hirsch

The prices of tubes on Audiogon are normally inflated, and a poor guide to value. Some of those guys make the dealers look positively cheap. 6DJ8's can go high, but rarely do. The 6DJ8 is rated at about 2,000 hours, so they are not long-life tubes. The Bugle Boys appear real. Seller has been around a while with good feedback. The 7308's appear real, but IMO it's not all that great a tube. The white label 6922 PQ is a much better sound, IMO. jpak, what's the source of your skepticism?

If you can't find Sennheiser at a discount, you're not trying.

The size issue was probably less of an issue in the demise of the Qualia 010 than its fragility. There is no support in the band beside the earpieces, which is the area of maximum torque if an earpiece has any force exerted on it. I managed to break two of them, and I'm not particularly vicious with my headphones. The service costs (and Sony waffled on servicing, but finally did it), probably ended the headphone. If it had undergone some serious beta testing among real headphone users prior to release, I suspect it could have survived in different form. It would not have been as light, but would have had some durability.

I bought my Ariston RD11s used in 1983. It needed a new motor, which Ariston sent for free, even though I was not the original owner. The table has worked perfectly ever since (I still own it). Although parts for the Ariston may be scarce, the link with Linn is important. I needed to respring the Ariston suspension a few years ago, and found out that the same spring is still used in the suspension of the Linn LP-12. A set of three set me back $6.00, including shipping. It would not shock me to find that Ariston and Linn tables have other parts in common.

I still have a Headphile-modded CD3000. At one point, I was tempted to sell it, but plugged it into my PPX-3. Damn. I wound up selling my L3000 instead. The CD3000 can be a PRAT monster if you've got the right amp. I modded an X-Can v2 years ago. With stock CD3000, that particular amp/headphone combo got the feet moving. I miss it still. The Headphile mods do make the stock headphone sound a bit muddy in comparison. IMO the SA series sounds like junk in comparison to the CD3000. OTOH, I bet Sony has a better profit margin on them.

Realistically, the EAR Yoshino HP4 is considered a high-end amplifier by some, including me, and it remains commercially available. The transformers are proprietary Tim De Paravicini designs.

I've been running the same pair of Telefunken PCC88's (7DJ8) forever (or at least 3-4 years) in the SHA-1. I did a bunch of tube-rolling at one point, but those are the ones I stayed with. At the time, fewer people knew that the PCC88 would work in an ECC88 (6DJ8) circuit, and they could be obtained for a song. No longer true unless you get lucky, alas.

There's funny and then there's funny. http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=242053 I'm considering an offer in the $200 range

Nate, what's the part # for that transformer? That looks like something I should do to my own HA-2.

The manufacture is nowhere near as interesting as the beta testing.

The last load of tubes I had a hand in transporting took two 53 foot semi's filled top to bottom. It's a long story. This guy's only got 1000 cubic feet. Piece of cake. Probably fit into a big U-Haul.

ROFL! Actually, this is true. I sometimes can't even tell if an amp is on at the levels Dusty uses. I may have a spare Neutrik plug around.

I've got a solution? I knew that the problem was getting out of hand when I opened a small box and found several pairs of Tung Sol round plates I had completely forgotten about Still, it's kind of fun making discoveries like that.

Yep. Actually I've got at least a couple dozen of those I don't hear any major differences between the gray and clear glass RCA 6SN7GT's, though. Biggie, I've only got a small box of 12AU7's. The HAP-03 was a small amp

Just about all of them

I've got an unfortunate habit of buying roughly a 300 year supply of any tube I happen to be using Overkill, I think, but you never know. I attempted a categorization and storage system, but it's down to putting them wherever I can find room. I need to find a way to sell off the tubes I have no plans to ever use, but I keep putting it off... (anyone want to buy 200 or so tested 6SN7GTB's?)

They might not be sexy, but at least the used ones will be affordable...

The cable actually has less to do with it than the actual model of the HP-1000. The HP-1 rolls off the highs badly due to the polarity switches. There's clearly some resistance there, as the HP-1 (two in my rig) are less efficient than the HP-2. Once you get to the HP-2, the cable makes a difference, with the high-bandwidth cable opening the high end a bit and adds a bit of punch (matters more with HP-2, since HP-1 high end is already compromised). An interesting tube for the Melos is the Telefunken PCC88. 7 volt version of the ECC88 (6DJ8), but works perfectly well at 6v. Very nice sounding tube that used to sell for a fraction of Telefunken 6DJ8 pricing, although I fear that it has been "discovered".

Given that Sennheiser is out of the HE90 business, if the price is agreeable to buyer and seller, that's what it is. I'm glad that I got in on the Meier buy, as I suspect that if I went to sell, they'd go for more than I paid. I don't see the HE-650 as an "Orpheus Lite", or even the HE60 in that role. I'd give that honor to the Omega II. You get close to the Orpheus sound at a fraction of the price. I really like the McAllister EA-4, although I've only heard it a couple of times. The last KGSS I heard was brand new, and had Black Gates, so I'm not going to comment on it. I've really liked the burned in KGSS amps I've heard. The ES1 is the amp that really opens the HE90 up, though. I also liked the HE90 with a prototype Aristaeus, but only heard that once, and have not heard the final version.

I've paid as little as $350 for a pair of RS-1's, and have bought a total of four used ones over the years, never paying more than $400 (except for my balanced set, which is not among the four). So, $330 + HD-650 is way out of line, IMO. I loved the GS1000 at the National Meet, but it was inefficient. My modded EMP could not drive it. When I got a production unit, the EMP drove it well, but the sound simply wasn't there. Since there is an obvious increase in efficiency, I'm reasonably sure that the drivers in the ones at the National Meet were different than the production driver, and that the increase in efficiency came at too high a price sonically. I'd love to get my hands on one of the prototype GS1000's, but the current production version is something I can live without (and am in fact living without, although I've still got two RS-1's).

Nice avatar! Pelikan 800?

My views pretty much parallel TheSloth's. I actually have two 4G iPods, one of which has the iMod, so I can do comparisons when wanted. I definitely prefer the iMod when I'm running an amp, but the loss of the internal headphone amp is a pain for travel. Sometimes it's easier just to plug an IEM into the headphone out, which you lose with the iMod. I'm drooling over the idea of a 120G drive for the iPod. Maybe I can get by with just one if I can have enough space on it. A 500G iPod sounds about right for now, and would put a stop to the frantic "what can I get rid of" dilemmas I run into when making room for new music on an iPod...for a bit, anyway. At this very moment, I'm running the unmodded iPod into a Stax SRM-X Pro/Lambda Pro combo, and it sounds pretty good. Just for the heck of it, I'll switch to the iMod right now...sound is a bit smoother, low end has a bit more impact. The background noise level is lower. Subtle, but it's a better sound. Switching back, the unmodded iPod simply isn't as transparent as the modded one. I was about to reiterate that this was subtle, but just hit a passage I listened to on the iMod that simply isn't as convincing on the iPod. I really wish I hadn't done that.

This is not necessarily wrong. An op amp is a circuit. While it's commonly mounted on a chip, there's no reason that an op amp can't be built from discrete components. Note the early op amp at the beginning of this article: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~antoon/gadgets/741/741.html

Really? Sounds like fun. I should try DVD sometime. Ditched cable over fifteen years ago, and haven't missed it once. There are enough time sinks around here without it.

At the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, Sennheiser confirmed the existence of the HD-700. About all they would say is that it's a new headphone, and not another member of the HD-580, 600, 650 series. It may be another year or more before they bring it to market, though.