Jon L
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Posts posted by Jon L
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The K1000 was great and really made me think twice about my HE60 ownership.
What's the problem? Own both
Anyway, I just hooked up my newly arrived 2A3 SET monoblocks to HE60 via SRD7 MkII and can confirm 3 watt/channel SET power is plenty for HE60. I gotta get myself some nice 2A3 tubes, but even with very old Valve Art 2A3 double plates, I can hear the 2A3 SET goodness and purity, to add to my arsenal of EL84 single ended pentode goodness that my Almarro represents so well.
Gawd, I love this SRD7 MkII. Nothing like frequent amp-rolling to annoy your family
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those look nice! please review them for us.
what upstream components are you using?Well, when I finally take delivery in January, sure.
As far as upstream stuff, I'll just have to see what goes well with them. PC/Lynx 2B->spdif->PS Audio DAC III or Oritek Zhaolu->VAC Renaissance 30/30, Almarro A205a MkII, Marsh A200A, Modded Gainclone, and possibly even 2A3 SET monoblocks I received today
I_Have_GOT_TO_StOP_BUYING_STUFF!!
Well, maybe after the Chinese Orpheus Clone
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Every time I use the Amperex 7316, I say to myself that's pretty nice, but after a couple of hours, the mildly thick midrange and slightly uneven upper midrange bothers me enough to yank them.
My faves are still the 5814 (drop in replacements), and among them early Siemens and CBS.
Sometimes, with particular circuits, Electro Harmonix 12AU7 sounds surprisingly great and worth checking out at the lower prices.
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AV123 X-Statik Open-Baffle speakers
And AV123 ULW-10 sealed sub with 500 watt amp, which I just bought on their "Black Friday" special at 5 AM. $175
All for my "bedroom system," but neither will be here before January, I believe, though
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hi
http://www.6moons.com/news/news.html
check out the Clarity media dac, it seems like an interesting product, but the website the link goes to has no information on it. Anyone know anything about this one?
I can't tell what would make it "interesting" since there is close to zero information available
Gotta stop reading 6Moons, that's for shure...
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Just purchased this headphone. Curious to see how it sounds. They will send it to me as soon as they can. I remember meeting Feng from head-direct at the international earlier this year.
Neil
Neil, are they going to send you an adapter for the 5 pin XLR plug?
Oh, yeah, I do believe the woodied Headphile HE60 used to be yours. When I bought it, I didn't realize you almost gave it away and paid "normal" price
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Yes they are, the thicker side goes to the back of your head.
I just tries taking out the foam discs (had only one layer in my S/N ~16500 phones).
Huh, my K701 serial is 26xx, so I guess it's true AKG changed from 2 layers to 1 layer of foam somewhere before the 16500 serial. Does your foam disc have a hole in the middle or not?
No wonder people keep complaining K701 sounds too bright; it most definitely would be with many setups with only one foam layer inside
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Pics:
Could you also tell the manufacturer he will likely see much higher sales if he changes that 5 pin XLR to a real Stax plug? Ditto for his 'stat amps. In fact, I'll order one right now if it comes with Stax plug.
I would also appreciate a little more impressions re HE90, HE60 vs. clone as far as the important midrange such as level of resolution, speed, darkness (as in O2), and texture
Heck, if it's as good as you say, I'll keep it and sell my Headphile HE60
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I even tried an xvid straight from USB thumb drive last night and it played without a hiccup.
Does the manual say the USB thumb drive will play Flac or WMA Lossless files at all?
I also heard people say the USB thumb drive can be hooked up a external USB hard drive (Fat32 only) but that only the first 700 files will play or something like that...
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Those Parts Connexion mods seem to just involve changing parts and no redesigning.
I guess it all depends on how much you like the stock player. If you like it quite a bit but cringe at the cheapo parts inside, you probably would be thrilled with Mod companies that just swap in better parts without trying to redesign the basic circuitry.
If you don't much care for the stock one, WHY on earth someone would pay $$$$ to mod heavens?
Having said that, the modders with best results with reasonable pricetags seem to be the ones who actually know circuit design and can give you real results without throwing a bathtub full of boutique parts at the circuit board
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Passive pre amps make matching input and output impediences much more difficult and make choices of interconnect cables very crucial to sound quality, cable capacitance is the enemy with passive pre-amps. Some people say that passive pre amps are more transparent at the cost of dynamic sound.
Unless one can afford some very serious active preamps, e.g. top models from Aesthetix, C-J, ARC, one will do better with the passive approach.
It's not all that difficult to assemble a nice passive system if you remember to avoid a few pitfalls, such as:
1. Trying to drive a unreasonably-designed SS amp with very low input impedance and low input sensitivity. Tube amps tend to be friendlier to passive preamps.
