mulveling
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Posts posted by mulveling
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Bought the famed Joe Grado Hp-2 from Min. Min was very kind to me in this transaction - a true gentleman! The headphones arrived way fast, they are way awesome, and I'm way enjoying them right now!
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I got the last spot on the latest Zana run
I am really looking forward to getting it, and appreciate your impressions! And pictures 
Oh, and that Supra is HUGE!Jeff
Congrats on nabbing that last Zana! You made an excellent choice for musical enjoyment over a WIDE range of headphones, plus it's not a half-bad investment in that it should hold value very well. Especially considering the falling dollar these days - why hold onto worthless dollars when you could have something fun?
Yeah, the Supra is a big shiny tank!
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Re-posting the latest Zana & friends images here, so sue me
Also, I switched to a Tung-Sol 2c51 driver tube on the Supra SE a while back and got a good touch more warmth (I like), but still a slightly colder tone than the Zana.
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Zana Deux
It's still a tough choice of the 3 amps, but based on the raw numbers I've been liking the Zana Deux more often, on most of my recordings. The Supra SE sounds super-clean and does a bit better than the Zana on the best-mastered new records. The Supra SE has a very clean, tight sound that's very exciting at first, but with time I noticed it's perhaps a bit over-"hard" in some cases. I have the hunch the Supra SE would be superbly voiced for SACD, and I need to confirm this suspicion soon. However, the bulk of my records are from the 70s and they mesh better with the warmer, inviting tone of the Zana. The Zana is just more musical and unrestrained on these albums, and certainly does excellent as well on the new stuff - that's the great thing about it, you can just sit down with ANY album and be confident it's in good hands. The SDS prototype is even warmer but clearly lacks some power and low-end control (especially on low impedance cans) compared to the other two. Certainly good for a change-up on things every now and again. The SDS and Supra SE sound quite different, so I'm not sure about a SP house sound. Purk's SDS SE does sound like the best attributes of the two combined together (tone & soundstage of SDS++, lows of Supra SE), though.
Please keep in mind that I DO NOT subscribe to the idea that synergy involves balancing attributes off against each other, hence why I like to pair things up that have similar attributes - obviously this breaks down when you're paring up things with severe colorations, but none of the above gear has that problem
The Zana Deux, HD650, and now HP2 all sound somewhat like "vinyl" to me, hence why they all go great together
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Two new arrivals from USPS today - nice headphones and tubes (batch of TungSol 6DT4)
The "Into the Wild" LP also arrived this week:
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Just move to an arm that has switchable head shells and keep one mono and one stereo. A couple minutes to switch in and out at most. That way you can keep your table and just upgrade your arm.
My arm does have a detachable headshell, though original FR64fx headshells are rare. Ugh, I remember seeing one on agon not long ago for a very reasonable price - should have jumped on it. Are headshells typically standardized/interchangeable? I would still feel nervous swapping out expensive carts every time I wanted to switch modes - no matter how careful you are, an accident is bound to happen. I'm lucky enough just to not have screwed up my stereo cart yet - the arm lift/lower lever (which I use habitually) has saved my ass more times than I care to remember.
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OK, I just realized the multiple arm thing on the Clearaudio probably means it has two arms mounted at the same time, not interchangeable arms. Indeed, that is pretty damn cool! However, I'm still set on sticking with my stereo TT.
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Very interesting idea Mike. I've not heard of anyone doing that, however it seems like a really good idea to me.
I'm in the very early stages of a completely custom table build, and luvdunhill has dropped some hints that I may want to build a plinth that can mount two tonearms for the very same reason. Although we never discussed a mono speaker.
That seems like a lot of expense to recreate a whole other TT for mono though. Would you go as high end as your present TT?
