aerius

Yeah, I know, it's not easy being me. Getting back on topic and expanding on my previous post. Back in the old days of Head-fi, it was pretty easy to learn things, members were for the most part helpful and offered pretty good advice with the exception of some flaming idiots like Sovkiller, but almost everyone knew about them anyway so it didn't affect things much. I could read reviews, do searches, ask questions, and generally get pointed in the right direction. Nowadays, well, good luck. Fanboys everywhere shilling whatever they own, dissenting opinions getting oppressed and deleted right & left, it's damn near impossible to find good information and trustworthy opinions over there. There's massive commercial conflicts of interest and hidden agendas getting played out every day, there's just too much crap to wade through before coming across something with a kernel of truth. It's no wonder newbies are hopelessly overwhelmed and lost with all the bullshit that goes on over there. The part which really saddens & angers me is how Head-fi takes advantage of the lost by shoving crap at them and relieving them of their money. Great for the short term, you get to move lots of product and raise the profile of Head-fi, but long-term, it's going to backfire on them as people become disgusted and/or disillusioned. It ain't gonna be healthy for the hobby in the long run.

If everyone were as smart as me we wouldn't have this problem. Unfortunately "smart" and "average Head-fi member" don't belong in the same sentence without the word "aren't". Of course the admin ain't exactly helping things along with their blatant censorship and propaganda. In short, lack of unbiased information, people buy into the hype and it snowballs from there.

They're the quantum matrix wave phase discriminator reduction devices.

My guess is the opamps aren't in the signal path, could be something like the DC servo in KG's amps but without a board in front of me so I can trace out the circuit I can't say for sure.

Yes I have heard a Zapfilter, don't remember the CD player at the moment except that the CD's went in label side down. Now unless we're talking about a completely different Zapfilter, the opamps chips are the 2 orange rectangles on the top of the board in this picture. Same chips as in the balanced outputs of my CD player based on what I can see of the pin-outs and partial model numbers. Transformer output straight off a pair of differential DAC chips (PCM1702) for each channel. Does the I/V conversion and whacks the RF noise coming off the converter.

The Zapfilter is fairly similar to the output stage on my CD player, simple & good but not exceptional. In fact those orange NEC chips are the exact same ones found in the balanced outputs of my CDP (which I took out). Yes it's likely better than the many CDP output stages which use opamps to handle the DAC output and do the filtering, but it ain't gonna give an Audio Aero Capitole or Biggie's player a run for the money. It won't nail down tone, decays, and low-level details as well.

Nope, despite living in the same province as them I've yet to see one of their amps. So here's the fun part, everyone "knows" Senns "need" mega-expensive amps to sound good, while it's generally accepted that Grados don't benefit from super amps. It's one of the more annoying myths which I've run across in the headphone world. But there's a kernel of truth to the myth, Senns sound like crap with most entry level amps, while Grados manage to sound pretty decent, so people assume that Grados don't need good amps, which is a load of crock. Almost all headphones benefit from superior amplification, the thing is relatively few people have paired Grados with good amps compared to Senns thanks to the never-dying myth. I've heard an all-out RS-1 setup, it remains the 2nd best setup I've ever heard behind the PS-1 setup.

IMO the RS-1 is the best current production dynamic headphone provided you have the money and patience to build a system around them. Problem, your PPX3 Slam ain't gonna take them anywhere near their full potential, it's gonna sound a fair bit better than your 225's but not $400 better. They need a ridiculously overpowered tube amp to sound their best, think power tubes such as EL34's or 300B's on the output as opposed to driver tubes like 5687's or 6SN7's. But if you get it right it's magic, it plugs you right into the music and emotion and you end up not really caring about colourations, neutrality and all that other audiophile stuff.

That's what I did to your mom last night. Man she's a screamer.

Regarding transformers. Winding a standard EI core transformer is one thing, with some practice you can do it by hand with some fairly basic & inexpensive tools. Winding a toroid? Good fucking luck doing it by hand, you're a lot better off sourcing them from a company which has the expensive specialized tools & machines for making them. Doing it in-house makes no sense unless you have the volume & money to buy the winding equipment which costs major bucks, in other words unless you're cranking out tens of thousands of them it ain't worth thinking about, and even if you are it still probably ain't worth it. Chances are Plitron and the other donut winders can still do it cheaper & better than you, they've been doing it for years and it's all they do, plus they have the volume. Unless you want to make something really exotic like amorphous colbalt core toroids there's no real point in winding your own donuts.

Apparently he sold his home and moved into a cinderblock shack to pay for all his amps...

