n_maher

In my experience pornos tend to err on the side of nurses rather than doctors. The outfits are much more suitable.

I think with some mild tweaking you might be able to achieve that result. I've been getting pretty interesting results with my 340s and the Wheatfield. I'm very much looking forward to hearing them balanced out of the Beta22 whenever I get around to building that.

I'm sort of awaiting the Westone 3, to see if any sort of significant progress has been made in the universal fit IEM world. Based on what I've read neither the Shure 400 or 500 series or the Triple-Fi 10's sound like they're for me. I keep hoping someone will come out with a decent sub-$500 custom IEM. I'd have to give that some serious thought.

YGPM

WUHOO! I win, what's my prize, WHAT'S MY PRIZE!!!

The more I think about it the more confident that I become in idea that the only thing I'll replace my Etys with is a pair of customs.

I guess you really didn't want to sell me a pair?

trose's entire Beyer collection? I think they merit mention since never has someone had the ability to make a headphone look exactly how they wanted and failed so miserably.

Teh new hawtness!!1!

Honestly, my first (and really only) criticism of the amp is its use of a stepped attenuator. Using low impedance cans I'd be pretty nervous only having 24 steps. And the Penny &Giles pot isn't' a cheap option at $500 (figure -$200 for the dact, +$300 for the P&G).

For someone who loves black as much as you I'm shocked your avatar isn't just a plain black square.

postjack FTW!

more of Season 2...

I gotta ask, how the hell does one snap the shaft off an RK27? I've been pretty unkind to things in my days and generally if something can be screwed up I'll figure out how to do it best but I've never managed that feat. And shoot me a PM if you're stuck looking for an RK27, I can toss one in the mail for you any day this week and save you the shipping you'd pay AMB and tangent.

Sounds about right. Before I fixed/modded my amp it ran even hotter, which was at times pretty frightening. I picked up a pretty cheap infrared thermometer from Harborfreight and it's already come in handy for checking things like whether or not a tube has cooled off enough to take out safely.

You know, I'm all for short signal paths but unless I'm mistaken the volume is on the rear panel of that thing. Nothing like having to reach around behind the amp to adjust the fricken volume. At least their normal preamp/headphone amp has the pot at the front.

The Wheatfield runs pretty toasty as well, I think the surface temps are around 120F.

I'd honestly thought about doing that but with how expensive the cases are that I'm looking at it'd put me in the poor house. Also, I just don't see me using much in the way of single-ended headphones any more. My source will be balance and I'll be rewiring all of my headphones so the extra two boards for the ground channels would just sit there idling 99% of the time. Instead I'll probably build a 2-channel amp with those parts (since I already have them) and sell it to offset the absurdly expensive cases.

In my humble experience and based on discussions with others who have far greater listening experience than myself I would say the following, paying less than 3 grand for a balanced beta22 is one of the better "bargains" in high end audio. Granted, with your average DIY build you're not going to end up with something as visually stunning as one of Justin's amps but if great sound is what you're all about then that wouldn't matter anyway. Stephen's price is absurdly cheap. I'm currently revamping my beta22 plans. My original thoughts were for a 6 channel balanced build but I'm now pretty sure that I won't be going down that road. The complications of case size and wasted heat and power resources are pushing me towards a 4 channel build. Decisions, decisions...

I'd read a bit about the FLAC transcoding capabilities which indeed sound intriguing and this thing already had mad bang for the buck. .

Delivered Ian's gift this morning so I can finally post this: SMCWAA-G EZ Stream 802.11g Wireless Audio Adapter Basically a less expensive version of the SB3, can be found for way less than even the MSRP if you're willing to dig. Stock it'll only stream MP3s but for a desktop rig that works for me. Also, thanks to the folks at DIYAudio it was discovered that you can mod the unit pretty simply to have an optical digital output. That'll be one of my next projects since I followed the military model when I picked this up for Ian. Why buy one when you can get two for twice the price? Should make a killer addition to the soldering rig.

I'm sensing you should return the Cardas adapters if at all possible.

Happy birthday to a guy who pours heart and soul into this hobby. Cheers!

I don't, nor to a really believe that there are two unique versions of the K340s. Do different ones sound different, sure, but I'm not sure it's a black and white difference. Also, I don't think that mine has any sort of screen mod done and the highs sound fine to me, of course I lean toward the Senn side of the spectrum so that may just be my preference. I'll try to take some decent pics this weekend and post them up.