TMoney

^ This

Wow, John. Thats one sexy amp you have there.

Wow. I'm surprised they announced so far ahead of when they were actually ready to launch. I would guess they have lost a substantial amount of the buzz they had generated at CES by waiting this long.

So... how quiet is quiet? Sub 70dB?

Happy birthday, Ari! Have a great one, and hopefully I'll see you in a few weeks at the big meet.

Happy Birthday, Kevin. This site (and the headphone community at large) wouldn't be the same without you.

Wes Montgomery and the Wynton Kelly Trio at the Half Note

Very cool. I'll check it out. Thanks for the link.

Aspergers going once. Aspergers going twice...

A "memorial" viewing of the Last Waltz on bluray is in order for this weekend. In the meantime, there is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceRg_rxXQ_E

It was a friend's rip so I'm not totally sure. I'll have to check on that. Next time we will have to buy a few more albums on HDTracks to compare. You can get around this problem by using the computer to down-convert the 24-bit track into a 16-bit version. That should take the "different mastering jobs" problem out of the equation. Thats what we tried doing for this test. Agreed with the better hi-rez files usually having a better mastering job. That being said, a few of the SACDs I own have much less dynamic range in their mastering jobs than the original CD pressings. For some reason many of the best sounding CDs I have are older pressings from the mid/late 80s. Maybe its because mastering engineers didn't screw around as much with the mastering back in the old days? Based on how close our "hi" and "low" rez tracks sounded during our test I'm incline to agree with you that the differences are mostly psychological as well.

As someone who thinks standard 16/44 redbook sounds fantastic, I'm pretty skeptical about this whole hi-rez 24-bit movement. I did some blind testing with a buddy and I thought our results were worth posting. I'd love to hear what people think. TL:DR Folks: Just read the BOLD stuff. So my buddy and I conducted a few blind tests to see if we could hear a difference between 24 and 16 bit versions of the same tracks. We used two albums, the 24/96 version of Alison Krauss & Union Stations Paper Airplane from HDTracks and a 24/48 rip (using dbPoweramp) of Tool's Lateralus HDCD. Obviously using the same tracks but with different mastering jobs from different versions of the album can make quite a big difference in the overall sound. To combat this issue, we created our 16-bit tracks directly off down-sampled versions of the hi-rez tracks. I used iTunes to down-convert copies the 24/96 and 24/48 tracks into 16/44 versions. Our test gear was: DAC: Antelope Audio Zodiac (the basic version) AMP: KGSSHV PHONES: SR-009 For our tests we first listened to the hi-rez and low-rez versions of the tracks sighted so we could see if we could hear a difference when we weren't blind. Once we had listened to both the hi-rez and low-res version of the track enough to familiarize ourselves we did a number of blind test trials where either the hi-rez or low-rez version was randomly played. The listener had to identify which of the hi or low rez track they were listening to. We didn't give the listener any feedback about right or wrong answers until after the last trial was complete. A number of trials on were performed on each track before moving to the next track. Our Results: Even though the hi-rez and low-rez versions of the Tool tracks sounded very close, we were able to consistently identify which track was hi-rez and which track was low-rez well above the level that would occur by random guessing. It follows that there probably is "something" lost in down-coverting tracks from 24/48 into 16/44, even if that "something" was pretty damn subtle to our ears. The fact that we consistently identified the hi and low rez tracks indicates that we definitely heard a difference between the two. When it came to the Alison Krauss album, we were not able to consistently identify the hi-rez and low-rez version above the level that we'd get right simply by chance guessing. I really have no what this means, but I'd guess that not all 24-bit tracks are created equal. Either that, or maybe the differences between 16-bit and 24-bit is only apparent on certain albums? Honestly, without more testing I don't feel confident in making any conclusions about this. Next time we'll test more albums. Anyways, I'd love to hear other's experiences/opinions on this 24-bit hi-rez stuff. Does this sound similar to your experiences?

Another INTJ. Welcome to the club, I guess.

Ooops. I meant to say volume, not gain.

Please take all of the following with a grain of salt. It's just one man's opinion. Having just gotten over something similar a few weeks ago, get healthy, then give us your impressions. I put zero stock into my own impressions even when I'm just starting to get stuffed up. It just isn't a great time to be evaluating audio gear. Also, there is no need for your impressions to be as long as they were. You aren't exactly dealing in unknown commodities here. While the KGSS and BH you currently have might be biased higher, many of us have heard some incarnation of both of the amps so there isn't much of a need to reinvent the wheel with your impressions. I think the Head-Case crowd generally prefers it to kept briefer and more to the point. Head-Fi is obviously a different story. I think if you tried to limit yourself to about 10-15 sentences, tops, you'd get down to the real nitty-gritty in the comparison. Again, just my opinion, take it or leave it.

I'm using the 50K. There isn't a ton of gain for those who listen loud but I listen more on the quiet side. No issues so far.

How does it sound with 007/009s? A nice change of flavor?

I've never seen one of these before http://www.head-fi.org/t/605095/fs-stax-ed-1-diffuse-field-equalizer-for-stax-lambda-pro-price-dropped

Agree, this looks perfect given what you've specified. When you are buying wine for a real collector, IMO it's best to not try and wow them with some obscure cult wine that they may or may not have heard of. I personally think it's best to stick to the big guns, even if there are better wines and better values out there. When you go with the tried and true, odds are the person will know what you are giving them and will appreciate the significance of the gift. In that vein, any of the Premier Cru Bordeauxs from a decent year are an easy recommendation. The place you want to order from can definitely help you with the year. The Premier Crus are (from Wikipedia): Premier Grand Cru Château Lafite Rothschild Médoc (Pauillac) Château Margaux Médoc (Margaux) Château Latour Médoc (Pauillac) Château Haut-Brion Pessac-Leognan Château Mouton-Rothschild Médoc (Pauillac)

You like em more than the HD600s? From your graphs it appears the HD650s slightly beat the HD600s out on technical grounds. That being said I do love the little extra bit of treble energy that the 600s have.

Looks like you guys had an amazing meet. Makes me wish I could hear a T2 again. When heard it I was still using an old SRM-T1. The T2 sounded so much better than the SRM-T1 that it was hard to make critical judgements. The difference between the amps was just too large. It'd be interesting to hear it again now that I've been grown accustom to the capabilities of the KGSSHV. I'd guess it'd be a much better standard to judge the T2 against than a SRM-T1.

In my case I've been playing around with tubes in a preamp. I've been trying to sell the preamp for some time, but I figured I'd break it out and do a little experimenting as long as I've still got it. While its not as optimal as listening straight out of the DAC, different pairs of tubes have pretty different sound signatures. Some of my older "tubey" sounding tubes sound pretty darn lush through the 9-HV combo.

In defense of the 9's on the Gilmore amps, I've found their transparent character really lets the source shine through. I've got a couple of sources around all they all sound very different when played through my 9-KGSSHV combo. If you are interested in lushing them, one possible method might beto keep the Gilmore amp and instead look for a lusher source.

Beautiful work, Victor!