I'd like to avoid much expense - certainly nowhere near what my SOTA setup cost
Luckily I've had an old VPI hw19 and a new rb300 arm collecting dust - the intended first vinyl rig that never materialized. The table needs some work, but the motor and major stuff seems fine. I recently heard a new Ortofon stereo cart in the $250 range (IIRC) on an vintage Oracle table that sounded super - I'd be aiming for that level of performance and price in a cart, but mono. Perhaps a Denon DL-102:
http://www.needledoctor.com/Denon-DL-102-High-Output-Moving-Coil-Mono-Cartridge?sc=2&category=269
Just realized I might have to do something different for phono stage though
Overall it shouldn't be too painful price-wise, but I'm going to wait until after I'm all settled into the new place in a month
I've heard of the interchangeable arms somewhere, but I don't think that's something I'd enjoy doing. Plus, the SOTA w/ its present vintage arm is IT for me w/ stereo. Barring illness or injury, I'm never changing that combo
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I have the occasional mono vinyl, and they invariably sound like crap on stereo headphones or speakers. You get a wonderful stereo image of all the noise crud on the record's surface, while the music is a lifeless dead-center image. There also may be some sort of smearing from two speakers (that can never be exactly the same) trying to reproduce the same signal. Not long ago I heard a local fellow's pure mono setup, the speaker was a gigantic 50's or 60's Bozak cabinet with multiple drivers. The sound was very surprising, and extremely enjoyable.
I'm not sure if you need the same kind of speakers to capture most of the magic, but since then I've been looking at my unused Tannoy TDC center channel ( http://www.tannoy-speakers.com/s.php?product=117&title=Dimension+TDC&s=24 ) in a different light. It's a behemoth monster as far as center channels go. Fairly full range too, spec'd down to 42Hz. It's been sitting in its box for the last several months since I got it as a package deal with the TD10s. I still don't care enough about HT to make a go it and sacrifice 2ch quality in the process. I've been thinking, when I move into the new place - rather than try to combine a 2ch/HT setup, wouldn't it be cool to combine a 2ch/mono setup with the center channel dedicated for mono only? The setup would look like the front 3 for a surround rig, but it wouldn't be
I'd need to setup a 2nd turntable with a mono cart - that should be the only expense. I've plenty of amp options - both the McIntosh and Eico can bridge to mono, or I could just use one of the Heathkit monos. I can use just 1 ch of a stereo headamp/preamp (plenty of those around here too). If this worked out well, it would certainly drive me to buy more older recordings (which admittedly are hard to swallow on stereo gear).
Any thoughts on this? Any of you guys/gals put together a pure mono setup before?
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I think I'm ready for that Nate, I'll send you a PM. I'm doing vinyl through this thing for the first time, and the result is just exhilarating. I'm glad I don't have work tomorrow because I want to listen for a while.
When you team the hd650 up with vinyl and the right amp you get pure magic
Congrats on the cooool new amp!
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more pics of your speaker system.
Definitely when I move into my new digs, if that ever happens this year :'(
The Tannoys have been rockin' on the Eico HF-87 with Teslovak el34's. That and I moved the speakers a bit wider apart for a nice improvement in stereo imaging. Those are the 2 changes I've made since last batch of pics.
Isn't this your 2nd or 3rd go around with hp2's?
Yes sir! Third, actually. Between Ryan and myself we've probably touched half the active hp1000 population
This time I have way cooler stuff to plug them into though, so that changes everything. That and I'm basically done hearing all the big ones, so I finally know what does it for me (that doesn't excuse my stupidity of the first 2 sales).
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Joe Grado HP-2!!
Will soon get to hear what these babies can do on vinyl.
No electrostat fever here
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I've used The Smiths in the past. Great band
Some Morrissey can be good too, but doesn't have the lasting power of The Smiths albums for me.xand1x should get The Queen is Dead stat!
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Yep, know kinda how ya feel. It's probably going to hurt like hell for a while BUT you can take steps to gain valuable experience, self growth, and even confidence from this. Time always heals these kinds of wounds, so know that it will get better not matter how dark it seems now. Use this time to start re-discovering yourself as an individual, and potentially exploring what you would like to be. I turned to booze the first few times too, and that can be ok, but last couple years the method I've used has been vigorous self improvement - diet, exercise, actively working on my appearance, etc. I sometimes get out of shape in relationships tho (typically the ones I know aren't going to work out in the end - ugh) so by the end I'm pretty hungry to take care of myself again. It works GREAT!
You're young and should have a long, great life in front of you! Best wishes!!!
