n_maher

Just spent a solid hour with it, 60% w/ my HD650s and 40% w/ the Woody HF-1s. My previous Wheatfield HA-2 (cousin of the Menace) couldn't drive the HF-1s very well at all. The Menace, different story altogether. I like, I like a lot. But that's like asking a parent if their kid is cute or good at sports, so let's see what comes out of CanJam for impressions and go from there. Jacob, Round trip shipping would likely exceed $300, I'm sure you don't want to foot that bill and even if you did I finally finished a project for me. I think I'll let myself enjoy it for a while. Now, as to whether or not I'll just sell my beta22 parts, that remains to be seen.

I'm nervous as hell about shipping this to CanJam tomorrow so odds are when it returns home after that I won't be letting it out of my sight for a good long time. And FWIW, I don't believe in the Reks curse.

The only other thing worth adding is that Pete's a friggen genius. Last night we cooked up an alternate grounding scheme that included the addition of a ground loop breaker and fourth wire through the B+ umbilical. It worked wonders. I'm speechless.

So fing sweet... The amp does not like having an ipod for a source but once attached to a proper CD player (dragged my Arcam down from upstairs) and sweet, sweet music with damn near silent background!!!

Time to find out if the last two hours of tweaking has made any difference...

By a crazy twist of fate I have 4 of these caps (no idea when I ordered them) so PM me your addy and I'll mail them tomorrow.

170W/ch with balanced inputs. They are some of the lower power modules that they sell but more than plenty for what I have planned.

Icepower monoblocks.

Bah, this is a no lose purchase. I bought it at a very fair price and if I can't locate a suitable pair of headphones (read: affordable) I'll pass it along for the same price and be no worse for the wear.

I feel safe saying never. I'll never have that much to throw at headphones unless someone want to trade a pair for a Wadia 830.

Thanks deepak, that would be sweet. Might actually give me time enough to build the monoblocks that will be powering the SRD7.

Indra, Options for DIY DAC's that could be implemented in the same chassis will be pretty limited. And again if it were me I wouldn't put the dac in the same box anyway. If you ever want to upgrade/downgrade/change either component now you're stuck changing both.

I take issue with Hillary Duff being in the top 10. Cute, mebbe, sexy, no.

Probably. Now I'm on the hunt for one of the older Lambda headphones I guess. Care to make a recommendation since I will have access to both the Pro and Normal bias supply? That's really the reason that I picked up the mkII, that flexibility is great.

Thanks for that explanation, Ti.

Stax SRD7mkII

Jebus man, I've been up past midnight for 3 nights straight working on this among other things and pictures of it on my basement floor just aren't going to cut it. Last night I was so spent when I got it done that I just crashed and went to bed at 12:15. I'm going to a couple mild tweaks tonight see if the hum can be further calmed and also the localized heatsinking. Right now after ~30min of use the hot spot in the center of the chassis was running about 190deg F, a fair bit hotter than I'd like for sure. It dissipated very quickly so it's not like the whole chassis is roasting but I wonder what it would have been like after 2 or 3 hrs or with 6528's on the outputs instead of just the 6AS7's. In the end this may point to the amp chassis needing larger more invasive mods or a new chassis altogether. So the plan for tonight is to: 1. Install a ground loop breaker to offer some separation between the PS and Amp grounds. 2. Install several small top-side mounted heatsinks above the larger resistors to help with heat issues. 3. Run the amp for at least an hour as a semi-stress test to make sure that it's ready to ship to FLA tomorrow. 4. If time permits take a few better pictures.

But imagine the research and development that went into figuring out how to do a 4-wire litz braid with 18awg conductors. I mean think about it man, rock stars are only rocking you half the time. The other half they're breathing! And if I didn't think that Jena Labs was enough of an ass-clown operation before this pretty much seals the deal.

Thanks guys, I just added a semi-permanent fix to the grounding issue (so it'd be safe to travel on Friday) and refired it and I think the hum is already a little better by using a wire instead of a jumper. It'll definitely need more attention as it is more than I'd ever accept but hopefully it's not all that intensive a fix. So right now I'm chilling to Feist w/ [2] 5U4GB rectifiers, a Slyvania 6SN7GTB and [2] RCA 6AS7G's and it sounds pretty damn good.

Yes, but since I've heard a total of 2 songs, sourced by my Ipod touch (i'm on the floor in the basement for safety reasons) I'd be hard pressed to make any real judgments at this point. Translation: needs more burn in.

Well, it only took one emergency call to TX and the amp is now working pretty decently. It has a bit of background hum which Pete and I believe is linked to the less than optimal grounding scheme that I have right now. In truth, there was actually an error in the grounding as shown in the pictures that I didn't catch so for a little while there it didn't look like the amp would be doing much in the near future. Thankfully we got that sorted with only minimal sparks, no burns and nothing permanently fubared. I'm guessing the good folks at CanJam won't even notice the hum given how loud meets usually are but it'll be first on my list to address when I get home. Wuhoo! The Menace Lives. Oh, and I'll actually be adding some external heatsinking to the case in before the amp gets shipped to Florida, she does run toasty.

just got home - time to get busy...

Is it true that Mark writes for Positive Feedback? [edit]yup, there his is on the writers page...

Well if that's what it looks like that I've succeeded with my aesthetic vision. In fact the amp and PS will eventually have wood runners along the bottom of the chassis to further the HA-2 lineage although I'll probably be using a different wood. Better pictures to come tonight when I get the whole thing lit up and running.