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dreamwhisper

High Rollers
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Everything posted by dreamwhisper

  1. I'm just finished school about to be working as an electrician and my teacher swears by butane soldering irons. She's had the same one for 20 years. It looks like they can be used for melting heatshrink too. Does anyone have any experience with these?
  2. Hey Ricky, You're welcome to give me a call this weekend if you'd like to chat about more history about this unit or this transaction. I didn't do any of the modifications on the Assemblage, but that electrical tape is good until 600V! This is however, not the right application. Cheers
  3. Happy belated birthday bud!
  4. Good question. My theory started with blocking the bottom vents on my DAC, and noticing how the tone got warmer and denser. (after it heated up for 30 minutes to an hour) I periodically tested the heat of the unit through listening sessions by touching the top with my hand. I noticed there were more microdynamics (or plankton or w/e) but what was more interesting to me was the detail within the tonality itself. The contour became richer as it was warmer. It even would become 'thicker' after a few hours. I decided to let the vents function normally and still tested the heat on the top of the unit, and kept noticed improvements as well. You're right, it could be perceptual bias because I missed the thicker warmth of the DAC when the vents were blocked. But either way, I performed enough tests for myself to decide that heat indeed played a role in the presentation. Whether it was heat causing second order distortion so the distortion sounded more organic, or simply the components 'warming' up, I can't say. Now that I have a tube amp I listen at much higher volumes, so I'm more interested in the microdynamics than the tonality, go figure. So tonality isn't as much of a consideration to me, and microdynamics are boring and neurotic to listen for during a listening test. ...Unless I've got BBQ and beer in front of me, but how often does that happen.
  5. Nice review Tyll. Is it more neutral than the HD600?
  6. In my opinion my DAC sounds better when it's left on for around 36-48 hours. It's almost a big enough difference that I'd think they were 2 different DAC's. So I can understand why a first impression of the Yggy would be better done if I left it on for a while first. (especially if I was running a comparison) If the unit is more ventilated than usual, or the circuitry is more sophisticated than my reference, I would adjust the warm-up time accordingly. Not to say a DAC doesn't sound fine cold but if I were to make a serious impression of one I would leave it on for a bit. This has just become noticeable for me recently in the last few months.
  7. I wouldn't know anything about getting outbid on Mr. Sneis' Lambda Nova Signature in the last 4 seconds. Nope, wasn't me. It ended at $455, not bad.
  8. @nopants, I'm not sure what the difference is. Supposedly there's an elastic band method to improving fit of the original W5000 . I've only tried bending the headband myself and it wasn't enough.
  9. I'll get one in about 5 years, when they release the updated boards. That's the whole point of having socketed boards. There should be some update in 3-5 years, might as well save on the shipping. Am I desperate to upgrade? If I had speakers yeah, the only R2R DAC I heard sounded amazing on speakers. Right now I just need to get some vinyl before the records I need cost more than I can pay. (one is at $150 already... fml)
  10. I've never heard of the band, but this looks amazing. http://enjoytheride.storenvy.com/collections/27394-vinyl-records/products/1849893-hrvrd-2xlp-the-inevitable-and-i-3rd-pressing-red-beer-swirl-with-blue-sp
  11. I agree, Vitalogy is a great album.\ Lately, I've been enjoying vinyl rips a lot with my Stax rig. I feel like the Stax speed and minimal-grain approach transfers the mechanics of vinyl rhythm in an intuitive way. My observation is: since vinyl is mechanical, the more dynamic parts of the music seem to flow a little quicker as the vibrations move the needle faster, jumping over hills, and imperfectly across grooves. This lends itself to a more natural presence particularly when there's /midrangeinvolved. I'm not sure it has the same effect on electronic music. But overall, the more complex/dynamic parts of music seem 'quicker' and the build-ups and the single melodi parts or melodic counterpoint parts seem very steady, and slightly 'slower' in comparison. That also gives the music an opportunity to 'breath', but overall I perceive it as a 'new' dimension of pace rhythm and timing. Whereas my HD800's seem to reveal it just as a 'warmth'. The lack of dynamic range that makes some new CD's listenable is separate to what I'm talking about, but I started being a vinyl rip collector for that reason. When I do douwnload new (live band) albums, I usually do so as a 16/44 vinyl rip, and for the classics, I get 24/96 or 24/192 rips. Usually I need to keep the regular CD copy too, and occasionally end up having 4-5 versions of the same album. I keep the regular CD copy for when I need to convert one of the FLAC rips (vinyl or CD) to mp3 for portable headphones. Since the portable headphones I'm using are budget and not that resolving I find I prefer the compressed CD rips for my mp3 player. Posty, if you want some 24/96 vinyl rips, I have some access to some private sites online that share them. Just tell me what you're looking for.
  12. Yeah, I liked the HD280 to own it for over a year. I owned my pair until I had destroyed the earpads/headband and the cord. I found the sub bass a bit fatiguing, since I was listening to them at moderate volume to block out my gaming PC's noise. I'd say SRH840 > HD280 > M50 (1st edition). But in the end they're all really pretty bad. I tried my MEElectronics Air-Fi Matrix2 with my GS-1 and the sub bass was so fatiguing I tore it off my head. I guess since the bass is so strong/emphasised unamped that it can't handle even a bit of amplification. But unamped it's a good sounding budget headphone, even before you consider the bluetooth headset feature.
  13. Hope you're feeling better every day! This day is special though, so you can take some time off from recovery
  14. A little more Dynalo/Dynahi comparison: Normally I hate the sound of compression, but a lot of movies use it as an effect where they eq a synth line and hard limit/compress it, but keep the top reverb trailing off. The Dynahi can make the HD800's playing movies sounds like a theatre venue due to it letting you hear this technique in a movie soundtrack; the use of a combination of high frequency reverb and hard limiting. It sounds particularly compelling. Some drum and bass producers cite it as a technique for maintaining a lot of energy in the music, or in this case suspense. Don't get me wrong, it sounds compressed, but the representation of the acoustic space is the same as what you'd get in a movie theatre. You can't hear the compression in the same way on the GS-1, it sounds boomy as opposed to resonant, which means to me it is less transparent. For all practical purposes, boomy and punchy is all you need for most music, and actually sounds much more organic than hearing how the bass resonates and carries in the recording space/studio. For me it's a fine line because all dynamics sound somewhat boomy, and I rarely am interested in hearing the bass resonate in a space, except if it's with genres that use that bandwidth to relay some of the music's energy. Classical music relies on the venue to create the acoustics of a concert hall, Metal uses the cymbal hits and reverb guitar/vocals to simulate some of the movie theatre acoustics I was referring to earlier. It doesn't hurt or hinder electronic music, but the additional bass resonance is interesting compared to how an e-stat renders the detail. With the GS-1, you can hear the mids and highs resonate fine, but it doesn't seem to dig out that last bit of resonating bass detail that, depending on the mastering chain, can carry through the frequency spectrum. Once again, it depends on whether or not you even want to hear the bass resonating the recording space, because it does take a lot of your attention to listen to it. (it was the intense sounding attribute I was referring to earlier) For any other music it's pretty much equal to me because punchier is really the name of the game in dynamics imo, and both the Dynalo+ and Dynahi are really punchy. With the G-lite, minus Dynalo + boards, it's not a very powerful amp. I don't remember it adding enough punch to the Audio-Technicas I was using with it to justify the cost. On the other hand, the Dynalo + boards have a huge amount of punch, with low and high impedance headphones. WIth the mk2 boards you get a reliable solid state amp, but there's no denying that the build quality and features are really part of what you're spending your money on. If you don't want preamp, loop outputs, stunning craftsmanship, I guess there's always the Beta 22. Sadly I didn't think the Beta 22 had that much punch, but maybe my gain was too low. (4 in balanced config) I find it a little bizarre that the HD800/Dynahi doesn't have the same genre bandwidth as the GS-1 for me, but with the things it does do the Dynahi is really the best in it's class (aka that I've heard), but a lot of that will come down to headphone preference / personal preference. I find it easy to forgive the Dynalo + for what it brings to the table since overall it isn't any less involving to listen to and the pride of ownership is really off the charts.
  15. dreamwhisper

