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tiberian

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Posts posted by tiberian

  2. power conditioning improvement - mainly from the receptacles?

    in Audio Accessories

    Posted

    i replaced my crappy wall outlet with a cryoed pass and seymour 8200H from cryo parts like 2 weeks ago. i got a really nice improvement on imaging, and the blackground hash also dropped a bit, resulting in a better sense of transparency and speed.

    out of boredom i plugged my lavry directly to the receptacle. to my surprise the sound isn't that different from the clean, open sound i get from plugging my rig into the running springs haley. take the improvement i get from the cryoed P&S further, and you get the haley.

    the p&s is more expensive than the normal receptacle we use, but its physically larger, and the clamping mechanism is better built. it also doesn't have fancy plating and a ridiculous oyaide/furutech pricetag.

    now maybe i can finally think about selling my haley and the TG SLVR cord seriously...then get a transporter!

    anyway, before spending 30 bucks on a ps audio fuse, try a better outlet first.

  6. B52 Observations.

    in Headphone Amplification

    Posted

    At the end of the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, Mikhail took his SDS-XLR down to the Virtual Dynamics/Star Sound room to try it as a preamp. The system was one of the big Wadia's driving solid-state monoblocs directly. In theory, a good preamp should not be subtractive. In practice, adding the SDS-XLR killed off some grain that was in the system, made the image more coherent, and added a level of detail that had been missing. Rather stunning improvement in the sound. After that I decided:

    1) I'm now a believer in active preamplification. Adding extra circuitry should at best have done no damage, but should not have produced improvement. It did, and the difference wasn't small.

    2) The SDS-XLR is almost wasted being used as a headphone amp exclusively. This is a world-class preamp, and should be sold that way.

    I haven't heard the B-52 since the National Meet. At that time, I thought the overall sound was very good, but that image was limited to between the headphones, which is a deal killer for me. I'm used to a large image that seems to go well beyond the headphones, and won't settle for less anymore.

    If you want to get a quick handle on Ray's sound, listen to the drummer. On every amp of his that I've heard, the drummer seems to recede into the background. The B-52 actually did better than Ray's other amps when I tried that. I've heard the volume that Ray listens at, which may explain this. At that kind of volume, there really isn't room for much dynamic range. A real drum hit at that volume level would pop the drivers right out of a headphone. Although the amps play loud, they have to compress dynamics or clip at that level. However, the problem comes when you hear the compressed dynamics at normal listening volumes. The dynamic contrasts simply aren't what they should be. Once you're listening for dynamic contrast, you can hear that it's missing on every instrument, resulting in a flat, bland sound. The drum and piano suffer the most, though, simply because of the dynamics of the instruments. Prior to the B-52, I thought the SR-71 was the only one of Ray's amps that was even close to getting the drum right.

    not trying to be a jackass, but i am extremely skeptical on the "added a layer of detail that had been missing" part.

  9. The Emmeline II B-52

    in Headphone Amplification

    Posted

    I hope I can keep the price at 1.8k. Something about the GS-X is very appealing in the Japanese market, and I was approached by two distributors specifically for that amp, one of them asking to place an order for 10 units. I had to turn them down because I would have had to sell each amp for the cost of parts, and done all of the labor for free.

    can't you just charge the distributors 1.8k, and have them mark up the price in the Japanese market accordingly? I know zu cable does that in Hong Kong.

  13. New amp from RSA...

    in Headphone Amplification

    Posted

    Filbert at that other forum has said this (probably soon to be deleted)

    I'm not trying to troll you guys or make your lives difficult or whatnot. When I comment on something, it is in an effort to be helpful to the person I'm responding to. My comment was out of a genuine interest and concern. The current a portable amplifier outputs is going to come from the batteries, and the batteries are limited in capacity. In order to achieve a desired battery life, your current draw is going to have to be sufficiently low. You have to take into account not only the quiescent draw of the amplifier circuitry, but the draw of the headphones as well. As a result, based on the duration quoted here, it seems that it would have to drive your IEMs on a couple or few mA of current (depending on battery capacity), which is probably doable, but then there's a question of why you need an amplifier in the first place since many devices' internal amps will already source and sink that much current with pretty decent linearity and they're designed to handle the sort of load a headphone brings, whereas many micropower op-amps aren't (and even fewer could do so reasonably well). In order to get the equation above that level, it would take AAAs of a capacity I've at least never seen before or seen anything even close, but I'm not ruling out the possibility. I mention micropower op-amps as they're about the only thing that will get this low a quiescent current at this voltage, as well as the use of some of them might help explain artears' comment. I considered the use of micropower op-amps in some of the circuits I built over the summer, so I'm not unfamiliar with them. Thus, to me at least, it seemed as though my comments were reasonable. I would have made them irrespective of who made the amplifier. People who talk to me regularly I imagine will tell you I discuss the designs of a variety of devices, not just Ray's.

