tkam

I would stick with the v-caps the Audio Notes are terribly expensive and probably not any better.

Transformer Volume Control's are pretty much the best volume controls you can use, but they aren't practical in some applications just because of how big they are.

I tend to prefer the pcm1704 but out of the current delta-sigma dacs i like the AKM4396 the best followed by the pcm1792/4/6

Too bad those chips are the most overrated dac chips in history.

I'm pretty happy with The Dragon driving the K1000 but I think you can get a great sounding K1000 rig for a relatively small investment. Something like a used Pass Labs Aleph3 or Prima Luna Prologue One can be had for about $1k and will sound damn nice.

Yeah the emm labs and zanden is still a crap load of money, more money then I'd ever throw at headphones.

I like the new classic, metal casing and 160gigs is not a bad deal for $350. The nano is kinda nice I guess but I'm not interested in that little storage space. The touch is an utter joke.

Actually at the end of their production pretty much everyone including TTVJ had them going for $900-$1000. It was a few years before that he had them on sale for around $400. Man I wish I had bought 10 or 20 pairs back then.

Congrats Dan I hope it sounds great

Check out his "In Search of Sunrise" series and his new one Elements of Life.

He only put fans in the very early ones w/ the older toaster style chassis.

HP Photosmart C6180 Hitachi Travelstar 7K200

Well really what would they say? It's not like they'd admit to the lower standards or the fact that they haven't cleaned their molds in about 3 decades.

Hell at this price I'm tempted to get one for pre-amp duties mainly. It also happens to be the best solid state headphone amp I've ever heard.

Get both

Thats a hell of a deal.

Just wait till you get the 6bl7 or 6bx7's for outputs

I think he has 4 or 5 now

I really liked the old Paradigm Active speakers.

Depends on the sound your looking for, the bx7's are a more neutral sounding tube.

Here's the intial thread I started regarding the amp: http://www.head-case.org/index.php/topic,1144.0.html I hadn't come up with The Dragon name by that point.

It's a pretty long story into how the amp came about so I'll give the short version. I wanted a top-flight headphone/pre-amp that would also have the ability to drive speakers at some point in the future. So the original plan was to build an amp geared toward using the 6528's as they are very netural sounding tubes and would have plenty of power to drive efficient speakers. The final design ended with an amp that has two gain stages the 1st stage is a single tube and the 2nd stage is two tubes. The 2nd stage can be turned on and off and is really only useful w/ the k1000 and speakers. I still do need to get binding posts added at some point.

Yeah I really like the SP amps with the higher output tubes, mine especially of course . I really do need to get some binding posts put on my amp one of these days. FYI at the meet my amp was running 1x 7062 -> 2x 6bx7 -> 2x - Bendix 7802 (w/ the 2nd gain stage the bx7's disabled). Speaking of Bendix 6080's one of Earl's died during the meet

I've tried the K81DJ and found them to be pretty uncomfortable for my ears. The Senn hd280 I should probably add to my list it's been a very long time since I've heard those. They would probably isolate better than my other possibilities.

It's more than a "might be" . The Raptor has a higher output impedance than the impedance of the L3000 there is no way it is driving them even close to their full potential.