Icarium

Hrm I think juzminster or whatever was the guy that actually got those and had them refurbished. I think he was asking 1200 for them maybe that's not what 003 paid but I'm sure he paid at least something in the order of ~1k.

I dunno how that 003 kid could possibly think that it could be a K1000 killer.

I remember hearing agile_one's D5000 for the first time at the national and they sounded okayyy but mushed together with poor separation. And they didn't scale well with better amps at all. Unlike the W5000. Never been a big fan. But yeah they don't have a lot of competition in the closed headphone realm.

Flagship? Maybe the Dynamight, but I don't think either was ever at the flagship level, but maybe my definition of flagship is kind of off. It's certainly a very good amp still. But with the beta22 which is at least about its equal if not slightly edges it out depending on taste and the dynafet on the horizon... well unless you have multiple flagships for the DIY cause.

Eh, unlike Sovkiller who is a little bit rabid.. Ori is a good guy. Unlike a lot of other MOTs I've met and like he isn't constantly trying to sell you on something irl. I'm not a huge believer in his Zhaolu but he does have some really decent products like his cables and this amp he has that is a damn good 400 dollar K1000 amp (I dunno when it will be done). But yeah, he is definitely a Member of the Trade.

I have both the EMU 0404 usb and the HagUSB (w/ asio4all drivers)... my take? I vastly prefer the EMU 0404 usb though I haven't used it as just an usb -> coax but as a dac as well. Why? Well, my Hagusb has HUGE problems with snaps/crackles/pops aligning with tiny bursts of cpu usage... mainly opening applications etc. While my EMU 0404 usb with all the buffers turned on thread priority going good has 0 issues. I do the same settings and more for Hagusb.. less problems but I still expect to hear at least 3-4 crackles/pops every 4 songs. It's very annoying. I'm probably going to buy another EMU 0404 usb and have it shipped to a modder and just use that with my Wavelength or if its mod viable at work and use my stock one at home.

Actually I'm not a fan of them. Their sound doesn't vary enough for me and they are tooo jazz. I'm not a big Jazz fan in general though I played was in the Jazz Band in high school.

Yeah I mean its similar, but the wire is mostly silver so at what point does it become silver plated cover versus copper cored silver. Anyway, he's supposedly tried all sorts of stuff in cables pure copper/pure silver/copper/silver wire braided together/gold/gold plated silver/stuff with palladium on it and he says this composition is what he says is the best.

Oh and of course the precursor to Natsumen basically Natsumen slightly more polished and with vocalists, Boat.

Pfft you guys are way behind. I mentioned Natsumen MONTHS ago in my Japanese indie thread on head-fi. If you like them should check out toe and Special Others - Uncle John or really anything that Special Others does.

I've heard that Ultrasone closed cans are the best in the way of isolation. Maybe beyer are good too.

I didn't realize that Mikhail had the capital to buyout a company.

Mikhail bought goldpoint? Wtf.

