mulveling

Cool man. You're welcome over here too, but only if you smuggle me an R10 over from Purk's. He won't miss it; he's got 2

Where do I plug the 6su7, into the Zana or the SDS? I'm really clueless here The Tung Sol rectifiers are what I received with my Zana - they have "322PK3" and "Made In the U.S.A." printed on 'em. I've been meaning to pick some of those 6BX7's up; I'm likely to pull trigger any day now... Dan, that sounds great, hope it materializes! Can't wait to hear about it.

Well, it is true. Over IM, Purk threatened to infect my computer with a virus until I admitted that the R10 on his special amp has like way more killer bass than the L3000 on any amp I will ever own Seriously, Purk's SDS SE amp with those tubes he's got in there, is pretty crazy. I'd never heard the R10's sound nearly that lively with rock and heavy metal...even having heard an extremely maxed-out SDS XLR with a balanced R10 in the past. I was a big, big doubter, but no more. So I suppose good bass impact can be coaxed out of them, though to be fair this was only 1 hour's worth of impressions. The more-bass R10 had a little more bass impact than the Orpheus system...and the less-bass version had a little less, but still sounded great All 3, or course, are more detailed and refined than any other headphone I've heard, with the biggest soundstage out there. The Orpheus was very, very neutral and flat through the bass region. It made the R10s sound like they were adding a touch of sugar, a little sweetness to the mids, and a little bit of rumble & boom to the bass (never thought I'd compare the R10 as "boomy"). You know what though - I was really digging the sweeteness and atmosphere the R10 added, especially with an electric guitar, the acoustic guitar, and violins. The Oprheus is something that you just know you'll have to spend serious time with to really unravel its intricacies. On the other hand, I was expecting the Orpheus to to choke on a metal CD (Iced Earth - Days of Purgatory) like the Omega II/KGSS did in the past, but it managed to glide through it in a manner that was both musical and powerful. Very, very musical. Any 3 of these headphones, with the SDS SE/Hev90, were definitely the best I'd heard those particular CDs & SACDs. But Purk, man - you need to get a vinyl source STAT. Your downstream components are practically begging for it

You're absolutely right, and that makes it very difficult to do a thorough comparison of tube amps - I only have a very modest variety tubes on hand, and nowhere near what some of the collectors can boast. Hence, take my impressions with a grain of salt The tubes I've been using in the prototype SDS are Tung-Sol D-getter 5687 outputs and a Tung-Sol round plate 6sn7 input. Yep, I'm behind the curve on the latest trends for Singlepower owners (mine is not yet modified to run more robust tubes at higher voltages), but those are the best I've heard my amp thus far. Using a trio of 6sn7 doesn't allow the power to drive certain low impedance tubes (especially HP2 and R10, unless you can handle the heavily distorted bass - at least it's relatively euphonic distortion). Using a trio of EH 6sn7 did change the tonality to a more SS-like flavor. Still sounded pretty good, but not my favorite for the amp. Currently I'm using in the Zana Deux exactly as I've received it - TungSol rectifiers, and a chrome-top short bottle Sylvania 6SL7. I have more 6SL7 tubes on the way, though - TungSol round plate, KenRad, and RCA

I got mine a while back for $1800 + ship a while back, which is fair for a pair in excellent condition, but not a great deal. I've seen one 8/10 pair advertised on agon as low as $1000, but that was an outlier and the seller didn't respond for like 5 weeks, so his reliability was suspect. I see the one on agon now is for $1895 + ship - that's a bit on the high side. Fortunately for you, Amercian interest in Tannoys is VERY sparse (they don't market nor advertise much here, and there are few dealers), so he probably won't have any interested buyers yet, and you should be able to negotiate. I'd think $1500 is a fair price, though he may not think so immediately...