You can blame sovkiller for that one, the whiny crybaby abused the system and ruined it for everyone. All together now, SOVKILLER IS A CUNT RAG! Boy can I hate and carry a grudge or what?

Of the amps you listed, I've only heard the RSA Hornet, Gilmore Lite, DarkVoice, and M3. The Hornet literally made my Senn 580 sound like a 590, which is to say fucking horrible. The DarkVoice is too tubey & mushy sounding, might be fine with a K701 or Beyer DT880, but it's not a good match with the Senn 650. Which leaves the Gil Lite and M3, there's no glaring faults on either but neither are they particularly spectacular with a 650. I'd lean towards the M3 since at least you can swap opamp chips and tune the sound a bit that way. Personal thoughts? If you can solder decently or know someone who can, order yourself an Aikido PCB along with the transformers & parts needed for the filament supply and the high voltage ~250V supply. And of course the tubes, resistors and stuff for the amp itself. That'll give you the best sound you can buy without going into silly money.

Have you considered marrying her?

You need to get one of those commercial John Deere tractors with the mower attachment which cuts a 20' wide swath in one go.

6 hours? Do you live on a sod farm or something?

I don't know what kind of workouts you do, but when I do a workout, the music player better be small and on my body or else the wires are going to get in the way, get mangled, and busted up fast. To me it doesn't make sense to run a stationary home DVD player to an amp and then to my earbuds, there's fucking wires everywhere getting in the way and waiting to be broken. It just seems stupid to me. Get something small like a iPod Nano or Shuffle, secure it to your body and run the earbud wires under your shirt and right to your ears. Keep it simple, keep it light, that way shit don't go wrong. Besides, if you're doing a proper workout and not some wussy yuppie crap, you'll be breathing too hard and your heart will be pounding nicely so you won't be able to tell the difference between an iPod and some $5000 setup.

Those must've been good times, sleep, get held, and suck on breasts all day, I wish I could remember that far back.

I was breast-fed as a baby, therefore there should be another stage. In other words, I demand boobies!

PiccoloNamek is a fucking tool, I think I had a run-in or 2 with him before I was banned. Anyway, my impressions of the 650 is quite similar to yours, if I didn't have my K340 I could live with it, but since I do have a K340 the flaws are more than I'd want to tolerate. It has been over 2 years since I've heard the Stax 404 system so I'm rather hesitant to comment on it. It is more effortless than a 650, but at the same time it doesn't have the groove & drive of a Grado, compared to say, an RS-1 it still feels like it's falling behind the beat a bit, but then again pretty much everything does including my K340. The Stax has more of the HP-1000 character, it's not going to put you to sleep like a Senn but you ain't gonna be dancing along and playing air guitar either. Seeing how you like the K1000, I think the Stax 404 should be a good match for you, however, you're still going to have issues lying down with them if you have a big fluffy pillow. They need space to breathe and if the pillow's too big it ain't gonna be good.

The give-a-shit-o-meter remains firmly pegged at zero. The companies can go fuck themselves until they come up with a unified standard and enough affordable content to support said standard. In other words, I want to be able to replace every DVD I have with hi-res whatever for $15-20 a disc. Until then, I couldn't care less what they do.

On the other hand the 600's & 580's still have that hole in the soundstage, and they still sound like they're falling behind the beat of the music. Yeah it's airier sounding, but the other fundamental issues are still there. Beyers will likely give you the same treble issues and thin sound of the W5000, the K340 is nice if you get a good one but that raises more amp issues than you'd likely want to deal with. The K340 keeps most of the K1000 sound, but with a richer midrange & smaller (though still larger than 650) soundstage.

You need to recable your headphones and mod your sources, along with addressing the issues of power conditioning and vibration control. Then, and only then will your headphones sound good. Ok, seriously now. I'd say get K340's, but that opens up a huge can of worms in terms of headphone variability and amp requirements. K1000, same but not quite as bad. Senns ain't my thing but they may work for you, and they go well with the Headroom amp you already have. On a less serious note, I'd advise drinking your favourite alcoholic beverage until everything sounds right.

Sad, but all too true these days. Head-fi is like a fucking soap opera, complete with all the fucked up characters, stupid backstabbing plots and power games, and pretty much empty of actual content. I go there whenever I need a reminder of how stupid and petty people are.

Well, the only 2006 albums I bought this year were Wintersong (Sarah McLachlan), Orphan Music (Sarah Slean), and Ghost Stories (Chantal Kreviazuk). I'm having a hard time deciding which of the first 2 is better, they're both good, but neither's really exceptional.