deepak

Surprisingly I received the cable today I should have ordered my plugs earlier, oh well \

surfboardz I was expecting $5k

So does this have any connection with Alessandro? Or is he marketing them himself? Feel free to ignore this if you can't give out that info

Out of your league?

:o :o :o speechless Is this a limited edition?

I'm a little worried why you took the time to calculate that...

I know Harmon Kardon is a part of AKG, but they now have HKGs? Just kidding, enjoy the headphones.

Me too

Keep in mind the price on the 300SEI will depend on manuf. date, tubes included, remote, subwoofer out, etc. And tube rolling the amp isn't going to be cheap.

I had an M3 with STEPS and 627 opamps. I don't remember the exact parts list since a friend built it, but it was one hell of an amp. Parts were definitely under $400.

I'm going to take a guess and say that a mob at Headfi told you this? And they all registered in 2006...

x-posted humanflyz I can agree with most of what you said about the HD650 (I've only briefly heard the W5000 on a few occasions so no comments about that). I know when I first registered on Headfi 2 years ago the HD650 was a really popular headphone for having excellent soundstage. I heard them on and off and wasn't really "blown away", which is fine since most headphones that did that to me were usually fatiguing in the long run. I've had the HD650 for a while now (bought them after the K1000 as a bassy alternative). And the 3 biggest flaws that I see are: 1) the soundstage is much smaller than most people make it out to be (maybe they haven't heard anything better or they switched from a Grado ). Even then the Grado RS series have a very nice headstage (to me it's very close to the HD650), but a smaller soundstage. 2) if I switch from listening to the K1000 to the HD650 I immediately notice the instruments are well placed left and right but there isn't much height, or anything between the left and right and highest point; it's pretty much empty. This effect is most obvious for most music except for some studio rock music. This is fine for the "focus area" of the intended recording (usually vocals, which the artist probably wants you to focus on) which is usually placed directly in front of your ear but the rest of the imaging just isn't concise to my ears. 3) the slowness you're describing. This is probably the most difficult to describe, but more than likely I'm perceiving it as lack of PRaT (pace, rhythm and timing). One of the few pieces of audiophile jargon I feel I've come to grips with since this ultimately determines how fun something sounds to me. I've just said a lot of bad stuff about the HD650, but I haven't mentioned any of its strengths which it has plenty of. I'm going to hold onto these for a long time, and I do hope that going balanced will solve at least 1 of the 3 points I put up above. Hope this helps someone, I really shouldn't be using my break time with these lengthy replies

New Hampsha for the win

I would stay far away from the 404. It has an upper midrange spike that colors the sound, and makes a lot of vocal stuff sound really strange and unnatural. Unless all you listen to is electronic music the SR-404 is something I would never live with again. I tried it out with a few top sources and it still had its flaws. I was only using it with the SRM-313 (and I saw that you wanted to pair it with a SRM-006t), but I'm not sure how much a better amp is going to improve them. The SR-404 are very clinical and dull, whereas to me the K1000 is clinical yet at the same time fun to listen to. Did the big San Fran meet at Neil's house happen? I recall someone was bringing an SR-404, you should listen to it a lot before you make your decision. Straight out of the Lavry I can certainly live with the HD650's faults. I'm going to hear them balanced, I'll post some initial impressions here but I intend to do a lengthy review.

I'll have the cable in about 10 days

Happy New Year

Thats what I'll do, can't wait to hear these balanced. Nice $15 upgrade

Since when have Mel Gibson movies been accurate (even if he has attempted to)?

Haven't seen a movie in a while where the movie just grabs your attention and holds on to it the entire time. Aside from a rather drawn out scene towards the end the entire movie was excellent. And for those of you that really dislike subtitles, they're all single line and very easy to follow.

Reterminating a stock cable might be a better idea so I can compare stock single ended vs stock balanced. Were you saying Mikhail uses the Belden SPC, or a stock reterminated HD650 cable? Thanks for the feedback guys.

I will have a stock HD650 cable in a week which I was going to use for the connectors. I was going to make a 2.5 meter cable terminated in 2 female XLR plugs. And I was thinking of using silver plated copper, which is pretty easy to find on ebay for cheap in long runs. What I'm concerned about is what gauge should I get? I don't mind a stiff cable as I'm sitting in one spot when I listen, but a bit of flexibility is good too. I was thinking 26 or 28 AWG? In a litz braid up to the Y split

What is the XP?

Take a look at the gambling arena Since this thread is about portables, whats going on with the PPAS? Still in development?

www.phonetrace.org got me