Clarkmc2
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Posts posted by Clarkmc2
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(on a side note... I don't want to sound jealous, of course I'd love to own his set, and I'm actually happy he could make this dream system come true, but come-on... that doesn't detract me from the fact that this is easily the most insane misalocation of resources I've ever seen in audio)
And I suppose he didn't spend dime one on room treatment...
I could make the case that dropping more on new source & DAC, cables and amp to try to improve a dynamic headphone costing less than all that stuff is equally foolish, At least while you can still buy a high end Stax. But then I am prejudiced towards brand S. I doubt I will change my mind about that when I finally hear someone's 009, fierce looking or not.
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Honestly, I think some people get all wrapped up in their own underwear over things like this. At some point it becomes a case of analysis to paralysis. Thing is, there will never be one perfect recipe for lasagna that will be universally loved by all. It's a matter of taste. Same with headphones, sources, amps, etc. My favorite headphones are always the ones I'm listening to at the moment. All of the comparison stuff becomes rather exhausting after a while... at least for those of us who now measure our time in the hobby in dog years.
I may be new here, but I have also been at this for a while and then some. I could not agree more. There is a place, of course, for audio equipment hobbyists. But I wish they had a separate section on audio websites so folks who just want to hear music and movies could compare notes without wading through high end lust (misplaced, usually IMHO), ignorant posts about wire/burn in/tubes vs sand/speakers vs headphones... You know, beating dead horses or science fiction audio or both. I am afraid to post on the other sites now, but I have a high comfort level here.
I loved the reply a while back where someone inquired about a multi-thousand dollar interconnect or cable; it was suggested he try Head-Fi. Now that was good advice. His post there probably has 40K views and 189 followups, most off topic of course!
Threads like this one do get tiresome after a while because there comes a point where the only way to make a contribution is to wait and hear them for yourself. I will take advice about something I have not heard, but just shoot me if I give commentary or opinions about it. Maybe I should rename myself LowPostCount.
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Strange that I didn't find the 507 bright driven by the sr-007IIt even with the more forward sound but I did find the O2 bright with strong sibilance specially on s's.
What do I know, but I can't imagine the O2 being at all sibilant. I would think the upstream equipment the culprit. Or the source being reproduced a bit too accurately for its own good.
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Now I am really, really sorry I did not get to spend any time with Tyll at CanJam. As for the results, I guess I'll stick with high end Stax. Did Stax ever make anything this bad? At any price?
And never mind Citizen Kane. I have my new favorite film of all time.
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"KR audio under review in Hi-Fi voice...in short, we are the best"
Modest.
Well, sure, but when you are the designer and manufacturer of the T1610 triode you can say what you want. They sound exquisite, a friend told me, and are indestructible unless used in a Cary. Since we don't have transmission triodes any more, at least we have T1610s. The ability to rob a bank is a plus if you need to buy some. They would have no problem powering the K1000, or most speakers not mounted on your head as well. KR also makes probably the best 300Bs currently manufactured.
Their only real competition is here. Both companies are run by ladies in the Czech Republic.
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Right, an insurmountable challenge to overcome, my bad.
I left myself wide open for that one! Just pointing out that the poster stated interest in an integrated 300B amp.
I resisted the temptation to compare them, but since Birgir has broached the topic...
The Bottlehead without a doubt will sound much better and cost much less. Both because Bottleheads generally sound great and Carys tend to be overpriced and poor sounding. And unreliable, according to the chief designer at this company.
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The Bottlehead is not an integrated amp.
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Wouldn't that imply that the K1000 is a poor choice, given the notch filter that they employ?
There is a fix. Notch filters are common with full range speakers, so Nelson Pass has shown how to reconfigure them for this type of amplification. From this paper: link you can see that you can put filters in parallel rather than in series, and this works for current source amps. In this paper you will find the following schematic. R0, L0,R1,C1and L1 are a classic RCL notch filter, paralleled to the driver. (The speaker is being electrically modeled; just imagine a speaker in the box labeled speaker instead of the components.)
I abandoned this route eventually - without measuring equipment I would never have managed it correctly - in favor of eliminating the notch filter altogether from my Hammer Dynamics Super 12s. The F2 tames the problem the filter was designed to deal with to the point where I can live with it, and the result is so immediate and convincing I prefer it to anything else I have ever heard. Sometimes you have to be bold and trust your ears. This may work with the K1000, I don't know how well. Either way the bass is still huge.
Plan C, just hook it up like Boomana did and enjoy it anyway. Still a quality amp under any circumstances.
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Speaking of Firstwatt amps, I was on the website and saw this:
Would any of these be ideal to power a set of Quad ESL 57s? Here's an impedance graph:
The F1 and F2 are designed to work best when hooked up directly to a voice coil. The Quads use a transformer, do they not? Not a good application. They are magic with dynamic headphones and single driver or full range speakers. Flatter, more precise response and deeper bass extension. Often startlingly so on both counts. Both can be built with power JFETS, which cause distortion to plunge to totally inaudible levels, no kidding. I believe no amplifiers are more accurate than these. Nelson has recently hinted possible further transconductance offerings in the future.
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Ooh, I know that John guy really well. I'd really watch out for him, he's a bit of an ass.
Actually, I shared a table with Skylab. I suspect you are vastly underestimating my DIY skills (none, maybe less than zero - I often break things that I'm trying to fix). Your setup sounded great! You talked circles around me technically speaking, but I guess that doesn't take much ...