2. Driving the system with poorly designed output stage. Often, improperly designed tubed output stages of CDP/DAC's will have way too high output impedance and not enough current.
3. Many people combine the pitfalls #1 AND #2, AND use garden-hose cables with tons of capacitance, AND use low-sensitivity, zig-zag impedance speakers. No wonder they have NO dynamics with passives.
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Yeah, I too preferred my RS1 over K340, but they're both gone. RS1 with a good tube amp is special, but not quite $695 special IMO.
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Apparently, the HE60's bass really improves with better amplification eg BH, KGSS, Woo GES. My wallet ain't big enough to find out
You probably want a SRD-7 MkII at some point to try all kinds of speaker amps for that bassy, dynamic sound.
One thing I would mention about HE60 is that it can take some EQ in the bass without distorting. I was surprised to find HE60 takes bass EQ better than K1000. Then again, even with only about 2dB bass EQ, I thought it was too much and preferred the HE60 without any EQ at all. Taken as a whole by itself without constant A-B'ing with say HD650, HE90, OII, HE60 bass does not sound lacking at all to me for my music.
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All this time, I never bothered to take off the earpad, but once I did, I found TWO layers of substantial foam between the driver and the mesh. My camera is MIA, but one is a round piece of foam, and the other is another round piece with a small hole in the middle.
These are what gives K701 that strange sensation of detailed yet kind of detached sound b/c once you take the foams out, K701 almost approaches the immediacy of high-end Grado's.
Taking both foams out was a bit to much and stark, and I wouldn't recommend it unless your setup is quite dark and distant.
But just taking out the foam with the hole has left me with a nice balance in my own setup; of course, one could take out the foam without the hole if you desire even more treble to come through.
Between this little foam removal "mod" and recabling, K701 is a nice little addition to my stable of K1000 and HE60
P.S. The earpads come off very easily. Just grab the pad looking down on the mesh grill, then twist counter-clockwise about 1 cm until it unlocks and pull out.
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I'm keeping the K701, HD650, HD600, HF-1, etc. and I listen to them.
The K701 could have been so much more than its decent self. It really was a missed opportunity for AKG to really strut their stuff IMO. Just a couple little things differently...
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http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?ampstube&1200283821
I'm very tempted. As for noise floor, it shouldn't be a problem with my HD650s.
Doh! I almost bought that amp on Agon, just for fun and to compare with the stock one. but I came to my senses and ordered a Meizu M6SL, my second pair of Ultimate Ears Super.Fi Pro's, and a pair of 2A3 SE monoblocks this week
I can't believe that Agon Almarro isn't sold yet. Hmm. Hmm.
P.S. Do NOT buy the Almarro for your Senn HD650's. I tried this combo, and it's not a good synergy. The *character* of HD650 comes straight through, meaning a bit too much darkness and a bit too much bass... I would go with a high-current SS balanced amp.
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@Jon:
Do you know if the headphone section on the Almarro is directly connected to the main outputs, or did they put a resistor in the path to decrease noise?
Also, what kind of trannies do Almarro use? And what about the various upgrade options that I've seen over at Response Audio and Imagine HiFi? Are any of those worth it?
The headphone section is directly connected to the main outs without any resistors. If you were to use high-sensitivity/low-impedance 'phones like Grado's, you have to use some kind of resistor/adapter. For example, when I used Grado RS-1, the background noisefloor was too high for any long-term use. However, the combo sounded fabulous otherwise
Almarro sounds great without noise issues with my most loved 'phones, e.g. AKG K1000, AKG K240 Sextett, Senn HE60 (via SRD7 MkII), K701(modded, recabled), etc.
It sounds so darn good that I have decided not to mod it, other than getting the custom K1000 socket. The parts are not boutique parts, but somehow they managed to hit my personal preferences precisely.
Not that *you* shouldn't try some mods. But make sure you listen to the stock for a long time before ruining a good thing. In the past, I have modded amps with boutique parts like teflon caps, just to find that I actually preferred the balance of things with cheaper parts.
Tube rolling yields much bigger difference anyway IME, and luckily, Almarro sounds great even with the "cheap" Sovtek EL84/EL84M and Sovtek 12AX7LPS..
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I quite liked the old SuperMacro III v.4 with my Ety's, mainly b/c of the low-distortion bass boost and impedance switch. They were really made for each other, and the ability to roll all kinds of op-amps sure was fun and useful.
