darkless

Boomana, thanks for your write-ups so far. I've been eyeing the ESW9 for a few weeks now, trying to figure out if it would fit my requirements for a great work-phone. Basically, in order to be useful at work it needs to fulfill these requirements: not leak sound not isolate too much (need to hear collegues calling and phones ringing) have great sound when amped have sound signature similar to the L3000 not too big not too expensive The last point is still debatable, but from what I've been able to learn from reading various impressions I think the other points are satisfied nicely by the ESW9. I would use it amped with my future Pico w. DAC out of my work laptop.

Merry Christmas!

My AQVOX MkI uses 2x PCM1796. It sounds nice, even though my Stello beats it (uses AKM4395 IIRC).

Yet your cat looks like it has eaten one.

I have 3 or 4 6BL7GT tubes. In my old MPX3 SLAM XLR (not the SE model) I preferred 6BX7GT tubes.

Slight threadjack: My father has a B&O vinyl rig (probably just halfway decent, but I haven't listened to it). He would like to digitize his vinyl and wants to spend max $1000 on it. What should he buy? He doesn't have any fancy ADC stuff and neither do I. He has looked on some of those hideous vinyl "players" with USB out.

Talking about Jan again? I did listen to his recabled Ety while I was there about a month ago, but we didn't try it out of the Rudistor. I'm sure it sounds nice that way, given that it had enough power to make the L3000 sound really nice.

I was wondering what headphone cable length would be ideal for a home setup. My logic tells me that shorter is better, since it will limit the total cable capacitance. Of course it needs to be long enough to not be inconvenient and flexibility also plays an important role. Let's just assume that I'd use a balanced version of Alex' V3 cable. Assuming an audio rack setup next to a medium sized desk I would think that a 6' cable would be enough for regular use, and then an extension cable could be used for when you want to sit in the couch and use your cans for nighttime TV watching. I might've missed some common usage scenarios, but this is what I could think of off the top of my head. What would you recommend and why?

Nice, you got the Esoterics!

Special relationship to Mikhail? I wish! Then maybe he would actually have shipped my amp by now. I bug him often, but that certainly doesn't get me any special treatment.

Yeah, but I've heard people ask $3000+ for mint pairs.

Thanks Nate. I had been wondering if it was possible to shut off those sidebars as well, but hadn't gotten around to actually look for a way to do it.

I'm glad to hear that my Qualia 010 found a good home with a family that appreciates it for what it can do. I'll tell you why I sold it. I was one of the unfortunate people who couldn't give it the love it deserves, as it plain didn't fit my head shape. I tried pressing it towards my head, tilting it backwards to the point where I had to hold the pads to my head since it no longer was supported by the headband, no deal. It also sounded too bright for my taste and the tonality wasn't my cup of tee. I will stick to my L3000 for the time being, since it has everything that I'm looking for in a headphone: Great tonality, full, deep and textured bass, great PRaT, intimate soundstage, no sound leakage, slightly isolating, decent highs... On an unrelated note Mikhail wrote to me yesterday to let me know that he has finished the last tube adapters and completed the testing of my Supreme XLR amp. Direct quote: "This is finally done." Since I now have some funds freed with the Qualia sale, I just might be able to get an APureSound v3 balanced cable for my L3000 to bring out the best of them.

Not unlike my now-almost-complete headamp... it can be equipped with 7241 tubes and their plate dissipation is also up to 100W. Running two of them in parallel for each output channel... now THAT'S overkill. Sweet amp pictures, aerius!

OK, so there will be plenty of driving voltage. However, in my case there aren't any transformers anywhere in the amp, so I would assume that the bias voltage would be the same as the driving voltage, that is 500V. From what I've been able to gather, the bias voltage is essentially determining "how far" the drivers will move to either side. How will a bias voltage of 500V affect the sound, then? I would assume that either dynamics and/or maximum volume would be affected to some degree? Excuse me for being so dull, I'm trying to grasp some rudimentary electrostat knowledge here, I'm sure.

What would you think would happen to the sound if the phone was driven by an amp with just a 500V voltage swing? We're talking about a difference of around 17%.

I loved the 6BX7 output tubes on my old MPX3 SLAM XLR. I used 7N7 driver tubes, because I didn't want to pay the extravagant costs for good NOS 6SN7 tubes.

I've briefly compared a pair of Etys with APureSound cable and Shure black foamies with my Super.Fi 5 Pros out of my iRiver H140 as well as out of an iBasso D1. I loved the treble out of the Etys, but the fullness of the lower end and soundstage in my Super.Fi 5 Pro was also really nice. I wonder how the Etys would compare to the q-JAYS... Has anyone done a direct comparison between the two?

I listen around 60-65 dB, peaks in the low 70s. Same with speakers.

[threadcrapping] Speaking of the Behringer equalizer, I intend to put my DEQ2496 F/S along with an ECM8000 measurement mic soon. If anyone's interested feel free to shoot me a PM. [/threadcrapping]

Stupid me and my stupid tiny small screen laptop screen. I failed to notice the scroll bar at the bottom, so all I saw was the meridian and then a clean cut to its right, leading me to think that the link to the picture was wrong. Sorry about that.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but given that you quote my post above I expected to see something made by Rudi in that picture?

Hehe, good one. Oh, and sorry about the Rudistor thread crapping.

tkam said it best. That and in my case just a tiny teeny bit of pride.

Yay, brainfart. I was thinking about the 10 MOhm bias and somehow the word bias slipped in instead of voltage swing. Thanks for spotting it.