Torpedo

I know very very little about electronics, a little more about audio, and a bit more about human psychology. I need it daily at work to "catch" how my interlocutor's mind works. IMHO Stacy doesn't give a damn about HC members' opinion about herself or about sound, audio, electronics... I don't think she wants to be educated, and it's quite obvious that she won't change the perception of a world which isn't spinning around her. She lives in a Stacy-centric universe, which is good for having helped her to overcome her personal ghosts and limitations, which I'm not completely sure she already knows. But she'd never recognize even if she knew. I'm amazed for Boomana's kindness and thoughtful hints, but this is like preaching in the desert to a deaf audience. I wish Stacy proved me wrong, but I have very little hopes. @Boomana: I like better "to each one his own" than "everyone is entitled to his opinion" Maybe I've been many years over audio forums and I've got tired of trying to get worth discussions with most people, so if someone is not willing to listen and looking at things from a different perspective, I won't waste my valuable time. Not for being it worthier than anybody else's, but just for being the only one I have left for the rest of my life. Rgrds

In my little office at home, which is way smaller than yours, I have a PC based system. I formerly used a pair of Spendor SP3/5SE loudspeakers, and now I run a pair of Celestion SL600 which are bigger. I have them on Partington Dreadnought stands. For amps in the winter I use a pair of Manley Tiny Triode tube monoblocks The one in that picture posted at the Manley's website is one of my own amps In the summer I switch to a YBA SS integrated for heat reasons. I'm very happy with this secondary system and it gets a lot of playtime. My layout is quite similar to your projected one. Speakers in front of me with the amps in between them. Long mini to RCA interconnect from soundcard to the monoblocks or the integrated and that's all. Well, some speakers wire too hehehe. If you already have all the components, do it! you won't regret. Rgrds.

The best of lucks mate, take care.

Sam Tellig is an audio ignorant who happens to have a lot of power inside Stereophile. Have you noticed that NONE of the components Sam reviews are ever measured? His "reviews" are always rave but vague, uninformative and never straight to the point. I know from reliable sources which I can't disclose that he has economical interests with some manufacturers and that he has been responsible of dropping products from Class A to class B, which he not even listened to , just to make his "related products" to look better than they're. He's the paradigm of what high-end audio, magazines and most manufacturers have become, yet another consumist area where quality and performance aren't important, just keeping the wheel fueled to get as many morons buying as possible On the other hand John Marks at Stereophile is quite reliable, he has his taste and you may agree or not, but he doesn't invent things, nor raves about products he's not even listened to.

You're really bad guys The RPX-100 could be better made and using better parts for the price, but soundwise isn't a bad amp provided you use the "high-gain" output and just a pair of phones loading it. It is quite powerful and manages to drive any of my cans efficiently, with a nice "I'm not here" character, I mean that it lets my sources offer their sound which I know well after several years together, and also allowing you to hear the cans own signature. However I'm quite sure there're more affordable options delivering all that. It's just that I haven't tried them

Yes it has, and not only in the volume level . Fortunately we seldom use two phones at the same time.

Thanks a lot for replying Justin That was my guess. I'm quite pissed, I haven't been able to listen with HPs in the whole afternoon. I'm waiting for a delivery, if I use phones I don't hear the street door intercom bell, so here I am with a new toy not being able to enjoy it Rgrds

I never thought the change in sound on the Rudi had anything to do with phase. IMO it's for additional load. Not sure if the RPX-100 is capacitor coupled though. I think both outputs use the same amplifier section. Rgrds

LOL Dr Mengele's prescription?

Thanks Nate. I don't have detailed pics other than the ones Justin posted at the beginning of the thread. Let's see if Justin shows up later and wants to clarify. Otherwise I can open my unit and try to get some decent pics, or just see for myself if sound quality suffers any changes by plugging a second pair of phones into the other output. On the Rudi this has a very clear impact in the sound. Rgrds

It's not about preserving absolute polarity, which AFAIK is preserved in my system, since listening with phones I can't really say if it's "correct" or not, even less considering many recordings have it completely messed up. My interest comes from knowing if using both SE outputs at the same time I'm loading the same amplification rails, or each phone would be using a rail for its own. As I see it, having each SE output using different phases of the balanced configuration, would be the same as having two separate SE amps, one with opposite signal polarity than the other one. Rgrds

I've tried to edit the post to add a question for Justin, but looks like it's not possible, or I'm too idiot to see how to do it Anyway... Since the amp is balanced and has two single ended HP outs, I wonder if both SE outs come from the same rail of each channel, which I suppose is the "hot" one, or one SE out is using the amplification for the hot side of the balanced circuit, while the other SE out uses the cold one. If this were the case, what SE out is using the hot (preserved polarity) part of the circuit and which one is the reversed? I could investigate this myself quite easily had I an oscilloscope, but I don't have it, nor a reliable meter to check polarity either. My guess is that both SE outs use the same perserved polarity circuit, othewise when using the SE input only one of the SE outs would be working, unless some phase inversion circuit gets activated when switching to SE operation in the back, so both balanced rails get signal. Rgrds PS. Looks like the "edit" button is active right after the message is posted, but I swear it wasn't (and still isn't) there when I tried to edit my previous message.

