Beefy

How quaint......

My first headphone amp was an Arietta, which is a slightly improved/refined Headfive. While it was a little better then my integrated amp's internal headphone out, it could not realistically compete with any of my DIY offerings, including an M3 or Millett Hybrid Max. If you want to drive those HD600 to their full capacity, I suspect you will need to invest in something a bit more powerful.

Holy crap Duggeh...... just one of those is disturbing enough, let alone nine of them!

Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

The basic Buffalo kit is a surprisingly easy build. Only the power supplies and output stage (IVY) need putting together, and the SOIC OPAMPs on the IVY now come pre-mounted. Wiring it up is all fairly straight forward, except for maybe the mains voltage - which isn't actually all that hard, just potentially deadly. The difficulty is in the casework......

I suspect that the PPAv2 is more likely.

This chip is still an improvement in SNR and DNR over anything else available at the same price point. That is a bad thing, why, exactly?

Whether you can hear it or not isn't necessarily relevant to what I'm saying. Digital volume control is traditionally bad, because you quickly lose data that could very easily come into the audible range. In this new DAC, you don't lose the data. The data is still there, it just gracefully drops out of the audible range. Still there and can't hear it, versus not there at all.

Assuming a 16 bit source..... on a standard 16 bit DAC, you lose a lot of resolution very quickly. On a 24 bit DAC still with only 16 bits of DNR, you lose a lot of resolution very quickly. On a 32 bit DAC with 22bits of DNR, you have a large range to reduce the volume without losing any data. Digital v analogue...... digital can offer virtually perfect channel matching, very precise volume steps - all on the DAC chip, without an expensive analogue attenuator. How much does an RK50 run for these days? Russ White wrote a lot about this when the Buffalo first came out, and before the Volumite was released. I see no reason that he is wrong, and the new iteration of the chip apparently improves significantly on the original. It can only be a good thing.

Or, you can digitally knock down the volume to multiple levels below that, and not lose any fidelity. [EDIT] I didn't know it was a competition.

The higher SNR accompanies an increase in dynamic range as well. The two things combined make digital volume control a highly viable option, because the bits/dB you are losing are fairly insignificant.

Yeah, but what about the snow? *chuckle* Sorry, that's all I got today

HEH! I think that the other side of that t-shirt says something along the lines of "But everyone else thinks you're a fuckhead"

Worst. Beer. Festival. Ever. :mad:

I just accepted a postdoc research job in Halifax, Nova Scotia Now I'm off to a beer festival to drink myself into oblivion

Fuck me. I reckon I must be able to hear more detail with iBuds right from an iPod than you can from an MS-Pro

...... that, or a balanced CKKIII. If it needs sex-ing up, throw some Black Gates in there and call it a Maxxxxxxxxxxed CKKIIIIIIIIIII. Even then there would be money to spare.

What self respecting Head-Fier is going to believe it? "After 642.5 hours burn in with pink noise, the sound changed dramatically......"

HEH! Kind of reminds me of this: Knitting for psychos - a set on Flickr

[rant] The clear potential musical benefits of CD/digital music over vinyl/analogue is that you have a massive dynamic range to work with and your music is free from the clicks and pops of dust etc. But the stupid f^%# recording engineers waste it all by turning the CD loudness up to maximum so that the dynamic range exists between 100 and 105dB, and you gets clicks and pops from the music clipping. Stupid, stupid, stupid. [/rant] That being said, I'd love to hear a good vinyl rig one day, to see what all the fuss is about

Quoted for truth. (Though it is pretty hypocritical of me to say so...... I've taken a lot more from the DIY community than I could ever possibly give back. But I am trying.) Oh, and the pathetic, weak and insecure sonovabitch who complained about, and thus forced me to get rid of, my Buddy Jesus avatar.

Happy New Year all!

Listening to a fellow Head-Caser's DJ mix. Nice and mellow

Good Tequila is really hard to get down in Australia, but I recently splashed out and bought a mate a bottle of '1800 Anejo' tequila as a gift. Does anybody know if it is any good?

Bloody hell Hopstretch...... I thought my woman had accumulated a lot of shit, but at least it hasn't made anything fall off the wall yet! As for me, I've started re-ripping my music to FLAC with dbpoweramp for archiving purposes, then subsequently batch converting everything to Lame -V0 mp3 for iPod use. This program kicks so much arse, I think I will actually pay for the full version.