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It runs so well on Apple iphones because of all the tech Apple put into both Safari and the iphone. The image rescaling algorithm is much better on the iphone, or in safari for the iphone, than windows internet browsers, including safari.
Apple has made pretty bold claims about Safari rendering java/images/etc much faster than any other browser. This is debatable for the PC, but when run on a mac, its true, as far as I can tell. Mac users hate Firefox.
Mac OS X here, and I love Firefox too. Aside from the odd rare bug, it's a relatively solid web-application platform - things tend to work as they should, look good, etc. Now what I absolutely loathe is IE 5.5/6.0. As a dev, I hate having to support those browsers, and I hate how much of my time is wasted implementing bizarre workarounds for the plethora of quirks (you've got to be kidding me - select boxes still bleed through higher z-index elements, png still doesn't render alpha channel correctly without a non-standard hack, many many more examples to cite). The performance of Firefox has been adequate; it's the lack of quirky behavior I value most.
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Yes, absolutely. Try binaural music. Then speakers are the ones getting the spatial info and cues incorrect.At the same volume level? You must either have had a really crappy headphone rig (which I doubt), or...I don't know. That's the only explanation I can think of. I have had the exact opposite occur -- I hear the new things on headphones, not speaker systems. And I've heard some pretty nice speaker systems (probably the high-point of my speaker listening was having the Dynaudio Special 25's driven by Musical Fidelity A300^CR, MF A308 CD player, and I forget what pre I was using. It did sound sweet, and I did hear things to a great level of detail, but I don't remember hearing anything new. Equivalent at best. And I think I tended to listen louder on speakers (which should overcome my "background noise" argument). Just because they sounded so good loud.
Have to back up Dusty here. Top notch speakers can be something special, but coming from the headphone world it's been hard to adjust to just how much the room messes with the speakers' sound...extremely difficult to approach accurate 20-20K in-room. The spatial effects of great speakers on a great stereo recording in a great configuration in a good room are awesome, but it's not usually at the top of my sonic priorities - hence I'll always want an excellent headphone system to supplement my listening diet, even though I already know what my "ultimate" speakers of the future will be (Tannoy Kensington).
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It might be easy to forget here
, but it is possible to have a great musical experience on mid-fi gear as well. Compared to my other phones, I don't think too highly about my DT 770, but it has been several times at work that I have been so impressed by the Pico/DT770 combo that I had to stop working and just listen for a few minutes. My exposure to real hi-end is very low, so I guess I don't know what I'm missing. Even after all the superb gear I've experienced - my Koss PortaPros unamped from my iMac can be hellaciously enjoyable. It's been my office work rig for quite some time now and I've not been tempted to upgrade due to the logistics of keeping expensive gear away from home. I've enjoyed music on some other pretty cheap gear but the PortaPro really nails it for me and way transcends its price tag.
Of course, when working from home I just situate the iMac near my turntable so I can indulge in the hifi rig when necessary
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Happy birthday, yall!
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Dude you have like 9 unread messages popular guy huh?
No, just disorganized & selectively lazy
Maybe I should also use greasemonkey to purge such reminders of my laziness...
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http://www.reifysoft.com/turnabout.php works great for those using IE7.
It removes anything you want and did a great job getting rid of the sidebar on head-fi.
Yeah, or you could use greasemonkey and not only remove ads but make head-fi like wai better too!!!
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Happy b-day guys!
Ryan, 26 is a good year
Enjoy your hp1000 & 508.24 awesomeness! -
I just downloaded greasemonkey a few mins ago. Try the below script I just vomited out, with scope: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/*
Works for me. Gets rid of a couple of those top-horizontal banners too. It's an awful hack but head-fi doesn't id/name many elements for latching on to. They do like to to lots of <font> tags, though. - nice.
I did notice the TTVJ sub-forum gives a JS error w/ this script because one of head-fi's startup scripts depends on one of those removed elements...let it choke...not a big deal to me.
