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And Billy, not that I particularly care what people on the internet think of me, but do you honestly think anyone is going to think less of me of me for calling a spade a spade?

Before the MPX3 review was even posted I was talking with someone independant of the situation but who has some contacts within the industry, he told me that Ray and Tuberoller had contacted Srajan badmouthing he and his amps. After the review was posted and the blow up on Head-Fi as you noted Srajan posted a note in the Letters column of 6Moons, here's a line from that note "Having first rejected these claims as attempts by a competitor to discredit SinglePower..." Given that to my knowledege no other competitor was out to discredit Singlepower and the independant information about Ray and Tuberoller contacting Srajan I was provided with before the review was even posted it seems pretty safe to assume the competitor Srajan is refering to is actually Ray. You like to make yourself seem like such an innocent in all this when it's you who stirred the pot in the first place. It was you who initially posted a bunch of BS on Audio Circles that started a big war of words which proceeded the amp wars on Head-Fi which by the way made you like a complete fool because you were posting BS about amps you hadn't even heard. I would have thought you would have learned something from that but no you then went on to post the internal pics on Head-Fi which sparked the "amp wars". You've done nothing but try to manipulate the situation to your and Rays favor and to make people like Earl and Mikhail look bad so excuse me if I have a hard time believing you aren't a shill and that you've really meant no harm. No, you're not innocent in all this you're just a tool, a tool in every sense of the word. Now ain't that just the pot calling the kettle black. Sorry if the truth hurts.

I was growing my hair long in 1992 I think it was. It ended up not growing out well because it had been thinned so there was some long some quite short so I decided to shave it off and start over on growing it out. It's been pretty much shaved ever since, anytime I try to grow it out it gets to a certain length (about an inch) and it drives me absolutely insane so I shave it off again.

If Ray never thought to compete with Mikhail then why has he so adamantly tried to put him out of business? Why did he go to Srajan of 6Moons badmouthing Mikhail and his designs? I've heard numerous stories from various members about Ray's tirades about Mikhail. If Ray isn't trying to compete with Mikahail then why does he seem to care so much about him and his company? Billy, I just have to say, you have got to be the biggest numbnut to ever hit the headphone forums. Seriously, do you think anyone who was around during the "amp wars" believes any of your bullshit? You yourself were instrumental in stoking the fire and starting much of the shit and in addition to Tuberoller and Ray I lay much of the blame for the state of affairs at your feet.

I wonder if there will be any comparisons of the DAC-ah with the Storm Digital D02? The D02 has a similar design, 8 TDA1543's in parallel but seemingly uses higher quality parts, has a passive I/V (no opamps simply a resistor much like the mods that are done to the DAC-ah to bypass it's opamp stage) chassis is absolutely to die for and it uses battery or AC power. All this for approx. $412 + shipping (weighs in at 11kg so shipping from China to the US is going to run upwards of $100).

http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showpost.php?p=2074072&postcount=31

No I don't use Headroom amps but that's not to say I wouldn't try or use them so I don't think whether I use or don't use them at this point in time has all that has much bearing on it.

It doesn't mean they shouldn't either. I'd rather see a small class D power amp like Dusty Chalk suggested moreso than most of the things you list. I'm not saying Headroom should do one I'm just saying from a personal perspective it's something I'd be more interested in than your suggestions.

Christ almighty, stop being such a baby. One comment about some rather large text on the face plate and a question regarding the reasons behind the amp being balanced when it seemingly goes against the grain of the designers philosophies and your whining about freedom to post? What do you want everyone to jump on your bandwagon with you just because you post a couple of pics?

Don't give me that eye roll sov, you quoted my original comment about the text and then went off about how you'd heard all the Rudi amps etc... Obviously you were addressing someone else which is what I was pointing out. If you don't want to hear comments about the looks of your precious amps then maybe you shouldn't post the pics in the first place.

What does that have to do with the big cheesy looking RP1000 text on the front?

Looks nice enough with the exception of the big RP1000 text, I really dislike that, it makes it look cheesy IMHO.

Same here!

I think if you were to do child forums it would be necessary for the manufacturer to request it themselves and maybe that they have a certain level of participation in forums before they're allowed a child forum. I got the impression iPod Studio just creates a forum for manufacturers if they become members.

Sounds much like how Audio Circles is setup. If the manufacturer asks for a forum I would think they would be inclined to participate.

I think this offers a reasonable solution. The worst case would be to not allow manufacturers to post about their products at all, much like that other forum. IMO that only encourages the "shilling" and personally I'd rather have the manufacturer post and know who is actually posting than any sort of covert promotion.

I owned a Planet 2K awhile back, it was an ok source that wass fairly listenable but did have it's issues. The 2K is also top loading which due to some serious space considerations wouldn't be feasible for me. My budget for a straight DAC is in the $500 range but for an all-in-one source/headamp solution like the Lavry would be more along the lines of $1100.

Sick? Yeah, we believe you.