    I have to agree 100%. Many of the ipod and ipod like things i have checked into in the last few hours have at a minimum 4.8 volt batteries, most have 6

    volt batteries, and i even found one with a 7.2 volt battery. All of these devices are going to be able to drive headphones better than something that

    runs on 3 volts.

    wow, i read immtbiker original post, and he is a fucking idiot. instead of doing his math, he decided to flame filburt, lol.

  14. Worst amp you've ever heard?

    in Headphone Amplification

    Posted

    I didn?t have a pleasant experience with the Raptor. It really didn?t do anything special. I thought it had decent separation, speed, and detail with my HD650s, but it really started to hurt my ear after about the first hour. And then the following days, I could only last 20 minutes or so without wanting to turn it down or off. I changed cables from the UR4s to M-Paths, which helped a bit. Sometime afterwards, I thought possibly my source at the time (E5) could have been partially responsible. My experience dealing with Ray was OK until I wanted to return the Raptor. At first he just ignored my emails. And then two days before my trial period ended he sent me a rather rude and abrupt email, indicating something like love or hate it and if I wanted a refund he needed the amp in two days. So I sent it back overnight because I didn?t want to deal with any headaches.

    With respect to my time with the Hornet and after further comparison using my E4s, I thought differences were negligible between the Hornet and my Karma?s headphone jack. So I sold it because I couldn?t justify keeping it. Though, I never found the Hornet to be fatiguing or harmful to my sensitive ears.

    what a douchebag.

  15. Worst amp you've ever heard?

    in Headphone Amplification

    Posted

    i've heard a lot of amps: various cmoys, dynalos, dynahis, dynamites, headroom amps of all flavors both single ended and balanced, multiple singlepowers, pimetas, ppas, m3s, a millett, meier amps, both grace amps, the RA-1, completely custom tube amps, multiple eddie current amps, mints, the GCHA (stock and modded), the RKV, receiver headphone jacks, integrated amps, poweramps running K1000s, and the SR-71, and every single one of those was more or less faithful to the signal. some i liked, some i didn't, but it was a matter of flavor, not the core representation of the music. there is only one amp i've ever heard that produced a remix: that was the Raptor with a pair of RS-1s. the Raptor turned snare drums into mushy tom-toms, something i've never heard with any other products. that is why i consider the worst amp i've ever heard. maybe the Raptor sounds better with high impedance headphones. maybe it doesn't. it really doesn't matter, because Ray Samuels claims that the Raptor drives Grados well. changing the character of the signal is not what i consider to be "driven well."

    again, ray listens at a very loud volume, and he listens to slow and quiet stuff, which partly explains why his amps sound bloated/rolled off/whatever, i guess. also to those who has been to ray's place, can anyone describe how does ray's main rig sound like...?

    when i was at a chicago meet earlier this year he said his amps are SOTA and have no house sound, hah.

  22. new player

    in Portable Audio

    Posted

    my iaudio x5 crapped out again, and i am gonna replace it with something thats not from iaudio...enough with that shitty company.

    so what are my options? the new 80GB ipod looks great, but zen vision looks impressive too.

  23. Sennheiser HD600 cable connectors

    in Do It Yourself

    Posted

    Greetings. I recently bought a used Sennheiser HD600 from a friend for practically nothing more than a song, knowing it had problems with the cable on the right side. There is intermittent continuity, so the audio keeps cutting out if the cable is moved just so. I know there are several manufacturers that make replacement cables such as Clou and Cardas, but I don't feel like spending CAD$200 on -wire- right now. (yes, some of you will call me insane for not immediately picking up the Cardas or Clou cable. Well to that I say phthptftphfftt!!! :P ) Anyways, I was wondering if anyone knows where to get the seemingly proprietary connectors that Sennheiser uses in their headphones. I would like to build my own replacement cable (obviously) rather than having to shell out $60 locally for an OEM cable or wait forever and a day for Sennheiser to respond to my e-mail regarding a replacement.

    send grandenigma a message, he knows how to cut the plugs off the sennheiser cable without doing any damage.
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