Thanks The camera is a Nikon D40. I have two lenses, the D40 kit lens and an older 100-300 ED lens - I can only use manual focus with this lens, but I like manual focus for still pics. The key is a sturdy tripod, and taking the pics with a 2-second timer delay, so that my ham-fisted camera hand doesn't jitter the image. Also, a little help from Google's Picasa can do wonders to make up for the poor quality lighting. Yep, I hope to keep both the Zana Deux and SDS for a while

It's a Star Sapphire Series III in Koa wood, built in the late 80's The cart is a low-output Benz Glider L2 The arm is a Fidelity Research FR-64fx The phono stage is a Benz Lukaschek PP-1 The clamp is the newest addition; a SOTA Reflex clamp Table/arm/cart were setup by Peter Marshall, the owner of Audio Atlanta in Marietta GA. It's all I could have every asked for in my first foray into vinyl and more. It's like I asked for a pony for Christmas and I got a pony farm

Yes, I had them a while back, but I had a mighty itch to try new speakers that had to be scratched. In retrospect, they are probably my favorite of what I'd owned before these TD10's. Here's a rundown of what I went through: Tannoy Eyris DC3 - Like the Dimension, TD10, they're very natural and cohesive with superb imaging. Less bass impact than the TD10, but still more than a monitor will give you (well, maybe similar to a gigantic monitor like the Tyler Linbrooks). Fairly forgiving of various rooms. An excellent looking and sounding speaker; I can highly recommend them in their price bracket. Fabulous for hifi 2ch and HT. Tyler Taylo Reference monitors - Excellent, excellent value for the money when purchased used. The factory direct prices have recently gone up though. These were my favorite for a while. The midrange is extremely clean & detailed, perhaps a bit cleaner and more neutral than the DC3 (the DC3 is just a hair on the warm side of things). Excellent bass for a monitor, though they fall a little short of the DC3 in that area; in extension and impact. Very, very forgiving of rooms. Set it and forget it. Tyler Linbrook Signature monitors - I didn't really like these. They have much more bass impact than the Tylers, but the Tyler midrange was much cleaner, and much more to my liking. The Linbrooks sounded a bit dark and dull by comparison. Perhaps they're just very unforgiving of the room, and that was my problem at the time? Legacy Audio Signature III - These sounded amazing in Tom's rig. Never got them fully dialed in at my place, though They are excruciatingly unforgiving of room and sub-optimal positioning. They ALSO need a special kind of powerful amp to control the woofers. The Parasound Halo A21 and JC1 did that - the PS Audio HCA2 and Sunfire Signature failed. Capable of a lot in the right room, but not at my residence. So yeah, if I were you - I'd seriously, seriously consider buying the DC3. They look stunning in the dark walnut

Wow, thanks for the overwhelmingly positive feedback guys I gotta admit, gear aesthetics are pretty important when the money's been flying out of my wallet this fast. All my previous rigs, I had some grandiose image in my head of how cool all the gear would look together once it arrived, and it always fell well short of the ideal until now. Sonics are always #1 of course, but both are serious considerations. This is definitely the best rig I've owned, aesthetics-wise. Almost certainly sound-wise, too, but I need to decide which I prefer between the SDS and Zana Deux - ony time will tell. The SOTA TT continues to bowl me over and bring things to the table that none of my digital sources could. Finally, I've been spending money on music (vinyl) at least as fast as gear The VAC musicblocs add that extra bit of midrange sweetness and natural tube tone that I was missing a bit of with the JC-1's (I no longer require the JC-1's iron grip over hard-to-drive speakers). The Tannoys just sound so natural and cohesive, especially with tubes & vinyl. I just wish I had a solid floor under my feet and a slightly bigger room - I know that would improve things significantly

My instinctive inclination would be to do the one I like more - that is, the one with more bass, however my audio instincts are often very, very wrong I've recently heard from a trusted friend - Mikhail claims the light-bass version is actually the best one to drive with a high-end balanced amp, as it apparently pulls ahead of the other R10 version in such a configuration. I'm not sure if this applies only to Mikhail's high-end XLR amps, or whether the amp needs to be specially voiced by Mikhail for this purpose. However I'm more inclined to trust this advice than my defective audio instinct