// ==UserScript==
// @name Kill Head-fi
// @namespace mdu
// @description remove annoying sidebar
// @include http://www.head-fi.org/forums/
// ==/UserScript==
// get rid of annoying top ad banners:
var pagenavMenuId = "pagenav_menu";
try
{
var pageNavMenu = document.getElementById(pagenavMenuId);
var pageNavMenuParent = pageNavMenu.parentNode;
var foundPageNavMenu = false;
var numTargetElements = 2; // get rid of the first 2 tables after the pageNavMenu element
var targetElements = [];
for (var i=0; i < pageNavMenuParent.childNodes.length; i++)
{
var thisElement = pageNavMenuParent.childNodes[ i ];
if (!foundPageNavMenu && thisElement.id == pagenavMenuId)
{
foundPageNavMenu = true;
}
else if (foundPageNavMenu && thisElement.tagName && thisElement.tagName.toLowerCase() == "table")
{
targetElements.push(thisElement);
if (targetElements.length == numTargetElements)
{
break;
}
}
}
for (var i=0; i < targetElements.length; i++)
{
pageNavMenuParent.removeChild(targetElements[ i ]);
}
}
catch (ignore)
{;}
// get rid of annoying sidebar:
var tds = document.getElementsByTagName('td');
for (var i in tds)
{
var td = tds[ i ];
if (td && td.width == "1%" && td.style.paddingLeft == "10px")
{
td.parentNode.removeChild(td);
}
}
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Considering his lack of honesty in the other R10 repair threads, what would it matter what he put in his profile. If he'll claim an IQ of 170, he's also likely to claim any age that suits him.
Think I've found our 170 IQ genius:
http://www.aetv.com/minisite/epiajx.jsp?type=episode&episode=261495
From Season 4 Intervention: http://www.aetv.com/intervention/int_episode_guide.jsp
An IQ that high is soooooo rare, it couldn't be coincidence, right?
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Awesome contributions in the head-fi thread by Steve, Voltron, boom, and others...
I...I love you guys!
I am really looking forward to getting it, and appreciate your impressions! And pictures 
Oh, and that Supra is HUGE!
, but it is possible to have a great musical experience on mid-fi gear as well. Compared to my other phones, I don't think too highly about my DT 770, but it has been several times at work that I have been so impressed by the Pico/DT770 combo that I had to stop working and just listen for a few minutes. My exposure to real hi-end is very low, so I guess I don't know what I'm missing. 
Me and my Zana Deux (+ pics)...
in Headphone Amplification
Posted
Yep, I gotta admit I've been listening for a few hours and it's hard to stop. Finally, I get to hear them on a truly appropriate source & amp
The hp2's have that super-clean and pure midrange, beyond what the 650 can muster on my rig, and similar to what the uber-cans (R10, orpheus) do there. The sound stage size is quite good and seems to benefit nicely from vinyl; to a noticeably greater degree than the L3000 does. The HD650 still wins on sound stage, (and the R10/Orpheus will crush it) but the hp2 has those nice clean mids. I've always thought the macro-features of the frequency range balance between the 650/hp2 sounded quite similar and I still feel that way - it's a balance that I find extremely agreeable with vinyl.
What I like about the 650/hp2/l3000/qualia over some of the other uber cans is the sense of weight, power and guts to the sound, especially in the low end. The hp2 especially lends an extra-firm weightiness to notes that's exhilarating, without sacrificing the overall flow of the music (which is so crucially important to listen-ability). Some gear achieves this weight/fimness at the expense of flow (and I always end up disliking it), the hp2 excels at both, perhaps better than anything else other than the Qualia (Qualia also gets near perfect scores here). The L3000 and Hd650 have excellent weight (better in the L3000's case), but lack that last touch of firmness. The Qualia is an odd devil in that the dry-ish mids can be strange at first (even distant and hollow), but it's somehow capable of sounding brilliantly more speaker-like (sans room acoustics issues) than any other headphone experience I've had. It's not a trick of massive perceived sound stage either (like R10), they just...disappear...hard to understand, even harder to describe.
btw - I NEVER got the "hp2 neutrality == kinda boring" philosophy, and I NEVER will. There is NOTHING boring that I can hear. What's boring to me is the aforementioned gear that seems to impede musical flow...truly a boring listen.