postjack

Right on, I'll take that advice for future reference. However, the POP did occur while no music is playing, in the first few seconds of the amp heating up. Regardless, the RS-1s are headed to Brooklyn tomorrow. I'll tell them to say word to Biggie for us. "Who shot ya? Mob ties like Sinatra Peruvians tried to do me in, I ain't paid them yet"

Damn, already got a reply from Grado Labs. Who is holding down the fort there at 10:30pm CST on a Monday? In short, they said I definitely blew a driver. Repairs are a $100. Not bad. I didn't want that Genesis SACD box set anyway.

Great point. Then I wouldn't have to worry about headphones anymore, because I wouldn't be able to hear shit. I actually never have headphones on when I power up the amp, because there are unpleasant noises as the amp heats up. Now that I think about it, the one time I did have them on, there was an unpleasant, but low volume popping coming from both L and R cans, which is why I don't wear them anymore. I just wrote Grado Labs an email, we'll see what they have to say. If repair is too pricey, I'm just going to have to sit patiently and wait for another used deal to come up and roll the dice, because I sure as shit don't want to pay $700 for a new pair. Or maybe I'll buy something further down the line like the MS2i, but I'm afraid I'll just end up disappointed and wanting the RS-1s again. I'm using the HD600s now, and they are fine, but seriously dullish sounding coming from solid Grado listening for the past couple of months (I think its been 2 months). At least now I have no excuse not to dig in and really listen to that stack of Living Stereo SACDs growing on my CD rack.

Thanks all for the condolences, I'll get in touch with Grado Labs and see what they can do to help me. And yes, I rolled in all three tubes at once. Regardless, when I'm tube rolling, I usually leave the amp off for some time, maybe half an hour, until the tubes are dead cold, before I roll them out. Okay, so I guess this is just bad luck on my part. I'm all twitchy now though. Listening to the HD650s now and everything sounds fantastic, so I don't think anything is wrong with the amp. Thats a plus. Fuck though, you know. Shit.

Shit. I'd been listening to my RS-1s for a couple of hours. These are the darker wood used ones I bought from Larry at Headphile a couple of months back. I stopped the music and turned off the amp to roll out the tung sol's and RCA grey glass 6sn7, and roll in the sylvania gold pin 5687s and a Ken Rad vt-231 6sn7. All the tubes are firmly in place, and I crank up the amp. A few seconds later, I hear an alarming POP noise come from the general vicinity of my headphones and amp. Just a singular, loud, POP. The RS-1s are now only producing sound from the right cup. I plugged in the HD650 and everything is fine. I even rolled out the tubes in desperation, to no avail. FUCK. Okay, first off, can anyone make an educated guess as to what the hell happened, so I can avoid doing it in the future? I always have a pair of headphones plugged into the amp, even when its off, so they are always plugged in when I turn the amp on. What did I do wrong? Second, I don't suppose there is anything I can do about getting these fixed? I'm certainly not covered under any kind of warranty, who knows how many owners had these before me. Does Grado Labs do paid repairs, or should I just hunt for a new pair? FUCK FUCK FUCK :'(

Anyone have any feelings they'd like to share about this conflict? http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=233352 Basically Headphonia completely ripped off Dr. Meier's design for the Porta Corda III. I don't get any joy out of portable amplification but it was an interesting thread to read through.

Yes, I'm pretty excited about this. So long as it is up to par with recent MFSL releases it should be outstanding.

Not necessarily, you just need the right tool. Get in touch with these guys, they can help you out:

Does anyone know if there are plans to release Year Zero on vinyl?

Dr. Arthur Wells posted about twice before the mob ripped his ass up. He hasn't been back I don't think.

I hope it comes out on DVD, so I can put it on my HT and CRANK THAT SHIT UP G. MY SHIT GET LUOD YALL

Wait, there's going to be a movie? I just watched seasons 1 and 2 this past Fall so I doubt I'll rewatch them.

Yes, handling it is like walking on eggshells. I couldn't imagine not having the small handle to maneuver it with. I just have to be real careful that I don't lower the arm with the stylus too close to the edge of a record. As for the sound, I'm quite pleased. I was complaining in another thread that I felt the overall setup sounded too bright, but I started vomiting shortly thereafter, and I realized I had food poisoning. Also I had just quit smoking a few days ago. So the fever and nicotine fits made everything sound bright. Now I'm a couple of weeks away from my last cigarette, and I switched out the tube in the Bellari phono stage with an Ei 12ax7e gold pin. Finally the cart is beginning to sound similar to how I've read elsewhere: smooth n' lovely midrange, with extremely realistic sounding vocals. Contrary to being bright, the music is actually missing a bit of sparkle in the highs, but detail here is fine, so this is acceptable to my ears. The bass is typically nice and big, but can be a bit bloaty in spots, but not to the point where it overwhelms anything else. Instrument separation and sound stage is wonderful. My gripes are minor. I wanted an analog rig that could at least hold its own sitting on the same table as the 999es, and the Technics has proven itself worthy. A well mastered SACD on the 999es could still beat the pants off of it anyday, though. But it is a LOT easier to get good sounding cheap records then good sounding cheap SACDs.