I'd suggest Apuresound too. You'd have to wait forever for the Equinox and they just send you a cable from what I understand and you have to find someone to do it. I'd go with [AK]Zip for that if you do go with the Equinox cable besides him the other guy I know that is doing it is Ori but he's based in Cali. [AK]Zip has had a lot of experience doing it and he can turn it around in a week though right now he's got a long backlog so it might be 2-3 weeks from Saturday. He can tell you for sure. Plus he informed me last week that he has finalized version 3 of his cable (Version 2 is what he's been selling over the last year) which is radically improved construction/wire composition or so blind tests from local customers has said. It's only 10 bucks more (He's making significantly less per cable versus version 2 but figures its already at the limits of what people will pay) for all full sized headphones including the K1K. I'm probably going to get a balanced v3 Qualia cable next month... still enjoying the v2. But I want to get a pimped out v3 with Xhadow XLR connectors (Expensive and probably pointless). Details that I'm allowed to discuss re: his V3 versus V2 (Official announcement will be on Saturday). His cable has always been a copper cored silver wire (V2 was 75 percent silver with the remaining 25 percent being a solid copper core) , the percentages have been changed in v3 but both metals are a higher grade now and thicker gauge. The cotton insulation is now dual layer instead of single layer and the wires for left and right channels are separately insulated in the cotton. The insulation has changed with the shielding removed as its deemed unnecessary. It's I quote "5x" more flexible while being thicker over all. New sleeving options are black/carbon and clear (Though remember the cotton is dyed black). Custom sleeving/connectors are available at added cost of course. I've heard a variety of K1k hardwires and my ranking for them is something like K1K with Black Dragon Hardwiring > Equinox > Silver Dragon. I actually haven't heard Black Dragon hard wiring but my impression based on just the Black Dragon tail along.... I think there was enormous potential there (Voltron agreed completely). Now where [AK]Zip's cable fits in there (V2 or v3) I have no idea... but for another bright sounding headphone that vaguely leans in the K1K direction (Wide soundstage/detailed/etc).. the Qualia I've heard v2/black dragon/silver dragon/blue dragon. For that... [AK]Zip's cable wins out in everything except mids followed closely by the Black Dragon cable and both cables thoroughly destroy the Blue Dragon and the Silver Dragon (Silver is just a bad choice for bright sounding headphones). The Black Dragon is a very sweet cable with a very balanced sound that is detailed (Though slightly less so than Silver Dragon) that still has a very nice tone and is warm. Perfect sound distance and just good all around. Downside is its extremely fragile and prone to short with Qualias and very fat/inflexible and EXTREMELY microphonic. Now [AK]Zips v2 cable has better extension/better clarity/great bass/the most detailed out of all the cables/wider soundstage. The mids are a little bit less sweet and a bit recessed compared to the Black Dragon. As for construction it is not very microphonic with the Qualias ([AK]Zip says it depends on the headphone how microphonic it is), is extremely flexible and way more durable/better constructed. v3 is supposed to be less microphonic.

Yeah, mine are from him. I wouldn't have bought the headband myself otherwise unless mine broke. To be honest I am not sure that this amp necessarily would sound better or significantly better than a maxed out beta22/dynafet tuned with synergistic boutique parts. But it has an insane list of features. If you really wanna go singlepower solid state you could talk to mikhail about splitting the reference or the tuneable section into a one box solution that isnt in a maestro chassis and probably would cost you somewhere around 5k or less depending on parts/options.

I think it was either 15.2k or 15.6k new. Let's just say i got it at significantly less than that... somewhere in the 4 figures. I've been sworn to secrecy by the seller ;p

Man I guess Tango is out of business so those Tango transformers on the amp I posted is even more ideal in my mind. Worst case if it sucks can cannibalize the transformers for something else ;p I wish I had some k1ks to justify the purchase.

That guy who is collecting all Melos stuff is crazy then. But i guess he has HP1000s. Then again who am I to judge? I am Single Power'd out.

Yeah that's cracked out. I analytical'd up the sound of my SDS np. I haven't heard the Melos but foo_me just got one recently and he didn't like it at all... decent tone he said but not resolving at all and totally forgiving. He actually still liked hd600s better with it than Grados. Any rate, its getting sold I believe. Eddie Current's amps are very clean sounding as well and a great band for the buck. The extra thing you get with Singlepowers is ultimate (Vs anything else that's out there) tube flexibility. Any rate, its not like Eddie Current's amps are going to be a one sound pony anyway, so I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

http://www.jogis-roehrenbude.de/Roehren-Geschichtliches/GL-Roehren/HG-und-Gas-Gleichrichter/Signum-H3X100.jpg This is one weird ass looking tube.

Audionote over Tamura/Tango? Also I've been hearing good things about this Chinese brand Daburu that uses some sort of nano-amorphous core with 6N wire pulse transformers. I think the core will be something like cobalt alloy with 2 percent cobalt/78-80 percent nickel. A revision on the ones mentioned in here: http://www.vt4c.com/teach_room/choose_transformer.html.

What's your favorite brand(s) for transforers KG?

Unless you can talk him into ordering some Tango transformers it will never be as $$ as that particular HD2

Looks decent, I wonder what kind of transformers they use.

Supra won't be enough. You need a 2 stage amp like Tkam's or darkless's.