be a child board of something else, thereby meaning that on the front page, one doesn't see the thread title. If the threads are political or religious in nature, just the title itself can be upsetting and inflammatory.

This is actually almost on topic: Are you going to be replacing the modules in the amps that were just reviewed in Stereophile and enjoythemusic.com and sending them for re-evaluation while it's still fresh, or are you waiting a while for that?

I just read about this, and I found it too short. Believe it or not, sometimes I actually think about the post when editing, and find that while I'm sitting in the edit window, rephrasing and reworking something (shocking isn't it...), the time runs out and by the time I hit the save button I can't change it any more. How about 10 mins?

I think the difference is that, unlike the friendly Doctor who we all love so dearly, I have never stated that anything made by HeadRoom was superior to another manufacturer's product that I had never actually heard. I have never stated that HeadRoom products are better than the competition unless I'm in a position to make that judgement with my own ears, and tend to chime in only when I think that a HeadRoom product that is in line with the others being discussed has been unfairly overlooked. That to me is just restoring the balance... I think that you make good points in your post, and that there is a role for Head-Case for the 'hard core' as you put it, but it needs clear goals to avoid all of the issues that are turning up on Head-Fi.

I actually rather enjoyed the closed status of this board, allowing the kind of discussion that we've had about matters that couldn't be exposed in the same way 'over there'. Head-Fi seems to be undergoing an explosion of new members, most of whom know absolutely nothing and are not directed to search for answers to their questions before posting 27 threads about the same thing. On the technological side, there is also a growing tendecy of many of these new members to spread disinformation about all kinds of things - look at the 'HeadRoom questions from a newb. thread' which irritated the hell out of me, including someone who claims to be a new employee of HeadRoom posting technical nonsense, and having authority on the same lines as someone who says 'I'm Jewish so it's OK for me to be anti-semitic'. What did it for me though was my stupidity in posting in the music forum in response to something which in the end I wound up being highly offended by - you can spend a lifetime working and studying these works, and learning what it truly takes to master them and be told by someone who listened to a Beethoven symphony a bit the other day that they are somehow in a position to argue with you. I suppose now I know how Rick feel when people like me say to him 'but the OPA627 sounds pretty good to me'. Anyway, despite the constant swearing which really doesn't help anything, I'm enjoying things over here for now, but I do hope to be involved in any new structuring of Head-Fi. It does need a government, but it also needs some distinction between the level of members, and perhaps posting thread privileges etc. should be proportional to the length of membership, level of financial and post count contribution. Wow, that's off topic - lucky it's not Head-Fi.

Well the output buffer itself yields the improvement with low impedence headphones. Going down from 100ohms things really start to improve quite dramatically to my ears. It's night and day to my ears with my Ety. 4p's at 27ohms, and a small clean up for the 300ohm sennheisers. However, the output buffer allows the higher end modules to be deeper into class A bias, so the Home Module '06's output buffer is deeper into class A than the Home '05's, which will yield improvements for all impedences. I believe the Max '06 is even deeper into class A than that, and has a different and better output transistor pair, but don't quote me on it.

Finally, it looks like I'm allowed to talk! It is a big improvement, especially with the K701. I have an detailed update for my module archive that I'll add when they are officially announced. I've actually only heard the Micro and Desktop modules so far, and with my K701's I now enjoy the Desktop '06 more than the Home '05. As was pointed out already though, the difference becomes more dramatic the lower the impedence, and my 650's see the smallest change from this update (though I still find the sound a little cleaner with those too).

I'm not sure how much difference it would make to the signal path. From what I've seen of DAC's with opamps in the output stages, they still have some kind of buffer even for the line stage. Therefore in the example of a Max Dac with Max Module, if the DAC was standalone, all you would be doing is exchanging 2 class A 627's with low gain for 1 class A 627 with high gain. Otherwise it would be the same machine - it would need a chassis, connectors, main board, power supply and all the same things that are already required for the amp. With this particular design, I don't see a large difference between the Max DAC - Max Module combination and a standalone DAC, and the cost savings would be minimal. Also, though I think the Max DAC is fantastic for the price, I'm not sure that it's fundamentally superior to the $1k competition like the Lavry, and so in a discrete box, it would have to come in at that price point.

Aren't you a naughty boy Mr. Gilmore... . And I'm feeling extremely pleased with myself for actually understanding your hint! What progress I've made in 6 months!

Well? Judging by the way people talk around here, it's not surprising, but at the same time, why is there no girl-fi?

It's alright, between the lines I said that the Equinox was a better cable than his... (and it's true...)

That's why I keep doing that! Whenever I mean to come here, I always type in 'www.head-code.org' and get confused as to why there's nothing there for a minute...

Because he asked me to...! Come to think of it, that doesn't make much sense does it?

Not to try and make this thread serious in any way, but I think the issue of the national meet is important. There is no reason to me why anyone who has at least partially defected to head-code should not go to the head-fi meet, assuming they are able to be on the list. The head-fi meet is a place where all the head-fi'ers are going to get together, and that's a great thing, and we have nothing against head-fi'ers. It's the administration that's getting out of control, and I don't really think that the problems with head-fi censorship and the national meet are related to one another. I for one will be going, and think I'll have a great time, and I hope I'll see most of you there.

Tyll's favourite can is the K701 now, which didn't exist when they designed these modules. The K701 is as current/output stage dependent, if not even more so, than Grado's...

Of course, notwithstanding the minor '05 revision, that module design is fundamentally 2 years old already...

I didn't know he got a Balanced Home? Way to go! That may have been somewhat my doing, but I never talked to him about it explicitly. I love this smiley: . It's somewhat like my hair. Go head-case!

He wanted it compared to the Equinox cable for his own interest, which I think is perfectly laudable. He also wanted it to be compared on a high-end HeadRoom balanced amp, as his test bed is the Micro with DM, and he wanted to know if the synergy extended up the product line. What harm is there?

That's a nicely written review, and I do agree with your comments about top end extension. Doubling the modules, i.e. balanced, seems to cure that minor defect, and I find while playing around with all the modules with my convertable that the culprit is the Intersil HA-5002 buffer, which is not as transparent an output stage as one might want at this level of performance. It technically cannot be biased particularly far into class A, meaning that most of it's output range when single ended is switching. As a balanced module, the current delivery for each buffer is halved, and it is therefore relatively biased twice as far into Class A. I suggest you test your different headphones again, as I suspect you will find that the module will be happiest with a higher impedence headphone such as the HD-650, as I think you'll find the module is happier the more voltage and less current it is delivering. I can imagine the Grado's exhibit the most lackluster preformance, and I'd be interested in your take on that.

I loved the Balanced Equinox. I also had a while using Myo's personal balanced GFT which isn't going to be sold, and that was a different but almost equally enjoyable presentation. I asy Stefan AudioArt all the way!

1st post! Greetings Headcase! Balanced 650's - yeah!