dsavitsk

Happy Birthday!

Some of the older big Thiels can be had for amazingly cheap. I really have never liked them, though. They just don't sound good to my ear. However, I did buy some Harbeth SHL5's. They were a bit out of my initial budget, especially considering the overpriced stands they needed, but I like them very much. Not only do they look the part, but they sound great from everywhere in the room. I am powering them with an Adcom power amp I picked up off of eBay for about $120, and the sound is pretty spectacular. I had been planning to build super fancy power amps for them, but I am not sure I can see the point now.

I believe it is a commentary on Ryan's experience of trying numerous tube amps, and eventually ending up with a particular solid state amp that has a tube-like presentation, but that bypasses the issues that seem to follow tubes.

Every 6080 or similar tube I have played with has been noisy in some way. But the number of tubes I tried is low, and it was quite a few years ago. Others have had better luck.

Good luck to both of you.

Probably rules out the 6080, etc. May rule out the 26, too, which is notoriously hummy and microphonic. Look at the 12B4A.

That's awful and terrifying Larry! I hope you and your daughter get better asap.

We have cable. The only real reason we have cable is that I like to watch tennis. ESPN now has most of it, and the rest is on Tennis Channel. In order to get TC, one has to have essentially all the channels, so we do. It costs too much. A back of the envelope calculation suggests that cutting cable will pay for several days of good seats at the US Open this summer, or possibly a (slim) majority of a trip to Wimbledon, either of which sounds way better than TV. And between the Roku and an antenna, cable seems otherwise a waste, although I do like Brad Gilbert. I guess we'll have to go to the neighbors to watch Game of Thrones. That seems OK -- we like the neighbors. I think we are under contract for another month or two, so I guess I watch the Australian Open. Then it's gone. I am excited at the prospect.

It is less the length, and more the function, though I suppose function is a function of the length. In an interconnect, silver has a slightly lower impedance than copper. But neither putting a (tiny) resistor in line with the silver to make it like the copper, nor doubling up the copper to make it like silver, seems to have a measurable or DBT perceivable effect on sound. In a transformer, the silver wire's better conductivity increases the flux which could possibly make the transformer work better. I have neither heard nor measured a silver wired transformer, so I can't say whether the difference is audible or worthwhile. And based on the price, I can't say I am in a hurry to do so. But you can certainly do the calculations for an electric motor wound with silver wire over copper to see the increase in efficiency.

I just wanted to clarify. While there is much science behind transformer design, there is of course plenty of nonsense too. The best manufacturers do a pretty good job of steering clear of too much nonsense.

In this particular case, I am using amorphous cobalt input transformers, mu metal gain transformers, and amorphous steel outputs.

I know the audio world is full of nonsense, but this is not one of those places. Above is a basic comparison of various cores. This is a comparison of the same Cinemag transformers, one with hi nickel core, the other with pinstriped nickel and M6 steel. What you should notice is that for both, at low signal levels, the nickel has considerably lower distortion. However, as the signal level increases and the core reaches saturation, the steel becomes better. This is why nickel generally makes less sense in a single ended transformer where the DC leads to early saturation -- basically, by the time the core is large enough to accommodate the DC, it is so big that its permeability is reduced to the level of steel. But in an application with little to no DC, the better core can be utilized. Much more is available in Chapter 11 of The Handbook for Sound Engineers, Third Edition by Bill Whitlock. Available from http://www.jensen-transformers.com/application-notes/

Not sure the spirit of that question. Different core material has different permeability and easily measurable and audible differences.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/lifecycle

Indeed. May you rest in pea ..., er, I hope you feel better.

I think I wish I had never tried it as there is no going back now. Amazing stuff. Piercingly clear and liquid.

Happy Birthday, Todd!

I use one of these However, I opened up the bottom and filled it with a tar like substance to give it heft and to make it more solid. I also removed the feet and coated the whole bottom in a piece of adhesive rubber so that it had support everywhere rather than just edge nubs. I can't stand moving my hand off the keyboard to find the mouse, or using touch pads. Sorry, Al.

I recently did some comparisons of PS caps on the output of a regulator in a differential tube amp. Just by ear, I thought the DC links (not sure which brand I used) worked about as well as the ASC motor runs, some Mundorf M-Tube caps, and a bunch of other expensive film caps. They were better than electrolytics, but decidedly worse than the Multicap RTX which were by far the best option I tried.

I don't think "great at its price point" means sounds the same, or sounds like a flagship. It means they have certain goals and a certain budget, and within those parameters, they make the best thing they can that will appeal to the targeted market. That is to say, they are not purposefully hamstringing designs.

I assume they want every headphone to be great at its price point.

I was at this show. I can't believe how long ago this was:

http://www.pickettfurniture.com/col_fur_orkan.html