Alright, so I'm still debating my next source upgrade, I had pretty much decided on a Storm Digital D02 (or baby D02 depending on whether I feel my shelf can handle the over 20 lbs of the regular D02) to be paired up with my Headamp GS-1 but in the past couple of days I've been reading more about people using the balanced outputs of the Lavry DA10 and I've also been reading more about the benefits of recabled, balanced headphones which has brought the DA10 back into consideration. I expect the D02 + GS-1 combo would give me a similar but improved sound over what I have now and because of the GS-1's versatility it would give me a very flexible system that can easily be used in my speaker system and give me some flexibility in that system as well. The Lavry on the other hand seems like a nifty all-in-one solution that I expect will sound even better when considering usage with balanced RS-1's but there are a couple problems I see with going this route. First is quite a bit less flexibility because I would have to sell the GS-1 in order to afford the DA10. The DA10 can still be used as a preamp but if I use the balanced outputs for my headphones then I would have to look into some sort of switchbox idea if I wanted to use the DAC in my speaker system as well. The other problem I see, and maybe it's not really a problem, is it seems almost like an end of the road solution. By recabling the RS-1's I'm pretty much locked into balanced operation but considering most of my audio money would be sunk into that one piece of gear and my wife and I are on a very tight budget it's unlikely I would be able to save up enough for a seperate balanced amp anytime soon. This is where the D02 + GS-1 solution is again more flexible, I can change things up fairly simply by swapping things like cables and component upgrades themselves would be easier because I can sell the old component to help finance the new one whereas if I wanted to add on a seperate balanced amp to the Lavry I would have to start saving from scratch which would be a very daunting task for me to do at this point but then the Lavry on it's own does seem to offer a fairly reasonably priced (considering what other balanced systems seem to go for) way of getting into the balanced headphones game. If I knew how much better the Lavry would sound, especially running balanced, it might make the decision easier but I don't so I'm left weighing pro's and con's on paper and asking advice from more experienced users. So have at it, any thoughts, advise, recommendations, etc. are appreciated.

Doesn't Grand Enigma make balanced Sennheiser replacement cables?

One thing I don't understand is people always want to charge when using Paypal but as far as I know it's only applicable on credit card transactions, if the money is coming straight out of your Paypal account or from your bank account there's no charge.

Ooops I misread what you wrote, you said looks like a series finally, I read it as season finale, I thought you meant there were more episodes slotted for this season. Sorry, I'm a dumbass.

It wasn't the season finale? Why would they have an hour and a half episode with a cliff hanger like that if it wasn't the finale?

I didn't own Ety's but I auditioned a pair in home. I liked them but did feel they lacked a bit in the bass and had just borderline treble for me. The Shure E4's I own now have a bit fuller, richer sound, a more laid back treble (in the good way) and better bass that improves even more with a litte boost on my Rio Carbon.

Just saw this thread and thought I should elaborate on some things. The MiniMax is a very good CD player with a competent headphone amplifier that I think has a nice synergistic relationship with the tube output stage. On an absolute basis, from memory, I think the regular PPX3-6CG7 is the better amp but the internal amp on the MiniMax is no slouch and overall the MiniMax on it's own worked better for my tastes than using it with the PPX3. My estimation has always been that the internal amp should compete well with amps in the under $500 category, if one were to prefer something else from that category it would likley be more personal preference than it being outright superior. I actually would not characterize the MiniMax as particularly tubey sounding, with certain tubes it could have more aspects of that stereotypical tube sound but on a whole it just had a nice touch of warmth and dimension but combined with speed and overall PRaT that I'm yet to match and actually quite miss. It also had a way with making guitars sound awesome, just enough bite and warmth to them that made for an awesome pairing with the RS-1's. Where the MiniMax fell a bit short was was in an aspect I started to notice after I spent more time with it, some instruments and some vocals in particular sounded small, they still had plenty of body but they just seemed to come across as small, it's really hard to describe. I never really intended on selling the MiniMax but last summer I got on portable kick and was thinking of selling some stuff off to gear things more towards a high-end portable setup. To that end I picked up the Dialogue II to audition because I had been curious about the NOS sound and it was dirt cheap. Paired with the RA-1 I borrowed from a friend it made for a fun pairing that had a fuller, richer more immediate sound but wasn't without faults, it had a graininess and bass was a bight bloated as well as lacking some definition and extension. I eventually veered away from the portable idea but the Dialogue II + RA-1 combo got me thinking, I had auditioned a GS-1 with the MiniMax and absolutely loved the amp then and I figured it would probably solve quite a few of the problems I was having with the RA-1. For the most part I was correct, the GS-1 cleaned up the treble, opened things up quite a bit and gave better definition to the bass but it didn't completely solve all the issues. Although I didn't feel this combo beat the MiniMax in every aspect I thought they were in the same league just a different set of compromises but I felt the Dialogue II + GS-1 gave me a more flexible solution that I could work with to build a better system. To that end I'm looking at a better DAC and hopefully a better transport solution in the near future. Another thing to consider, I got in on special pricing for the MiniMax so I got it for even a bit cheaper than it's old $900 selling price which was a great deal at the time but over a year has passed, new products have been released and the selling price of the MiniMax is now $1099 new, $200 more than the old price. $200 might not seem like a lot but combined with some other products now on the market I now can't say the MiniMax is quite the incredible deal it once was. At the very least there are definately more options out there to consider, something like the Eastsound E5 might be a better overall CD player which would still leave approx. $400 for an amp or as a more simple almost all-in-one solution, the Lavry DA10 using either a computer or DVD player as a transport. There are also other DAC's like the Dialogue II DAC, Storm Digital D02, CI Audio VDA2, etc that could be paired with good amp for a similar $1100 budget that would easily compete with or beat out the MiniMax as an all-in-one.