tkam

Nice to see a non-diy entry in the sub-$1000 balanced amp market.

Yeah I know, hopefully it'll ship out tomorrow then.

Tonight? It was supposed to ship out today

Happy Turkey Day everyone!

Damn that sucks, hopefully the speaker is ok and nothing was knocked loose. I'm pretty luck in that my friends and family know to treat my gear well and usually ask before using it.

My wait is just about over, I should be getting my new amp on Friday

I just wonder why you didn't get a new player and have exemplar transfer all of their parts over to the new player? If you factor in all the shipping you've done it would have saved you money by now.

Go into your profile and click "look and layout preferences" and check on the "Return to topics after posting by default." option.

I did some maintenance to the server today, that included some DNS changes. If you see the following in your browsers address bar: http://72.18.146.20/ then either your ISP or your computer is caching the old DNS entries. If your running Windows try opening up a command window and running ipconfig/flushdns and that should clear out any cached dns entries. If that doesn't work you may have to reboot your computer.

$7500 seems like a hell of a lot for that, does anyone know how much it cost new?

The hollowness and odd midrange are the deal breakers for me. The 650s and rs-1s are both cheaper and none of their flaws bothers me as much.

The W5000 are just one of those phones I've never really liked. The first time I heard them I thought they were ok but since I've had a pair on loan for a few months I've started to dislike them more and more.

Gears of War isn't the only reason I'm thinking of the Xbox 360, though it does have me leaning towards the 360 instead of the ps3.

Except HD-DVD is useless and I don't want the wireless adapter

I had thought about that but they are going to be impossible to get. Sony had committed to have 400,000 PS3s available for the US launch, but recent reports say they are only going to have 150,000 to 200,000 available at most.

I've been leaning towards the 360 mostly because I want Gears of War and partially because its cheaper.

If you were getting a new game system which one would you get and why?

That 40 ohm output impedance could very well explain any issues you were having Grados

Yep two gain stages and the output stage. To the best of my knowledge it's a new design. Yeah it'll easily drive anything, plenty of current and an output impedance of around 2 ohms should make it a great match with low imp. phones. The 6528 is a beast of a tube each one requires 5A of heater current, so the power supply should be rather impressive as well.

Looks like I'll be joining the "my amp finally came in" crowd sometime next week. I spoke with Mikhail today and the final tube config is as follows: 2 x 6sn7 (or 6414 w/ adapters) --> 2 x 6bl7 --> 2 x 6528. The amp should drive the hell out of any headphone and make a nice pre-amp as well

That airy sound you speak of, is not something I'm really looking for in headphones. If I didn't have speakers I *might* agree with you. But for now I still think my L3000 are better

I think that is a pretty fair assessment, though electrocstat bass is a good bit quicker.

Nice! There can never be too many tubes.

Thanks to Alex (ayt999) I've had a pair of R10's on loan for a good amount of time now and figured it was time to post some impressions. The R10's have wonderful detail retrieval and are one of the most resolving phones around. This is of course a double edged sword as it can be great on well recorded music but absolutely brutal on poor recordings. The R10's tonality which I do feel to be quite natural sounding is likely their best attribute. Probably the most talked about attribute of the R10's is their sound stage, yes it's huge and yes it gives the listener that sense of being completely enveloped in sound. That being said, I do not think it is very natural, in fact on some music I found it to be down right distracting. Aside from that, I will say that the imaging is very accurate and the sense of space they can portray is impressive. The R10's treble has great extension and a good amount of "airyness" to it. However I do think it has a tendency to be a little sibilant at times. On to the R10's bass which is easily and I think rightfully so their most controversial attribute. The extension is pretty good, but the impact is lacking. For example the leading edge of drum hits sound very good but that "oomph" you expect to come after that and as the note trails off is often times non-existent or not prominent enough. I almost wonder if the less than stellar bass was done on purpose as it does seem to add to the sense of space between instruments. For a large portion of my music the lacking bass is really quite a detriment to my enjoyment of the music. For me that makes the R10's very genre limited headphones and certainly not worth the $4-$5K that they go for these days. It's safe to say that I'm part of the group that just doesn't get all the hype the R10's receive. Their "strength" I already get elsewhere, with the L3000 I get tonality that is on par or better than the R10's IMO and when it comes to sound stage if I want a truly large sound stage I'll just listen to my speakers. Part of the reason I really like headphones is their immediacy and more intimate setting and I feel the R10s are the antithesis of that.

Let's attempt to keep this on-topic I split off all the posts after Chrysanthemum's to another topic.