However, all this newer stuff about "warm" and "tube-like" sound the Xin is going for these days has stopped me from buying newer Xin amps. I like my SS amps to sound like good SS and tube amps to sound like good tube amps. I also like my sound fast, transparent, crisp, and without blurr, e.g. my Senn HE60.
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"Judging by online forums and by the e-mail I receive, there are currently three areas of passion for audiophiles: vinyl playback, headphone listening, and music servers. Are you surprised by this?
I find them all boring, but nothing surprises me any more."
Hey, JGH called us headphone people "boring" :'(
And since many of us are into music servers, that's double-whammy
On a more serious note, I would like to point out to JGH and JA that Stereophile and other big audio mags and their staff over the decades have played a substantial part in the apparent demise of the "high end" by:
1. Endlessly and shamelessly promoting stratospherically overpriced boutique gear that eventually turned off most of the sensible public.
2. Passively crushing the little guys and high-value products by simply pretending they don't exist.
3. Endlessly preaching that "the absolute sound" can only be live unamplified acoustic music while the entire PLANET has embraced many other types of music just as valid.
4. Promoting half-truths, non full-disclosures, questionable dealings based on personal relationships among reviewers/staff and manufacturers. Personally knowing some of these folks, I'm amazed by how much (negatives) is left out of reviews when I KNOW the reviewer feels he can't put down a certain product b/c of various personal/business reasons.
5. But most of all, for being arrogant, closed-minded, believing that only THEIR ears and opinions matter, especially after they've lost all hearing above 10kHz and/or are on the verge of requiring hearing aids (I kid you not)...
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I never found the HE90 to be bright out of either HEV90 or ES-1. IMO, the HE-90 has pretty much the nicest treble out of anything I've ever listened too, in fact, the treble might be a little too polite out of the HEV90.
It still amazes me to this day how people hear differently. As for me, what you said above exactly duplicates my feelings
The price, however, is still quite unsettling for me
Since I would never voluntarily pay that kind of money for any headphone, I say more power to you guys with such deep pockets and apparently VERY understanding significant others -
Not all gainclones are created equal, but nicely built ones do sound great with k1K. However, one will have to spend pretty good money for a nice one, in which case, I would most definitely pick up a used Almarro A205a MkII instead for around $500 on Agon...
And it may even turn out not to be a temporary stop-gap...
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Alex ([AK]Zip) wants $130+shipping for having the HE60 reterminated with a 5 pin plug. Hmm.
Frankly, I would do it myself. From Dr. Gilmore:
The Stax plug wiring scheme is as follows:
left front: pin 2
left rear: pin 5
bias: pin 1
right front: pin 3
right rear: pin 4
bias: pin 6
The Sennheiser HV60 uses a 6-pin inline plug. Here's the Sennheiser plug wiring scheme:
pin 1 (the corner notch): left front
pin 2: left diaphragm (bias)
pin 3: left back
pin 4: right back
pin 5: right diaphragm (bias)
pin 6: right front
*For 5-pin Stax plug, the L and R bias are combined.
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Given the size? It looks like it's 9cu ft. That's way bigger than most subs.
The Bailey sub actually looks pretty small if you place them so that the narrow side faces you. It's pretty cool to be able to ignore a sub like that.
If you got an Elemental Design Sub, however...
FYI. The sub on top is the 10" SVS Sub.
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If someone can hear a diference with powerchords,
then the powerchord is doing filtering that the crappy
psu in the audio component is not doing.
Just get some 10-12 gauge powerchord at home depot,
with some quality connectors, and you're done, $30.
DIY rules
It's funny you should say that b/c one of the VD cords I know DOES in fact use the exact same Romex power cable from Home Depot with "quality" connectors
And I have made DIY power cords using similar Romex wire, and while pretty decent-sounding, esp. compared to the throwaway zip cords, they didn't sound as good as some of the better cords available, not to mention violating all kinds of fire codes
what upstream components are you using?
The Headcase Stax thread
in Headphones
Posted
Thanks for digging this one out. Unfortunately, if my eyes aren't failing me, I think it says "Price 9.500.00 euro."
On the bright side, "The amp uses basically EL84 (x4) as power drivers and 12AX7 (x2) as signal amplifiers.
.. power supply 5U4 (x2) and solid state capacitance multipliers."
I have a bazillion different SOTA tubes already in EL84/12AX7/5U4, so that would be one good reason for me to at least consider this amp
BTW, I just unhooked HE60 from my 2A3 SET and hooked up K1000 to it. I guess 3 watts is also *enough* for K1000 unless you listen extremely loud. 2A3's 3 watts seems a lot better suited than 45's 2 watts for K1000, it turns out. The good news is this used 2A3 SET monoblocks cost me $275 shipped/paypal'd, including tubes