aerius

In defence of Ray, he does have to pay the Stereophile ad costs while RnB and ALO have no expenses other than putting up a cheap website.

We actually had a chance to do some CD, DVD-A, SACD, and vinyl comparisons using the same album in the different formats. DVD-A and SACD are a fair bit better than CD, but still have a ways to go to match vinyl, I wasn't familiar with the music but I didn't need to be, the differences weren't subtle. I thought the new high-res digital formats would be effectively the same as vinyl, boy was I wrong, again. And this was with the Audio Aero Prestige SACD/CD player, definitely one of the better players out there, and worth more than the vinyl rigs. Yeah, then again the same could be said of many things in audio. The Quad ESL57 is almost 50 years old now and very few modern speakers can match it in midrange detail & clarity, the midrange is incredibly clean. The Lowthers are like 70 years old and there's still something really direct and special in their midrange. Some things are just surprisingly ahead of their time and the LP is one of them.

Natalie MacMaster at the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga. She broke a string on her violin and then changed the key of the song and finished it before restringing. Did I mention she's cute? Some dude on guitar at the local pub. I didn't get his name but he was doing some pretty killer Eagles and Police covers.

The need to keep the damn things clean is a big reason I'm not getting a vinyl rig. However if I strike it rich and have one of those automated record cleaning machines then that'll change. Of course if I were really rich I'd get someone to clean my records for me in exchange for listening time on my system.

So a few weeks ago I had the chance to get together with some folks and listen to some nice vinyl rigs. Crap, I'm now ruined, because I've now heard what vinyl can really do, and it's goddamn scary how good it is. What was most shocking to me was the soundstage and the amount of low level details. With vinyl, I could be practically anywhere in the room (other than right next to a speaker or something absurd like that) and the soundstaging would still be as good or better than sitting in the sweetspot with CDs. In the sweetspot, it's like there's no speakers in the room, even with non-audiophile records like a 30 year old Bob Marley LP. In terms of detail resolution it was like going from a Grado SR60 all the way to an RS-1, music is a lot more there and real, and you really do hear so much more. Having never heard a really good vinyl setup before, I always figured it was a bunch of trade-offs and that the two camps were just being dogmatic weirdos like so many other things in audio. I thought CD had better frequency extension and dynamics while vinyl had better PRaT and soundstaging, and a slightly better midrange. Boy was I ever wrong. I don't know if vinyl will do 20Hz bass, but that Bob Marley LP didn't have anything lacking on the low end, and the grooviness was unreal. If I had a bong with me I would've lit it up and passed it around. Other highlights of the night, Lowthers and the Quad ESL57. Neither is perfect, but both do things which are so special that I'm willing to forgive their shortfalls. I don't think I could live with either as my only set of speakers, but there are areas in which they'll kill every other speaker I've heard. Listening to the Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Sessions album on the Lowthers ruined me, I thought it was good on the Living Voice Avatars, Lowthers took it to another level. But play Metallica on Lowthers and well, let's just say it ain't gonna be pretty, they're pretty music dependant. It was a fun night, very educational for me.

Merry day of gluttony and debauchery!

Horrible construction quality and lack of pride in workmanship. I mean seriously, a random jumble of cables in the open going from jack to jack, the shrinkwrap ain't even cut straight, it looks like something I'd hack together in an emergency when I'm out of parts. At least twist or braid the wires or jacket them, and learn to cut shrinkwrap straight without leaving jagged edges. Honestly, I'd be ashamed to own something with such poor attention to detail.

Remember, rules and laws are for the little people.

Right, so for years now I've noticed that my listening experience is better when I'm not sober. Generally I go with spirits, either brandy or whisky, I'm not a fan of vodka and I haven't tried rum yet. Beer makes me a bit too sleepy and makes me wanna go pee, which messes up the flow of my listening. So what do you drink to make your listening sessions better?

Of course the review makes sense, everything Jude says is final and it'll be soaked up by the mindless masses and spread as the truth and the final word to everyone else. That's from a marketing standpoint of course. In terms of actual useful information, I didn't see any, it was just an excuse to post pretty pictures.