Thanks mate! The amp arrived about two hours ago. I've plugged it into the system replacing the Rudi, fed it with a balanced signal from my DAC and for first listening I've chosen the L3000. Music: Kenny Barron - Live at Bradley's. Initial impressions are very good. I was expecting kind of more "trendy" sound full of enhanced detail, transparency "uber alles", some agressive attacks, shortened decays and those SS harmonics which aren't very full and natural... the kind of attributes that lead some people to say that some piece of kit is not "musical". Nothing of all that has happened, if anything, attacks are in the punchy side of things, but probably just when the playing is that way. Of course I have to listen to really "audio evaluation suitable" music, and trying the rest of the cans, we'll see how it does with more resolving phones. As for now I'm quite pleased with the purchase so far, this amp shows some potential and intersting features. Thanks to all who have contributed to this purchase Not sure if my "final" amp yet, though an interesting one to own and evaluate. Rgrds

I see...

^ Does she blow some instrument properly or is she just cutie?

Well, the seller took his time to sort out everything, but we've finally closed a deal and I've just ordered payment for that Gilmore Reference Balanced. Hopefully I'll have it here by next Wednesday or Thursday. We'll see how I like it

I own a modified Bidat, a friend of mine owns another one which has external PS transformer, and I had the chance to listen to the modified Melior in my system. They're different DACs, I mean all three, but the Bidats are different animals than the Melior. For some time Bidats were produced using a switching PS too, but they stopped that and got back to the normal PS. It's very possible that Deepak liked the Melior, it's really engaging. It has that kind of "bitstream" sound that also some old Marantz players and Discmans have, but with a bit more of resolution. Regarding the top loaders, I wouldn't dismiss the CEC transports either. The old Sony CDP-X7xx-ES series were very good ones, I still keep a 707 "just in case" Rgrds

Do you mean a Museatex Melior? Nice sounding DACs. Maybe Meitner was more into good sound than into making money those days

LOL BTW those Neutriks look about the same. Any internal difference? Rgrds

Have you tried to get into the chatroom? I can't access for the lack of the plugin. I've been using it today and still has an erratic behaviour. Sometimes it displays pages very fast, like no other, and other times... well feels like frozen. I like some of the features like the spell checker -but being this a Spanish version marks everything wrong while wrting in English- and the ease for copying pics' links. I suppose that when they fix it, add all the plugins and some final version is released, it can be one of the best browsers.

^ My comment was for the passive EQ device, not for their speakers. A single driver has physical limitations which prevent it to deliver low frequencies. Increasing them by EQing is IMHO a no-no situation which most likely will cause the driver to severely distort and screw up the rest of its performance. Rgrds

I wouldn't be much concerned about the frequency issue unless you were to drive a turntable. Most modern electronic devices can work perfectly at 60 or 50Hz without a single problem. Otherwise the thousands of americans travelling to Europe would have fried a lot of laptops and many other electronics, and europeans travelling to USA had done the very same Make sure that Korea has 220V and not 230 or 240, that could cause a higher voltage delivered to the device when a surge happens. In fact getting there a decent surge protector wouldn't be a bad idea. Regarding trannies... not sure what to advice, it largely depends on how many devices he's planning to take and the power consumption they'd add altogether. Rgrds

That sounds to me like but considering I haven't tried it, who knows... And yes, I think Boomana has the Cain&Cain listed on her system.

The Zu Druids along with some Audio Note models are quite sensitive for not being horn designs, but any of them would be way more expensive than your budget even used. I haven't any direct reliable reference of the sound of these but for a bit more of your budget they could be an interesting "experiment". Rgrds

JJ tubes were produced upon the factory that Tesla tubes once were made, and had a very good quality, for built and for sound quality, but as long as their sales have been increasing, it's said they moved to a bigger facility. Maybe they outsourced production of some parts to China, who knows. The fact is that their quality has been going down with time. In the last two years I haven't had a E34L quartet that lasted for more than 1200 hours. Most of them fail for one of the pins losing connection to the inner wires, and can't be fixed by filling the pin with soldering. Once one of the tubes fails, you need to change all four in my amp for its fixed bias design. Maybe using other brand tubes for this experiment yields different results. In my experience, cryoing JJ E34L is not a good idea. The ones that the manufacturer sent for cryoing were some from an old batch, probably made in the late 90s or early 2000, and were compared to tubes of that same batch. It hadn't been smart comparing "better made" tubes cryoed to some of recent production ones, which we knew had lower quality.