    Articles

    Jazz was not meant for the dinner table. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ts-monk/jazz-was-not-meant-for-the-dinner-table_b_6751282.html'>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ts-monk/jazz-was-not-meant-for-the-dinner-table_b_6751282.html
  16. Actually the Dynahi is pretty decent with classical and metal too. The Dynalo for some reason feels a little more loose or organic, and the Dynahi feels even more like straight wire with gain, if that makes any sense. It probably just means it's powering the HD800 driver better I think. The bass is actually much more tolerable on the Dynahi, but normally I just switch to e-stats at that point anyway. It's single ended with a stepped attenuator.
  17. The Dynahi isn't the ultimate headphone amp for the HD800, but it is still amazing. For everyday listening, I probably prefer the Dynalo to the Dynahi with the HD800 because it sounds so intense. However, with some electronic music the Dynahi is the better choice because it fully drives the HD800 to the driver's full potential. But anyways, I second the Dynahi recommendation. Even with high sensitivity, easy to drive headphones, it makes other amps seem like toys.
  18. I would just keep the mk1 with those headphones.
  19. These are my favorite, you can order them online. I've had great experiences with the Mudshark in an Espresso machine, it's very responsive to changing grind size if you have a grinder that can do that. Dan, is that what you have in your second picture?
  20. They claim you can tangle and scrunch their optical cable? ...That has never turned out well for me when I've tried. However, I do know a professional cameraman / video streamer who uses a Corning Thunderbolt, whatever that is.
  21. I just got a Dynahi and the amp makes a pretty loud sound when it turns off. Can this damage the headphones? The other option is to unplug the headphones and short the amp to ground, which can only be a terrible idea on an amp this powerful.
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