blubliss

It's a dynamic amp...

I got a free one form Yamas when mine broke.

You can buy an external Darbee unit too...to use with older OPPOs

utter rubbish, my dynahi sounds superb with the HD800.

That guy is one of the reasons I got to HF less and less...

be careful or sucku is going to give you an MOT title , oh wait, he already tried and got banned..

Bottom line for me is that I would never, ever pay $5k for such an amp, especially considering the people that come to its defense and how crazy they seem (not all of them but 2 come to mind). You really don't see the same kind of fanatics/clueless shills for Headamp, EC, ECP. You did see the same thing with Mikhail's crap...

nice

Great, I got the last one so can sell it at an extreme markup as a limited edition super secret special sauce amp (:

This is a really great post, thank you. I build myself too but knowing about places like this may change my mind.

so go ahead and make a website yourself...we are not here to serve you...why don't you offer something instead of whinging.

Even more excited now, the demo L-2 comes to my home on Tuesday...

Yes, I own the combo and it is spectacular, great punch and dynamics.

I need to hear one soon...doug?

The 6DJ8s make more of a difference in the T2 for sure.

This is my experience too, definitely hear some change. I went a bit overboard buying 24 metal base tubes but it was an investment . Thing is, I paid a lot. Anyone wanna buy a $1600 quad of EL34 metal base....

ruh roh

hey, keep monks out of it (:

Correct.

Hard to tell at a show (Newport), but the QB-9 DSD sounded like something worth looking into.

Yeah, I think Charles is correct for the foreseeable future.

Yes, I think the upgrade is $500 so used unit upgraded to DSD would be a good route. It costs a bit more if you do not have the Hi-Res option installed. Comparing the two, old and new QB-9 would probably not work since the DAC chip is new?? Here is some info on the QB-9 DSD: I think the first units will ship next week, and the US retail price is going up $500, from $2750 to $3250. We were going to keep the price down by using less expensive master clock modules (one each for multiples of 44 and 48 kHz), but in the end decided to go for the gusto and just put in all the improvements that we made to the DX-5. The DX-5-DSD will still sound a "bit" better as the analog circuitry and the power supply are more sophisticated. The changes to the QB-9-DSD include: 1) Changing the DAC chip from the Burr-Brown DSD1792A to the ES9016S. 2) Replacing the audio master clocks with low-phase-noise modules running at twice the frequency of the previous ones, which allow the ESS DAC chip to perform at a higher level. 3) Changes to the analog audio circuitry and its power supply that improve the audio performance. 4) Addition of an AC line powered supply for the USB circuitry. This provides for uniformly superior performance, regardless of the quality of the USB Vbus power supplied by the computer. 5) The ability of the USB Audio input to accept and decode native DSD files from computer sources. The updates will take a long time. We can only do five or ten a week and there are thousands of QB-9's out there. You'll just have to be patient... Thanks, Charles Hansen Ayre Acoustics, inc. The original location of this info is in a thread that is hilarious. Some dipsticks argue with Charles about DSD, happens later in the thread. I can't believe how much Charles responded and the incredible amount of information he provided. http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f6-dac-digital-analog-conversion/ayre-wants-%241-5k-dsded-qb-9-a-15650/

The upcoming Ayre QB-9 DSD DAC seems like it might be interesting. Charles seems to know a thing or two about digital filtering. Any experience here with Ayre stuff, I think you have or had some Al?

Ok, fair enough. But, I still say you guys prefer warmer stuff than me. At our mini-meet, that PWD you had was very warm, IMO, and I owned a PWD II for awhile and thought it was quite inferior to both of my other sources in the end. Too muddled. You guys seem to use the PWD as a benchmark and I think it is just a fair source.

Does that mean they will sound better on the low z setting on the DSHA. Only listened a bit and liked them but thought there was a little too much bass which is weird.