Also, I forgot to mention in the opening post - I've used the HD650, L3000, and Qualia 010 with the Zana (stock cables all around). The amp gets excellent marks on all 3 thus far. I've only listened to it with vinyl on my SOTA TT, because well - I only listen to vinyl at home anymore

Some pics of the current setup: The overall view: Some Judas Priest spinnin', more "devil music" in the queue A Tannoy Dimension TD10 with its funky grill on: Closeup of one of the VAC Auricle Musicblocs:

Received her Wednesday afternoon and we've been getting along just fine so far! Like a lot of my favorite gear, its sonic presentation was unexpected at first and took some getting used to. This happened with the L3000, Qualia, and my vinyl rig - often it takes several listens to really get a handle of whether something so new is truly going to be wonderful in the long run. The one exception would be my SDS, which was pretty much love at first listen. I'm still in that evaluation period with the Zana Deux, but it's already bestowed some truly magical listening sessions and several spine-chilling instances. What got me about the Zana was how it's unlike other tube amps - where's the coloration? I've heard tube amps that are quite warm, lush, tubey - the SDS being the perfect example here. And then I've heard tubes that run the opposite end of the spectrum and are even somewhat aggressive in the upper mids/lower treble area. The Zana sounds neutral, just totally unbiased towards any part of the spectrum. Grain-less like good tubes. Great slam & dynamics like powerful tubes. Tonally natural like great tubes, not at all tonally sterile like most SS. Not tonally soft, not hard. Fast & resolving like any great amp, tube or SS. I must admit I'd become used to the warm organic sound of the SDS and the extra "kick" it adds to the bass. The result is totally unfatiguing and a good match, to my tastes, for really hard rock and metal. It also happens to sound excellent with really good recordings of slower stuff. The Zana, however, seems to be optimized for the good recordings. Of course it can still really rock down with heavy stuff like Iron Maiden, Iced Earth, and Judas Priest (I was listening to Judas Priest "Sin After Sin" tonight and damn did it sound sweet on the Zana!) - but the Zana seems voiced more so for the best recordings. I reserve the right to tweak my opinion on this matter in the future Stuff that seemed just right for the Zana included my LP's of: Steely Dan - Aja, Michael Jackson - Thriller, Dire Straits - Love Over Gold, Cat Stevens - Teaser and the Firecat, and Madonna - Madonna. It's amazing the cleanness and separation with which the Zana can render these albums. When I listened to Aja for the first time, it was completely mind-blowing how distinctly reproduced each layer of music was, totally unaffected and uncolored by any other layer, and how as a result they all summed to form a much greater whole. It's like when the brain doesn't have to spend the processing effort to separate things that have been blurred together along the audio chain, the analytical side of the brain can shut down and the creative side of the brain is left to observe in awe. The Zana excels at this kind of stuff. Anyways, I'm really enjoying the Zana Deux so far. The SDS is currently unplugged (ran out of rack space), so I'll need to do some more formal comparisons with the Zana later on. The Zana Deux also seems to be excellent as a preamp. Really, really excellent. With prices from all the major manufacturers' top amps seemingly on the rise, is the Zana Deux the last "bargain" in high end headphone amplifiers? Recently, $1900 doesn't seem the overly generous budget it used to be... Pics:

I've bought the KSC-75 for one of those random gift exchange things at a Christmas party 2 years back. So I never actually got a chance to hear them. And of course the idiot new owner was like: "oh, I already have BOSE headphones". I was like: "try these, they should sound better", but I bet the guy threw em in the trash soon as he got home This was in a neighborhood where all the folks were pretty well-off ($1mil+ houses), and I suppose quite likely to own lots of Bose shit. I should've known better. On the other hand I've bought 2 sets of PortaPros as a gift for a coworker & his wife; those went over VERY well. The guy also happens to be a musician and he really appreciates the sound quality; still uses the all the time, now 3 years later. I use the PP's myself at work. They're good and I don't feel the need for anything better here.