Edit: BTW, grawk saying you're not a douchebag is quite a compliment, indeed!
Well hi again, John! You probably would have understood what I was talking about if I had any sleep under my belt. Then I might have actually made sense. Have to say I did turn a minor repair into a write-off myself. So much for working on circuit boards with no desoldering equipment.
I thought grawk was giving Leonardo the douchbag free nod. Or perhaps he is going easy on me because I bought something from him once. (I think. It tends to be a blur...)
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Clarkmc2! I think we shared an equipment room in CanJam last summer. Scary good DIY knowledge. Nice to see you!
Perhaps a case of mistaken identity; otherwise a vast overestimation of my DIY skill set! I was across from Skylab with my friend David, and since work intruded on Saturday we could attend Sunday only. Spritzer and Duggeh were kind enough to look me up and hang out. When I could steal a little time at the end of the meet I checked out the Woo room stat amps and Headamp's Blue Hawaii SE. Then on to the high end room where Dr. Gilmore was kind enough to turn his T2 back on. He is a great guy, but I also suspect he was swayed by the Stax Omega 2 mk 2.5 I was carrying. Some fine citizen had destroyed his 007 and he wanted to hear the newest model.
The Headamp and high end rooms were deserted because the raffle was going on. They were quiet and I had some great listens. By the way, my friend had his socks knocked off by the Eddie Current Balancing Act. He still talks about it. And I still talk about the T2.
A photo below of me, at the right with no sleep for two days, a really nice fellow (John?) who was one of only five or six who cared to stop by and listen, and the two Grommes PHI-26's, two FirstWatt F2JFETS (one on cartons behind me), SRD-7 Spritzer board modified box, 007mk2, and JoLida and Rega CDPs I dragged along. After this was taken Spritzer's high end DIY transformer box sat in residence for a few hours. All I met there were really fine people. My first meet, I had not encountered Spritzer, Duggeh, Skylab or Kevin Gilmore before and I consider meeting each of them an honor. I did spot Tyll but did not have time to bother him. My loss!
Wouldn't you know it, I didn't get to hear a K1000.
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FirstWatt F1 or F2 are the ticket for single driver. The F2 is pretty simple as these things go.
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The Stax SRX-Mk3. The non pro version is fine. Relentlessly neutral, just bass light enough to get WAY into the mix. They are thirty years old and don't cost very much. Terrible phones for noisy rock, but they reveal everything upstream with ease. Real truth machines.
They were pretty expensive when they came out and were for professional monitoring. Too much bass gets in the way in that application.
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I have encountered, in my audio travels, one intelligent take on why the goal of an audiophile might/should not always be the precise reproduction of the original performance. The late musician extraordinaire Glenn Gould was one heck of a thinker.
He was a pioneer in modern recording techniques and editing together performances. He considered playing "classical" music to live audiences a very compromised way of life and way of creating and experiencing a performance. I think he was right. I think only improvisational music (Jazz mostly; the Grateful Dead never could get it together in the studio, so there is that too. They were highly improvisational.) often benefits from live recording, and not always.
He also went on at length about this specific topic, the role of the home listener. He was not opposed to EQ and knob turning in general.
Gould's thoughts are on display in the 1978 book by Geoffrey Payzant, Glenn Gould, Music & Mind. The whole book is fascinating, but chapters three and four specifically cover these topics. I found the book used at reasonable cost on line, from Canada of course. If you like what you read, there is the much larger and less edited The Glenn Gould Reader, but I would not start there.
The NPR comments, I confess, include a lame attempt by yours truly as Ducatista47. I ran out of allowed space before I could broach this topic.
Clark
PS The thread does have an Engineer's comments about binaural recording. Way over the heads of most of the posters, but it is there.
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I thought Stax prices were high a couple of years ago
It's strange how headphone gear (headphones and amps) has maintained (or increased) its value in the last several years, while the rest of hifi sales in used and new market are way down.
That would be mostly Head-Fi. I have seen a site smaller than Head Case drive the prices of vintage JBL speakers way up over a few years time, simply by talking them up as nice speakers.
I believe Head-Fi is the largest audio site on the web, or nearly so. It doesn't matter that 98% of what is posted there is uninformed garbage; people read it. The price of good older units climb. The crap units might go up too, I don't know. I do not follow crap. I always tried to avoid marching behind the horses in the parade.
Clark
The Headcase Stax thread
in Headphones
Posted
I feel like sticking up for the sometimes maligned SR-007MK2 (2.5 actually - the SZ3 series). Having lived with it for a couple of years more or less, I have found it ideal for my needs. It does not have perfect frequency balance, as has often been pointed out. But it is very, very good and has all the other sonic virtues of TOTL electrostatic headphones.
Where it excels beyond other high end phones, for my old ears at least, is its forgiving nature. It brings out the best in everything rather than accentuating faults. Give it a crappy recording, within reason, and it sound as good as can possibly sound. Give it better material and it rises to the occasion. I am not aware of any other high end phone that sounds this good and is also completely forgiving of less than perfect recordings.
I have a feeling that it was a deliberate balance of compromises, not a botched reworking of an almost perfect design. I will follow with interest the 009 to see where it fits in re: forgiving nature. I know it must sound great, but if it is not forgiving I may not have much use for it. I listen to a lot of music, and I can't put up with my gear dictating what I listen to. The music is the whole point, not the equipment.
Almost unrelated, the SR-007MK2 is the most comfortable phone I have ever worn. I guess I have a Japanese head, size and shape wise.