DonkeyBalls

I am sensing that I am missing something important in my newbie innocence... some forum bodies lurking in a basement somewhere... perhaps some unintentional plagiarism? Should I sever a pinkie joint in atonement - Yakuza style? I just don't know how these things work here. Perhaps some sorbothane would help?

I might cop some shit for this one...

Some Utopia Porn: With a custom 300B amp. The Taks are fresh, so not sounding at its best just yet. Another few weeks and it will be singing. Direct drive from the Bricasti M1 DAC. This is the best setup I have heard so far. Once the Taks have 200 to 300 hours on them then the tube rig might be something special for the mids.

The hyperbole was supposed to be humourous (with a "u" - learn how to spell, yankees).

I really enjoyed my HE6, after modding, but will never buy another HFM product. The shitty reliability of my HM901S was a big disappointed. The build quality of the 3K V1 HEK was laughable. I think I would rather stuff my nutsac into a bacon slicer than buy another HFM product. Never again.

From the condensed list of "Comments you will never see in a 6 Moons review" - number 53.

Yep - simple XLR harness from Moon Audio. 2x3pin female XLR into 1x4pin female XLR. Just have to be careful to adjust the DAC volume out before connecting the headphone, otherwise bad things can happen.

If you get the chance to run the Utopia direct from the XLR outputs of a high end DAC, then you might find its performance leaps upwards significantly. It did for me. Requires a very good DAC with a excellent volume control implementation, especially for a relatively sensitive headphone like the Utopia. Not all DACs support doing this - best to check with the manufacturer. Anyway, my experience has been that the very best head amp I have heard is no head amp at all. If you haven't tried this with the Utopia I highly recommend giving it a go.

I'm kinda tending the same way in my view of the Utopia, but I have never heard a BHSE or KGSSHV Carbon driven SR-007/SR-009. It certainly beats any dynamic / ortho I have heard. I am running mine direct from the Bricasti DAC. I am getting much better results than via a headamp by going direct. Would love to compare this setup with the stat holy grail rigs mentioned above.

Unresponsive for months - so either dead or incapacitated in hospital would be my guess. Meantime a lot of unhappy PJ customers. Even if Kaneda recovers his business might not.

Unless you get prompt responses from Kaneda I would avoid PJ. As mentioned earlier in the thread, I had to launch a PayPal dispute to get my cash back after waiting 5 months for a pair of Takatsuki 300Bs with zero response for the last 4 months of that period. There was no response from PJ to PayPal themselves for my claim - so I won by default. Caveat Emptor and all that.

Nearly choked on my coffee. Bastard.

I wasn't sure if the USB cable comment was a serious one or not, so left it alone. Scratched my head, then walked away confused

My audio buddy just sold his for a V281. I found the Oppo to be bright, harsh and generally nasty sounding. Not something I would ever recommend. YMMV.

I care on 2 levels: 1) Stupidly priced shit like this sets a trend that might be having a "trickle up" effect. Maybe the Utopia would be 2K or 3K rather than 4K if it wasn't for the crazed pricing of gear like this (or the LCD-4, or Abyss, or HE1000 ... etc). It sets a pattern that can impact pricing on gear that we DO care about. 2) Shit gear that isn't in any way competitive with similar, or even lesser, priced gear annoys me on principle. It is sheer opportunistic laziness on the part of the manufacturer. How hard is it to get a KGSSHV/BHSE/SR-009/SR-007 rig and do some A/B comparisons? If the 50K rig doesn't best those setups significantly then you are pushing over priced horseshit and should be called out for it. Not that having a moan on HeadCase is going to save the world or cure cancer.

I should have worded that better. Moral right vs legal right. Yes - legally you can sell turds for a million bucks each if folks are dumb enough to buy them. Understood. I was setting the bar a little higher than that.

Modded HE6 was good for its time. A bastard to drive, but it is balanced with great bass and good mids. Treble is a little scratchy, but a heck of a lot better than LCD-whatever. Basic market research is to look at equivalent products in your price segment and compare against them. Benchmarking. If your 5K or 50K headphone system isn't as good as some other guy's 5K or 50K system, then you have no business releasing your shit to market. You need to go back to the design / development / testing cycle and build a better light bulb, not release over priced shit in the hopes that some dumb cunts will buy it. Sorry for the rant, but shit like this from HifiMan gets me a little irate. If this system doesn't beat a BHSE+SR-009/SR-007, then Dr Feng has no business releasing this shit, particularly at such a stupid price..

I wonder if Dr Feng even bothered to get a BHSE/KGSSHV Carbon/SR-009/SR-007 to compare against. To remotely justify a 50K price tag, the HifiMan offering should encompass at least an equivalent level of workmanship, combined with a superior SQ. I bet it fails in both categories. More over priced shit in a market segment already saturated with over priced shit.

A 50K turd. Laughable, but he will probably sell quite a few. For a fraction of that 50K folks could get a BHSE/KGSSHV Carbon/SR-00x rig. The other thing I found amusing is that it looks like TJ Full Music 300Bs are being used in the amp. I hope Feng has a large box of those with him at all times while doing his demos, because the reliability of those tubes can be woeful. I purchased a pair of the latest flagship TJ 300B - the King CNEs - both tubes failed in the first 100 hours. Got the first one replaced under warranty, then gave up. I don't really want to risk my amp by putting such fucked 300Bs in it. Lesson learned - back to EML / Takatsuki for me.

For this amp, I think the correct term is metastasized.