earwicker7

Ok, somebody clue me in here... Is there some kind of feud going on here with RSA? I'm not saying you guys don't know what you're talking about, you're all way above me in the knowledge department. But outside of this site, I can't find one negative thing said about that company. Here, I haven't found one positive thing. I'm not taking sides until I've heard it, it just seems kind of bizarre.

Oh, come on, there's no reason to get personal Can't we all just get along

Eh, everyone's a critic

Amp ordered... the B-52. Now I just need cables, a rack and the isolation booth. No, that's not a typo. I'm going to put a 4' by 4' isolation booth in my already cramped apartment. I've got a fever, baby! I have never spent money like this \

Good point, this had crossed my mind, but I was kind of brushing it off as "Eh, won't be that bad." You're right though... shouldn't take a chance.

Mmhmm. That's what I thought

For what it's worth, I'm not talking anything totally outlandish here. I'm thinking maybe 4' by 4', just enough room for me, a small chair (with beer holder, of course) and the rack. Well, there was originally an outlandish idea... kind of a coffin type enclosure with 4 or 5 inches of that memory foam on the floor so that I could just lie down and float along with the music. But then I realized that drinking beer while lying down could kind of suck. It's just SO painful to be at that almost orgasmic point where your music sounds so good and have it go downhill because of some sonic interruption. I figure that, as mentioned in a post above, this would allow me to escape to my own little world where I can listen to music in perfect silence. I'm drooling just thinking about it.

Yeah, they're closed, so I don't expect miracles. Still, all of the reviews I read (granted, I kind of jumped on them because of the limited edition thing, as I've regretted not grabbing rare stuff before once it was no longer available) were good... what are some of the perceived negatives?

W2002s bought and paid for. Damn you, eBay!!! All I wanted to do was look at prices, and you had to have a limited edition set up there. I'm drinking Pabst tonight.

I can drop a penny or two. I was looking at the Stax 4070; has anyone tried it?

Until I get my isolation booth set up in my house (no, it's not a joke), I need a set of headphones that block out the neighbors. If I hear "You cheat on me again and I'll knock your fucking teeth out!" interrupt Beethoven's 9th one more time, I think I'll scream What would you guys say is the best set of closed cans? I'd prefer balanced and am definitely open to mods.

You know, on the surface, I understand why people think this is crazy, but... Think of all the money we spend on this stuff. Nobody would sneeze if I said I was dropping $80,000 on a phonograph because it offered the right "decay" or "tightness in the lower frequencies," etc. Well, nobody on this site would . But for $3,000, I can get something that offers 30-40 dB of attenuation pretty much across the spectrum. I would pretty much, in a sense, be perfecting the sound of my open cans, as there would be virtually zero background noise; nothing to compensate for and nothing causing me to turn up the volume to drown out Britney Spears. It's a credit card commercial... "Interconnects, $500 a meter. Modded Opus 21, $5,000. Not going deaf... priceless."

Well, it looks like I have two choices here, as I listen to low-rent hip hop (I hope that isn't redundant ) pounding through my neighbor's wall... I could do the rational thing and just kiss the sweet sweet sound of open headphones goodbye and buy closed headphones. Or, I could do the insane thing and tell my daughter that her bedroom would really impress her friends if she had an isolation booth installed in the corner. I mean, how many seven year olds have their own isolation booth? Of course, I would just borrow it from time to time. Why, oh why, does the second one hold SOOOOOOO much more alure?

Yeah, the player I'm listening to now is the crappy cd-player that is built in to my laptop. The new one is a modded Opus 21.

Call me a cocksucker but that isolation booth sounds like it might work...

You know, that did work to a point back in my college band days. Thanks!!! Any other tweaks I could do?

Well, I'm a renter, so I can't start tearing walls out... as much as I'd like to (take that, landlord!!!). Does anyone know of some company (or person) in Los Angeles that I could pay to just soundproof my bedroom? It's pretty small, so I don't think it would cost much to do it right.

Thanks, all. Looks like I'm taking a break for a few days... well, maybe one if I can hold out I'm wondering if a bit of soundproofing might be in order given that these are open cans? I'm in an apartment complex, so there are definitely ambient sounds abounding. Hopefully the new Opus 21 will be quieter than either of my computers, which is what I'm using as sources.

I've been in a state of bliss over the last week since getting my HD650s with the Headroom Balanced Amp. I'd forgotten how much fun it could be to listen to music. I'm so happy that I just spent $5,000 on a CD player, which has convinced my friends that I've gone over the edge. And then it happened... I noticed a really persistent ringing in my ears. Like 12 hours long. I've tried to be really easy on the volume, but it seems like the headphones don't "come alive" until they hit a certain sweet spot, which may be a little more loud than my ears should be listening to. A question for long time listeners--am I going to have to spend the next 10 years keeping the volume low, or is there a way to make the HD650s sing without turning the volume up? Oh yeah, does the ringing usually go away? I'm not listening to anything tonight, as painful as that is; I'm hoping that some rest will make them better.

I got one of the balanced desktops with all of the added bells and whistles. Let me put it this way... I purchased it, along with some HD650s, as a way of listening to my computer, never thinking they would be anything other than "kind of cool". It sounded so good that they brought me back into the audiophile world, which I had left a while ago, thinking I'd probably never return. Now I'm whittling away at a $10K budget for a killer headphone setup in my bedroom, but this will definitely stay as my computer rig. If you're just looking for something quick and easy to use on a computer or somewhere else that needs space-saving, this is an A+. Highly recommended.

I don't want to say money is no object, as I would soon find myself owning a $40,000 cable or something crazy like that, but I'm willing to drop a few pennies. I just ordered a modded Opus 21 cd player and will be purchasing an amp soon (can't decide on whether to get some Stax Omega IIs with the tube amp or maybe just get a balanced amp of some sort for my HD650s). I'd like to get cables that are in "the right league" for this kind of product and am completely overwhelmed by the amount of cables available.

Three weeks :'( Oh well, I'm sure it will be worth the wait. Now I need to start thinking cables and amplification...

Just ordered the Great Northern Sound reference modded Opus 21. So... excited... drool

Bingo!!! Although many people would call me insane for thinking that $10,000 is "cheap", I know that it's easy to blow a quarter mil' on a good stereo system.

I may have already asked this question before, but I'm too lazy to scroll through 5 pages of posts to check I already have a solid state amp, so I'm looking at getting a tube amp just so I can have some variety. Is it really important to use tubes in all stages, or will the amp suffice? I'm kind of interested in the Opus 21 CD player, but it's solid state.