tkam

From what I can tell he seems to like keeping things in the output stage as short and simple as possible. I bet all those active parts on the zapfilter drive him nuts .

People are allowed to like something more than the K340's

Welcome to Head-case, while I have no direct experience with any of Alex's modded 3910's I've been extremely happy with the modded Philips SACD1000 I have from him. I'm also eyeing the new DAC he has coming out . Those mods you listed sound very similiar to the mods he now offers for the Sony 9100ES and early reports on that unit is that it is a very nice piece.

Yep thats quite true, my modded philips has lundahl output transformers and sounds pretty amazing, that being said I don't know anything about the transformers RAM uses.

Well the tubes I use are the sylvania 6sn7w short bottles and they go for about $75 each. The metal bases are quite a bit rarer and cost much more, anyhwere from $150-$200 each.

Sounds about right I've never heard a headphone from Ultrasone that didn't sound terrible.

Yeah looks glued on and those transformers look kinda tiny.

It's probably pretty good but I don't have any experience with the output transformers they use let alone any of their modded players.

He did that himself actually. The cable is the original cable from his now recabled HP-2's.

For all the RAM mods I've seen there is always a pair of op-amps doing the I/V before the transformers.

As usual it was a fun time and it was nice to see everyone again. Oh and thanks to Adam for the donuts . The new DT880s sounded quite nice. The treble is toned down a bit from the older models and they actually have some decent bass . They easily compete with the 650s for the best phone in that under $500 range. I'd like to hear the new DT990s at some point as they also look quite interesting. The HP2's were great as they usually are, I really liked them with that 6gu7 tube in the gain spot that Earl brought along. It was nice to hear the zana deux again it really is a hell of an amp.

Yep

Got my hotel room for Friday night all situated, look forward to seeing you guys on Saturday.

Start time will probably be around 10-10:30am. I believe reks PM'd all those who he thought would be interested but feel free to contact them again to see if they are coming.

Finally had some time to give Enchant a try, very good stuff I'm impressed. Thanks for the recommendation.

It's possible that there was something wrong with that pair of O2's but I think it's more likely that it was a bad/dying tube in the 007t.

Here's a direct link: http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_transporter.html Yeah that looks intersting. Good choice by them to use the AK4396, it's probably the best delta-sigma dac around. I wonder if the output stage is something discrete or just an after thought op-amp -> output capacitor type setup.

No need I have them and zipped them already for anyone that wants it: http://head-case.org/Emilie_Autumn-Enchant.zip

Hirsch, how about the bass? I always felt the old version of the DT880 was a little thin and lacked impact.

If you've heard the older DT880 how do they compare to the 2006 version?

What glare? All I see is a ball of fur, tongue and a nose...

It's really only the toilet bowl white color that bothers me. I can put up with the otherwise especially since I'll never own them.

Yeah those are ugly as sin. Sure I get they want them to match ipods but after the reception AKG had with the 701s you'd think Grado would avoid making the same mistake of releasing headphones that look like a toilet.

I agree that the mid-low end of the market will probably be affected the most but really take a look at the high-end market. Take the Omega2's out of the question and there isn't a single pair of headphones in current production that cost over $1k. Of course I'm not saying you have to spend more than that to get quality, but the complete lack of headphones in that price range isn't a good sign. I'm not going to predict the demise of the high-end headphone market but the current trend certainly points toward that market and the number of competitors shrinking. Yep thats how I see it happening and you can already see it to some degree. If you look at the overall headphone market the IEM segment has seen by far the most new high quality products over the past 1-2 yrs.

See I have a slightly different take on this, I'm concerned that with the growth of the hobby and the industry that we could actually see a decrease in quality. Once the market is large enough the manufacturers won't really have any incentive for creating new ground breaking (or even just great) headphones. They'll just be happy churning out large quantities of average quality phones to the masses.