That sounds reasonable for older stuff that's had the "digitally remastered" rape job treatment, though for newer recordings I don't understand why they'd ham-fist the CD and not the vinyl - I guess it's possible. I've found myself preferring vinyl almost equally for old and new music. Perhaps there's something about the electronics of a good TT vs. a CD player. A TT is so simple, basically P2P wiring from the needle to the phono stage. The modern CD player has so many ICs and circuit boards the signal has to pass through before it sees daylight. Sure there's typically a bit of PCB in the phono stage, but this seems minimal compared to most CD decks. Sure there's a transducer in the cart, but there's something pleasingly symmetric about the playback system starting with a transducer and ending with one Ok, maybe that's just crazy talk

I ran across that Sabbath album this weekend at the local antique shop - pretty sure it's not a first pressing though. I should go back and pick it up anyways - I've had pretty good luck with many ordinary pressings sounding excellent once properly cleaned. Even stuff with lots of visible surface scratches seems to get tracked pretty well with my Benz Glider. Life is good!

Haha, that's pretty much my opinion on the matter as well - so long as you've got a reasonably clean copy. I've got the Opeth Morningrise LP, which sounds noticeably better than the CD version, IMO. I've also got Damnation on LP and CD, but unfortunatey I seem to have a bad vinyl copy - the surface noise is much higher than usual and the dynamics are a bit dull. That's the exception though - in fact almost *all* my metal LPs thus far sound significantly better on vinyl: Iron Maiden, Iced Earth (my fav so far), Opeth. Vinyl is just better at keeping pace, keeping transient edges clean & distinct, not clouding out details with grain, grit or haze. Not to mention the tone of guitar growl or wail just seems more powerful and natural. And drums - damn they sound good on vinyl Opeth can further benefit from vinyl since the soundstage/imaging, and spacialization is better rendered on vinyl. Very immersive. Listening to metal on LP has become a source of endless quality entertainment for me. Highly recommended!

Normally the Sota TT/SDS/L3000 rig sounding like totally beyond awesome yall (IMO ), but something went a bit awry last night. It still sounded quite "good" but the magic was dimnished; I wasn't feeling the emotion and energy I would have expected from some newly acquired LPs (Judas Priest, Madonna, Opeth, Bryan Adams). The dynamics and separation weren't in full force and the balance/resolution was also a tad "off". Then today at lunch I noticed the shelf, and consequently my TT, were tilted by a significant amount to one side. Damn - I'd moved all my audio gear around the previous day and forgot to level the TT. Of course I'm somewhat miffed that apparently my floor isn't close to flat in the new spot - apartment living at its finest - but at least I was able to get the TT's sound quality back up to snuff with a quick adusting of the feet. Yep, now the good stuff is all back, *whew*. I would have expected a non-level table to have some obvious flaw like a channel imbalance, but that's not what I observed. So as a friendly reminder to all that have been liberated from the oppressive clutches of digital - remember to re-level your TT every time you move it!

C'mon, the L3000 are a WAY better investment than a diamond

Hey man, I said all those things with the stock L3000 still here

Wow, nice pic man! Personally I think they're one of those headphones that looks great in pics, but better in person. Generally, I feel that way about most headphones that have very high build quality - pics can't easily convey that, but you get a sense of it when you see/feel them in person. In contrast, the w2002 looks real pretty in pics, but the build quality isn't quite up to L3000 level and so now I just "feel" that the L3000 looks better - somehow the feel of the build quality affects my visual perceptions as well.

Christ!!! What's the story behind these?

I'm partial to the HP-2 and L3000 myself. The HP2 in particular is so damn sexy, and doesn't look goofy on the head as with most headphones. I'm not a fan of the R10 droopy-breasts look and large size, but in person the overwhelming attention to detail and quality of materials & build wins me over. The R10 I recently owned had a really nice vintage/NOS smell to it - that was a real plus as well. That's actually what I miss most about 'em

Hi Elephas! Welcome to head-case

A Zana Deaux! And a diet Dr. Pepper (vending machine choices are limited here at work). Hooray!!