aerius

You know what would be really funny? If someone built a headphone amp using a GM100 tube. I wonder if KG is secretly working on the plans for one...

So what you're arguing is that since actual impressions are so subject to guesswork anyway, it then follows that it doesn't matter if you pile up further guesswork on top of that by speculating about gear which you haven't heard. Furthermore, since the reader is an idiot anyway (on Head-fi this is probably true of 99.99% of them), they ain't gonna read nor listen so you might as well just say whatever the fuck you feel like saying. On one level I'm inclined to agree with you, Head-fi is full of worthless shits anyway so why bother? On the other hand, we all have ethical obligations to live up to, and this includes disseminating clear truthful information and opinions instead of spreading conjecture. If one truly cares about the hobby and its future, then one is morally obliged to post clear truthful facts & opinions based on actual experience, and clearly label all guesswork and speculations as such, and with the proper disclaimers & caveats.

Ah yes, the standard Republitard ravings. It's so full of shit it makes my head hurt. Let's have a quick rundown of the Republitard "accomplishments" of the past 6 years. -Tax cuts for rich assholes and corporations -Trillions of dollars of new debt, and the largest deficits in history -Starting a war on false pretenses and completely fucking over Iraq -Stirring up more hatred and terrorism against America than ever before -Blowing more money on the military than at any point during the Cold War -Fucking up Afghanistan and then making other countries fix it -Ridiculous kickbacks to oil, energy and pharmaceutical companies, John D. Rockefeller would laugh himself silly if he were still alive to see how much influence oil companies have these days. -Fucking over science & education -Katrina, New Orleans, do I really need to say more? Seriously, they've done nothing but fuck up the country along with the rest of the world while padding their pockets and those of their cronies. There's nothing good I can say about them other than that they haven't started a nuclear war yet.

I say you should get the capacitors painted in bling shiny gold. Or you could go the low key approach and paint them gloss black to match the rest of the amp. BTW, pentodes are 27GB5's, which are single pentodes, and the top cap is for the 200V or whatever the plate voltage is.

It was way off, I'd say it was at least a good 5-10dB louder on the left side. I wish I'd brought some tubes to try out to determine whether it's a tube problem or an amp problem. 6H30 and either 6CG7 or 6FQ7. Filament power supply was a generic switchmode unit run into a basic regulator of some sort, B+ appeared to be a simple regulated supply. Further thoughts. The orange-brown Ultrasone wasn't to my tastes. While it was reasonably smooth & even, it doesn't have the detail level of the K340 and worst of all there's a huge gaping hole in the centre of the soundstage. It desperately needs cross-feed. AKG K81 was a pleasant surprise. Not nearly enough bass for me but otherwise it was quite nice. Tried the K701 again and I still don't like it. I'd still rather get an iGrado.

The short version. The various Chinese tube amps need a way to set the channel balance, every single one had horrible channel imbalances which fucked over the soundstaging & imaging. I don't know if it's crappy QC or bad tubes, but it wasn't pretty. It drove me nuts and I couldn't listen to them much, so no real impressions on them. Philodox's new amp is great with high impedance ?phones, but I suspect it was current starving the Grados. Normally I need to turn the volume way down when going from Senns to Grados, but with his amp I had to keep the volume knob at nearly the same setting. The amp was brand new so I hesitate to make any definitive comments on it, it started out rather bright & sibilant at the beginning of the meet but at the end it had filled in & smoothed out significantly. The RSA Hornet sucked. I tried it with my Senn 580 and it had a very compressed soundstage which has very little depth. It couldn't put sounds outside the head, the dynamics sucked, it reminds me of bad MP3's played through my computer soundcard. I'd rather listen to cassettes out of my 10 year old Sony Walkman, at least that doesn't sound digital and it's probably less coloured as well. The Aikido amp is surprisingly good, it drives everything with ease and it effectively has no sound, very transparent. I didn't have my K340 with me so I did all the listening with Senn 580's and Grado HF-1's. I don't think it has quite as much detail as the McAlister amp or my own, but that could be source as well since the latter two were driven out of nicer CD players. The band at the bar...well...let's just say they probably came pretty close to having tomatoes thrown at them.

Obviously you were cloned at an early age, and your clone signed up for a Head-case account without your knowledge. We found Jay's long-lost evil twing brother at the meet yesterday, you never know when you'll bump into your clone. Either that or you're stuck in a temporal causality loop.

So how do you explain Luco's cRaptor where the damn thing got so hot that the varnish scorched and melted on the transformers?

The rubber feet on my computer case probably cost less than a penny each. My computer gets kinda toasty and in the years I've owned it it's yet to leave a mark on my table. My cheapass Panasonic DVD player also has rubber feet and it's been sitting on my wooden night table for a couple years now. No marks at all. The Technics receiver I got at a pawn shop has been sitting on my wooden workbench for over a year now, no marks there either. If you're going to tell me that leaving indelible marks is an inherent property of rubber feet, you're fucking ignorant. There are billions of rubber feet under various electronics with don't leave marks at all, therefore I'd say that those which do are defective pieces of shit.