Just some pics of the nude stylus I thought were cool. You can see the dust on it, I need to get a record cleaning machine.

Yes, just an a/b switchbox basically.

Thats not an entirely bad price. I'd consider DIY but I haven't touched a soldering iron since I built a beige box in 6th grade. Or I could just wait until a buy a new amp and get one with multiple inputs. Its just that I'm happy with the ppx3 slam right now, and I have lots of great tubes for it.

My amp only has one set of inputs, and I'm getting really tired of pulling RCA's everytime I want to go from TT to CDP. Is there some kind of switch box I can buy I can put between my amp and my sources that will add convenience without sacrificing sound quality? It doesn't have to be pretty, just functional.

Just from pictures, I think the "new wave" of Meier amps look great. I liked the brutish old black designs as well though.

That was a great review. I would love to hear one of these. It certainly is an attractive piece.

Having spent a bit of time with my TT now, I can relate to what you are talking about when you say drum impact and instrument weight. When listening to certain clean records I have, I get this weird feeling like the music has infinite space and could go anywhere, not trapped in the upper frequencies of a 16bit CD. Having said that, my biggest complaint about the 1200Mk2 + Vp129 combo is that it can be too bright and fatiguing, which is actually the opposite of how I thought it would be. I'm not sure if this is more attributable to the TT itself or the MM cart, which I've heard are, in general, "jumpier" then MC carts (meaning the sound jumps out at you more, more of a rock cart to over generalize). Or maybe I'm just startled coming from the deep warmth and smoothness of the 999es. However, the TT is extremely sensitive to tube rolling in my PPX3, so a trio of Sylvanias helps tone that down enough to make the experience quite enjoyable. I am hoping that swapping the cheapo tube in the phono stage will help as well. I've gotten in a new production Ei 12ax7, but I need an allen wrench to get to the tube in the Bellari. \ I'm grateful that I did go for an integrated cart, because not having to worry about cart alignment etc. is one less thing to worry about. Its insane the amount of shit that can greatly affect the way a record sounds. Probably the biggest single change in the sound of the TT was when I changed the tonearm height from 1 to 0.5. I had no idea that could smooth out the sound so much and, again, take the edge off the brightness. Then I finally bought myself a small level and adjusted the legs of the TT to make sure it was all level. Again, improved the sound. Also, apparently my whole house is leaning towards the northwest. Its only been a week, but getting a turntable setup is a lot of work.

panda, thats a good point about the 5th cylon, for some reason my mind didn't even think of that. All I know is there are a whole lot of holes that need to be filled in the next season. And yes, we must have more space fights.

actually phish and widespread panic wrote it, i tink. it was about desert storm in the early 90s.

I thought they were all panicking pretty bad when they found out, more of an "oh shit" then a "meh".

My bad. And your point is valid. Too many people knew Tigh during the first cylon war for him to be a true post-war skinjob. So maybe some kind of doppelganger thing? But maybe complete memory recreation is too far fetched. Or maybe they are not really cylons at all, but maybe had something done to them by the cylons, maybe during the occupation on New Caprica. Anders was held on Old Caprica, and Tigh was held on New Caprica, but I can't recall of a time when Chief or the sexy President's assistant were in cylon custody. I remember way back when Chief thought he was a cylon, when he had that nightmare and beat the shit out of Kylie (his future wife, I'm bad with names, obviously). Then he spent some time with Quantum Leap cylon who was a priest or shrink at the time, which was weird. Lot of maybes, and plenty of time to think about it until next season.

Season finale was last night. I thought it was great, the last 10 minutes were a total mindfuck, oriental pop version of AATWT and all. *********** SPOILERS DUSTY CHALK OMG DON'T LOOK*********** The trial was fucking awesome. I'll be honest, after Apollo's speech, I was convinced Baltar would be acquitted, and that he should be. Not to mention this provides more interesting plot possibilities. Starbuck coming back at the end was cool, kind of cheesy-lame, the whole "I've been to earth" thing, but still, pretty righteous. The best part of the whole episode is that we finally see 4 more faces of the Cylons, which leaves only 2 faces unrevealed. It was chilling when Tigh went back to ops and said, "You can count on me." I can't fucking believe Tigh is a cylon. Something else I considered was that if Chief is a cylon, then his baby is another half cylon half human, a la Hannah. ******* OMFG SPOILERS DUSTY CHALK READING BACKWARDS DO NOT LOOK OMG **********