Thankfully the 595 sounds nothing like the 590, other than the fact that they share 2 numbers and Senn made both of them they don't have much in common, thank god. The 590 is among the worst I've heard, the 595 is definitely one of the better Senns. I also agree with 5687, though Senns aren't my thing these days I'd still take the 595 over the K701 and DT880, the 701 is better in a technical sense but to me it's too dead sounding and bland, while the 880 is painfully bright and harsh. Comparing it to the 650 is hard, problem is I've now heard 4 or 5 650's and they were all distinctly different sounding, so the problem is which one do I compare it to? One had boomy overpowering bass while another was sterile and dead, the others were somewhere in between, all were well used, very odd. If I were to broadly generalize based on a median 650, I'd say the 595 has a bit more life & sparkle in the treble and a tad less bass. Overall presentation is a bit more forward, about a couple rows or so in a concert hall, not the back row to front row move of say, 580's to flat pad Grados. It's a little more lively & fun sounding, but there's a slight loss of detail resolution compared to the 650, not something I'd worry about though as it's small enough that I wouldn't really care. Compared to the K501, well, that's a tough call. The 501 has the magic AKG midrange of old like the K1000 & K340 along with the large soundstage. However, there's the lack of bass problem, grooving along to Bob Marley probably ain't gonna happen. So it basically comes down to music preferences, if it sounds good on your K1000's, it'll likely sound good on the 501's as well, likely better than the 595, if you need heavy bass drive, it's going to be lacking with the 501 and the 595 is the better bet. Now, with all that said, and this is IMO of course, I find it somewhat curious that you're getting a 595. Yes it sounds different than a 650, but it's still distinctly a Senn sound. You have the K1000 which gives great AKG sound and the 650 which is signature Senn sound, personally I'd be looking for something a bit more different, like Grados for instance.

There's always the Tyll method, which he demonstrated with hilarious results on a pair of Senn 280's...

And I wasn't invited? I don't love you anymore!

Wow, that guy's a complete tool.

Your mom.

This question came to me while I was taking a dump this morning, and contemplating the finer points of taking a piss...

Well, let's just say you could be waiting for quite some time. As of last week when Peter McAlister was the guest speaker at the inaugral meeting of the Toronto Audiocircle group, he was over 60 orders behind.

Standard disclaimer, I heard his amp when it was so fresh it wasn't even funny, as in single digit hours on it. Sounds great with Senn 580's and K340's, but it had issues with Grados. Bass wasn't quite there and there was some colouration/thinness in the upper bass/lower midrange. Not that great of a match, wouldn't recommend it with RS-1's.

The K701's didn't exist yet when I heard Biggie's amp in a similar state of moddedness to the one I linked. I did check it out with the Senn 580's and it was one of the best 580 amps I've heard. It had the power to fill in the midrange on the 580's along with the bass, lots of detail, soundstage and all that other stuff, so I imagine it would be similar with the K701's which in my experience have similar amp requirements. Bonus, it's also a speaker amp so you can drive speakers with it as well as the K1000 if you ever get that. Issues. The amp can be modded such that it's optimized for Grados, and it'll crush every single amp I've ever heard with Grados. Unfortunately this leaves it without enough gain & dynamics to drive high impedance or insensitive headphones such as the 580 or K701.

Actually I have a much better idea... http://www.audiooasis.com/images/products/old/intamp_tube/AudioUpgrades_ASL1003.jpg That one's going for the bargain price of $1295, and comes with sweet NOS input tubes. All that needs to be done is to add a headphone jack. Same amp that Biggie has, except this one's not tweaked and modded quite as much. Even if it's only 70% as good as Biggie's tweaked out version, it'll still crush every single amp I've heard if you're driving the RS-1.

Ya think? The Raptor is $1200 or so. The B-52 which is basically 2 Raptors is going for the special low price of $4500. Gotta love that math.

You should get a PS-1 Pro, it'll definitely help with the bass issues.

If someone was fucking my shit, I'd have him commited to a mental ward.

Silly Americans, Turkey Day was last month...

Whoops, forgot the OTL part. I was thinking transformer output since that has been done, but even then the transformers weighed 40 pounds or something ridiculous like that.