That's right Billy, pass the buck some more. It's not Ray's fault, it's the fault of the rubber feet maker, gotta love that rationalization. You're a nut-hugging RSA apologist. Ray built a shit-ass power supply that runs far too hot. The cRaptor has caused heat damage to furniture. The rubber feet may be partially responsible. In any case, since Ray built and sold the damn things, he's the one who bears full responsibility for any damage caused by the cRaptor. Period. Not the rubber feet guy, not the paint guy, not the case guy, not the guy he stole the design from. The buck stops with RSA, end of story.

You probably have a better chance of crapping a Tung-Sol roundplate out of your ass than you do of getting a straight answer in this thread.

It's one of the corollaries of Murphy's Law.

As far as I can tell this is an English language board, not a lawyer-speak board. Try using clear declarative sentences such as the following: The cRaptor did not start a house fire. RSA ain't getting sued. The cRaptor is a worthless piece of shit amp and a goddamn safety hazard. RSA makes shit amps. Clear, simple, and impossible to read anything into and misinterpret unless you're either a complete retard, a semantics whore, or a lawyer.

I don't think he's going to make it back to Hamilton by Sunday, he'll probably end up getting wasted at the meet on Saturday and end up crashing on the Subway.

And it's at Massey Hall, IMO the best concert hall in the Toronto area, though the new Roy Thomson Hall is up there too. Last concert I was at was Chantal Kreviazuk at the Rehearsal Hall special that was taped & aired on Bravo! I think I'm in the frame for like 1/100th of a second just before the lights go out.

As far as I know the cRaptor hasn't started a house fire yet, but there is documented proof that it has scorched furniture. There is also documented proof that the transformers in the original were woefully undersized and had a tendency to overheat and melt themselves. It is also evident that the "upgraded" cRaptor PSU is still a worthless piece of shit which is still pathetically underpowered.

Interesting...I've seen similar tubes in those exact same boxes at my local surplus store. Hmmm....

See if you can get a rough schematic off him, or I'll take your amp apart at the meet and trace the circuit out myself! Which reminds me, I need to build myself a 4-pin XLR to whatever output jacks your amp has so I can use my K340 with your amp at the meet.

Several reasons. Most people don't like rocking the boat so to speak. Speaking one's mind in plain blunt language the way I do causes a lot of shit and bad feelings, most people can't handle the shitstorm that happens afterwards and so they stay quiet or sugercoat their shit to keep the peace. Most people want to fit in and be a part of the "Head-fi community". Being blunt and uncompromising with your opinions does not endear you to the "Head-fi community". There's more but I'd say those are the main reasons.

Have you looked at the Head-case motto lately? Don't shoot the messenger. When Ray builds amp after amp with obvious design flaws which anyone with a basic understanding of electronics would never make and hawks them for sky-high prices, he can expect to get called on it. Ray's designs are pure shit from an electronics standpoint and some are goddamn safety hazards to boot, any criticism they receive is well deserved.

How about "shut the fuck up, noob". I've always wanted to say that. With that out of the way, how about addressing Filburt's points to prove that you're not a fucking idiot?

The only reason I didn't buy the new Mirrorball set is because I ripped the audio tracks of the Mirrorball DVD onto CDs. The reason I did so was much the same as yours, I wanted the live version of "Witness" which is way better than the studio version. Sidenote. Afterglow Live was recorded at the Toronto concert, so if you look real carefully you might be able to see me in the DVD somewhere. So far I haven't succeeded in finding myself. I didn't even know that set existed until you mentioned it and I looked it up on Amazon a few minutes ago.

Speaking of Sarah, I just picked up a new Sarah Slean album which I didn't even know was out. Since I'm still downtown on a public computer, I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, in fact I haven't even opened the shrink-wrap. Orphan Music is the title and it's a CD of live & alternate studio versions of her songs.

For those of you who are living under a rock, Sarah McLachlan's Wintersong album is now out, got myself a copy the day it was released. Yes it's a christmas album, but it's got Sarah special touch, I actually like it more than her Afterglow album. Also out on CD is the full uncut version of Mirroball, this is a 2 CD set that contains the entire concert set. Yeah there's overlap with the Afterglow Live CD/DVD set but it's different enough to be worth it. While I was at the store I also saw the A Piano: the Collection which is the Tori Amos box set that comes in a piano keyboard. I didn't buy it but I took a look at the track listings and it seems pretty interesting. I'll probably grab it when it goes on sale.

Mickey Fremer's a crackhead. He was probably snorting some serious drugs. Either that or he's being fellated by the Zanden guys. Come to think of it, it was probably more of a man-train circle-jerk.