gepardcv

Headphones ordered roughly by decreasing frequency of use: Audio Zenith PMx2 (really convenient!) Stax SR-007A (mid-2015 revision) (paired with a KGSSHV Carbon or KGST) Campfire Audio Andromeda JH13fp (of course) Oppo PM-3 (for closed use, often when playing (digital) piano) Sennheiser HD600 (mid-1999!) Still consider the HD800 an excellent headphone albeit one that benefits more from EQ than any of the above. Heard many current-TOTLs, consider most of them underwhelming or flawed compared to the above. Curious about ZMF products, never had a chance to try one unfortunately. Speakers, including inexpensive ones, surpass all of the above by a large margin, but I don't live alone so can't rock them too often.

Oh my. If this is TMoney's amp, then I heard it at a meet back in, what, 2014 I think? It's fantastic!! Got me on the road to building electrostatic amps and participating here on HC.

My boards came in today. Thank you so much for doing another stellar GB!

Paid, thank you!!

What about trying VirtualBox as your hypervisor (free from Oracle, https://www.virtualbox.org) and a Windows developer VM (also free, from Microsoft, https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/)? It looks like the bulk of MS's developer VMs hosting older versions of IE disappeared (they used to be on http://modern.ie, but that now redirects to a generic MS developer site), but I expect that a little sleuthing on the seamier side of the Internet will turn them up. FWIW, when I tried VirtualBox a few years ago, it had appalling performance compared to Fusion, but things might have improved since then. Edit: Looks like HiWire beat me to suggesting VirtualBox.

Please increase my order of both GRLV78 and GRLV79 to 5. Also please add 2 bare GRHVs because they're cheap and why not.

I prefer assembled, but how much does the cost go up if most people opt for bare boards?

The CA Andromeda sounds better (to me) than the JH13. It's a little hard to describe how or why — a bit less fatigue, perhaps, and a smidge more natural-sounding on the instruments. Fit is a different story. No universal will match the comfort of a custom, and Campfire industrial design in particular features sharp edges which will not fit every ear. In my particular case, it fits pretty well. It's also a shallow-insertion IEM (as opposed to e.g. Etymotic), so overall comfort is reasonable with Comply foam eartips.

I have the JH13freqphase, and it's still a pretty good CIEM. I have tried universals of the Layla and another more expensive and more recent JH unit (don't remember which one), and they sucked. The bass adjustment screw is dreadful — it takes the bass from "ouch my ears" to "I don't know what I'm listening to", and I don't know how to adjust it to sound, you know, like instruments do in real life. I'm not even sure if the reasonably well-tuned JH13 is even still available. My personal opinion: avoid modern JH. In the world of universal IEMs, the Campfire Audio Andromeda is pretty terrific. Everything else CA makes seems to have had problems. CA has a custom, too, and has the advantage of being one of the very few CIEMs with MMCX connectors. I don't know how it sounds. In the world of customs, 64 Audio seems to have been winning a lot of respect. Don't ignore UE also. I remember trying a UE18 universal demo and thinking it sounds nice. Take a look at https://crinacle.com, the site of a respected reviewer in the world of IEMs. He seems to have tried and measured a lot of them. Take with a shovelful of salt as always.

Vishay RN60D are the gold standard. I used them throughout. Possibly overkill. 🤷‍♂️

I sometimes wonder how many good artists languish on YouTube with a couple hundred views. Stumbled on this while diving through music YouTube. What a phenomenal voice.

I don't suppose anyone who tried the 007 with 009 pads experiment has a headphone measurement rig so we could take a look at the resulting FRs? Doesn't have to be perfect, just (moderately) consistent in measurements so the differences are meaningful.

@Blueman2: You know you owe it to yourself to build one!! ?

Happy New Year to one of my favorite communities on the Internet!

It's all fun and games until you realize that, without a Faraday cage, an EMP will fry all the out-of-production and extremely expensive transistors in your T2 amplifier.

NwAvGuy did add a lot of value to the consumer audio world, though I would dispute some of his measurements and claims. I have no substantive comments on his O2 (except that it was one of the first amps I built myself, and I quickly stopped using it because it produced the awful DC thump on turn-on and turn-off common in annoying-fi — which none of the significantly better amps I built later did). However, the ODAC is a piece of junk. With Mac system volume set above 50%, it produces nasty and extremely audible clipping. Perhaps my unit is defective. ??‍♂️ I certainly don't intend to buy another one just to find out. Not a single other DAC ever performed so poorly in my system.

I used to think that. Then I built a C-Note set. ? I am aware of no reliable measurements of the later revisions of 007A, but I started with @Tyll Hertsens's measurements of the 007Mk2 from back in the day, adjusted by ear where I think they diverge, and then used AutoEq to find a 5-band PEQ adjustment suitable for the ADI-2. Then I toned it way down, because the Harman target and oratory1990's adjustments can be excessive. FWIW, here's the 007A equalization set I use now: band 1: shelf filter, +2.5dB, 75Hz, Q 1.0 band 2: peak, +2.5dB, 100Hz, Q 1.0 band 3: peak, +0dB, 1.0kHz, Q 1.0 band 4: peak, +2.5dB, 2.5kHz, Q 1.5 band 5: shelf, +0dB, 10.0kHz, Q 1.0 Fairly subtle, but IMO a significant improvement.

FWIW, I tried a Utopia from one of my (full-size) Dynalo builds, and thought it sounded fine. Should be pretty similar to the various HeadAmp models.

To address the point about using EQ with Stax: I did a little adjustment for the 007A using the RME ADI-2 built-in PEQ, and would not go back to stock. (Also will not use a DAC without DSP in the future.)

Spritzer probably does, though the Mjolnir Audio DIY page doesn’t seem to list them any more. You might want to ask him. I found his XLR input and Stax jack PCBs quite useful also.

I'm not sure how much voltage that part of the circuit sees. In any case, I had better luck ordering a bunch of extra RN60D resistors and hand-matching them to <0.1% than relying on the manufacturers' matching process. YMMV, of course.

That transformer looks like overkill to me. Maybe it's for a GRHV cranked to 450V? I think most people build at 400V. I ordered mine from Toroidy, with the following specs: Primary windings: 2x 115V (60cm leads) Secondary windings: 2x 335 VAC at 200mA (60cm leads) 16-0-16 VCT at 500mA (60cm leads) Works well. You should review the BOM carefully and check it against the boards to make sure you know what you're buying. You may need to replace some outdated components, but this is easy, and will help you make sure you understand exactly what you need. As for Stax sockets, I think most of us buy them from HeadAmp. You can use the eBay store: one, two, or five pieces. Happy building!

Things have changed since we last discussed The Cursed Child. I saw it in New York last week... and, let's just say I almost immediately ordered tickets to see it again in San Francisco this fall. PS: I think the two-a-day format with a matinee show, dinner break, and evening show makes for a fabulous day.

Don't know about Mini compatibility (I'm still working on mine), but I built two full-size Dynalos with MPSW parts (I have a small stockpile). They run entirely cool as far as I can tell. I never checked with a thermometer, but there's no sensation of ambient heat if I hold my hand near the boards. Honestly seems like a good idea to use the cooler parts if you can get away with it, though it seems to me like it'll be a tight fit to stuff all those TO92 packages in such a small space.

I'm still a huge fan of the Lone Wolf series by Joe Dever. If you grew up on that, check out https://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/Home for a really fun nostalgia trip.