My contribution to the madness...just finished yesterday:

Take one of these:

Put one of these on it:

Build this:

and this:

plug them in and....

viola!

Eventually I'll get the two ground channel boards for the single-ended capabilities, but for now it's balanced heaven.

Rawr, nice.

drool

Can I come over this weekend? I'll bring the W3000's...

I'll be in tampa this weekend...besides, I don't know if I want to know how they sound with this amp...ignorance and all that But soon my friend.

Oh, yeah, I knew that.

Yeah that's fine whenever...maybe the following weekend or something...

how much do those suckers go for?

By the way, thrice, do you have your own drill press for casework?

Haha, I'm trying to figure out just how I'm going to do my casework when I currently have no tools. I will probably have to resort to Front Panel Express or try to find a contact who has access to a drill press.

Nice! So how does the D5000 sound balanced out of it?

By the way, thrice, do you have your own drill press for casework?

Haha, I'm trying to figure out just how I'm going to do my casework when I currently have no tools. I will probably have to resort to Front Panel Express or try to find a contact who has access to a drill press.

If I tell you I do it all with a hand drill will you worship me Just kidding. But I do it all with a hand drill, I don't have a drill press. I use a unibit and a panel punch for the holes for the XLR jacks.

Nice work Stephen, can't wait to see what it looks like when it's all done!

Nice! So how does the D5000 sound balanced out of it?

Pretty darn good. There is still a little headstage funkiness going on...it's hard to describe. It's not a three blob affect, but it kinda is too. I need more time with them to form any serious impressions

My balanced Beta22 is mostly done, but I just need to finish my stepped attenuators for it (waiting on resistors). I'm balancing the D2000

-edit- I was thinking of using two Sigma22 boards, but only ended up with one. Still sounds great, though.

I went with two sigma ps because it will eventually be a 6-channel thing. You really only need one for 4 boards. That's a nice little PS the sigma....

The amp is dead quiet.....dead quiet. The gain is 2 (balanced 4) and when I crank up the attenuators...nothing but silence.

Hand drill, eh? Nice.

BTW, I really like the symmetry and that 4-pin XLR jack. I've never liked dual 3-pin XLR's for balanced headphone applications - too heavy and cumbersome.

EDTI - Orange LEDs are nice, too.

Pretty darn good. There is still a little headstage funkiness going on...it's hard to describe. It's not a three blob affect, but it kinda is too. I need more time with them to form any serious impressions

So you have the D5000 balanced! Finally, someone who's heard that. Not to sidetrack from your new amp, but I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts on the D5000 balanced. Did you do the job yourself? Was it a retermination or a full recable? I'm assuming you feel like it was worth the time and expense despite the "headstage funkiness"??

The amp is dead quiet.....dead quiet. The gain is 2 (balanced 4) and when I crank up the attenuators...nothing but silence.

As you've probably seen over in the build thread at headwize, mine isn't at the moment. Well, the amp itself is pretty damn quiet, but I get some noise from my source right now. I think I'm going to change the gain on mine to 2 like yours...should still be enough for balanced HD650s if I decide to try it.

So you have the D5000 balanced! Finally, someone who's heard that. Not to sidetrack from your new amp, but I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts on the D5000 balanced. Did you do the job yourself? Was it a retermination or a full recable? I'm assuming you feel like it was worth the time and expense despite the "headstage funkiness"??

It was a retermination....the cable is a four wire job straight to the plug. So i cut off the plug about 4 inchs back and reterminated it with a 4-pin xlr. I might do a full recable later, but it's always a pain....I wish headphone manufactureres could get together and decide on one standard for these things.

Well I'm still bringing them in but balanced they sound great.

How's the channel balance between the two steppers?

How's the channel balance between the two steppers?

Just fine

I'm also using the balanced Beta22 but I prefer the dual 3-pin XLR connectors because it is the Headroom standard:

At meets all the other balanced amps will be dual 3-pin, so for me it is more logical. BTW I really HATE the stock shoelace cable, so I made a new cable and installed it. Only took about 10 minutes and $20.

I like the black of the AH-D2000, thanks for posting those pics.

It was a retermination....the cable is a four wire job straight to the plug. So i cut off the plug about 4 inchs back and reterminated it with a 4-pin xlr. I might do a full recable later, but it's always a pain....I wish headphone manufactureres could get together and decide on one standard for these things.

Well I'm still bringing them in but balanced they sound great.

Thanks for that information. I'll probably do a reterm as well. Less risk and while the stock cable isn't so flexible, I can deal with it. Beats taking the risk of digging into the cans themselves. If something can go wrong, it certainly will with my pair.

Would you say the D5000 responds to balancing as well as the 650 or as much as the 701?

Not sure yet if it's better or significant ly better than SE. I really haven't had a lot of time with it this week....mostly burn in time and amp tweaking time. I'll know more in a few weeks.