Leonardo Drummond

I use the Jamo R907s in the living room's system, and love them. They have a very easy going, natural and apparently uncolored tone compared to many boxed speakers I've heard and the bass hits real hard when you feed them enough juice.

Glad you're up and running, Tyll Extremely interesting to see Bob Katz' take on those headphones. I like the pro's take on some of the audiophile's stuff.

Wow! It looks really nice! May well be the best looking forum I know, in fact!

On Sunday I've watched the Brazilian Symphonic Orchestra playing Sibelius' 7th Symphony. It's something that puts things into perspective – as much as I think that what I get from high-end speakers or headphones is incredible, nothing begins to approach what it feels like to listen to one of your favorite pieces of music been played by a full orchestra on one of the front seats. It was an unbelievable experience and I don't think I've ever been moved by music like that before. And Roberto Minczuk, the conductor, was brilliant as always – I've seen him conducting Tchaikovsky's 6th (shame I wasn't as much into it then as I am now) and Sibelius 5th before, and what he did on Sunday was easily on par with Karajan's or Segerstam's performance of the 7th.

Thanks, bozebuttons! Looks like it could fit the bill very well!

Hahahaha indeed it is a question! That's something I forgot to mention actually – I'm really into simplicity and transparency, but judging by my experience with the GS-X there I guess some gain would be useful. I find myself using it at high gain more often than not, but I could settle for medium gain. So something from 3x to 9x would work. It's a largish room, and I listen at a very generous volume. I just found a local store that sells the Musical Fidelity M6 Pre and the Cambridge 351E at very reasonable prices; probably they got them before the dollar went through the roof. Does anyone have any experience with these?

Hey everyone, quick question for the speaker guys: I assembled my speaker system around a pair of KEF XQ40s and later on upgraded to the Jamo R907s, but never got round to upgrading the integrated amp (Marantz PM11-S2), which wasn't really up to the task. However, a few weeks ago I managed to snatch a pair of Bel Canto REF1000s monoblocks and couldn't believe how much of an upgrade it was. Turns out I had never really heard those speakers. My first idea was to use the Marantz as a pre-amp, but when I set-up the GS-X there I realized that the Marantz wasn't really up there as a pre either. So now I'm wondering about what options I should entertain at around $2K, maybe slightly more? My GS-X won't leave my bedroom system permanently, and I figured I'd sell the Marantz and use the money I get from it to get a better pre-amp. Another option would be to sell the DAC as well (ECD-1) and get a DAC with a built-in pre-amp. Any ideas?

Well, there's something I wasn't expecting.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/astellkern-unveils-ak380-flagship-high-resolution-portable-player/ How long do you guys think it'll take for an AK820 to reach the market at $57,000?

Hey everyone, I am in the process of developing a headphone for the Brazilian market, and thought I could use some help of the many knowledgeable people here, especially regarding the acoustics. Some background info on it: it's not going to be a high-end headphone, but one that has style, nicer choice of materials and decent sound quality, compatible with the $150-200 price that we hope to sell it for when it's done. I think something like an M50 but more stylish and with better materials would be a good analogy for what we're trying to achieve. I'm not sure it's possible, but that's our goal. The problem is that we're just a group of 4 people, with no engineers and in a country that has pretty much no industry dedicated to audio. So we have no choice but to use a readily available driver. We have found a few promising drivers in LunaShops, and some of those appear to be nice indeed. We made a wood thing that enabled us to test the drivers and liked the results, even though it was in an open configuration and our headphone will need to be closed or at least semi closed if that gives us a significantly better end result. However, when I put those drivers in an HD449's carcass, it sounded quite weird, with sucked out and dark mids. Putting a lot of cotton on the enclosure only made matters worse. What I wanted to know is whether you guys would have any tips of things that I could do to in terms of acoustically tweaking the enclosure in order to improve the driver's performance - or maybe even some ideas of other drivers I could consider. For example, both the HD449 and the Momentum have completely sealed drivers in a very small enclosure (much smaller than the cup itself), something that to me seems a bit unusual. Here are some images of what the cups look like as of now. The idea is that the drivers are going to be glued to the front of the cups. They're very early renderings and a few things will change, but still - any ideas? Thank you guys in advance! And sorry for the long post.

Among the many horror stories that we read about JH Audio, it's nice to have a good one every once in a while. My Roxys are some of the earlier units, so they came with the cable with the plastic nut that apparently breaks if you simply look at it. At one point they eventually did crack, so Corbyn pulled some strings and managed to send a new one to my sister who was in the US at the time, but leaving on the next day. However, a few days after I received it the connection started to break on the earloop, cutting the treble drivers. I couldn't be bothered to ask for a new one to be sent to Brazil as it figured it would be too much of a hassle so I went back to the old cable, because even though the nuts had cracked it worked fine. Last week it started breaking the connection on the TRS plug, so I emailed JH Audio about the issue expecting to burn a $65 + shipping + taxes hole in my wallet as the cables have no warranty. However, Angie simply asked for my address and sent it via FedEx on Monday. It's going to arrive today, and even though I will have to pay taxes (no way around it with FedEx), it's just 25 bucks and I got it in no time without having to pay for the cable or the shipping. Welcome surprise!

On Sunday I've been to Steve Hackett's concert in Rio promoting the Genesis Revisited II album. It was a truly unforgettable experience! The whole band was great, Hackett is as good as he's ever been and The Musical Box and Supper's Ready were utterly unbelievable. Plus, they've played some songs that aren't in the album, such as Squonk, Firth of Fifth and I Know What I Like!

Thanks, Ricky!

Yes, I've made up my mind! The MKI is going to stay here after all. I don't have the upgraded boards though! I've considered buying them before but didn't. Do you have them in any of your HeadAmps?

Have you heard his solo work, Al? If you haven't, it's worth a shot, especially the Self-Record album. I recently found out that Vernon has a second band, called Volcano Choir. It's pretty great as well – the last album, Repave, in particular. Have a listen if you haven't so far!

Well, I can imagine it was a good marathon then!

Vicki, I once made a list to a friend of mine who was in a similar situation with some of the best segments (IMO anyway) as far as humour is concerned. In case you're interested: [07x04] – old supercars for 15 grand challenge [08x03] - amphibious cars (hilarious episode) challenge [10x02] - amphibious cars two! [10x07] - cheap, old, British cars challenge [11x01] - home-made police cars [11x03] - cheap Alfa Romeos challenge [12x06] - communist cars (hilarious again) [13x07] - making a car ad Their specials are usually fantastic as well. Episode 09x03 was the American challenge, then 10x04 was the African one, 12x08 Vietnam, 14x06 Amazon, 15x08 Middle East and more recently, in the beginning of series 22, the Patagonia special. All pretty great, IMO!

^^^This is actually what I'm less worried about, since I'm a product designer If anyone needs help with this BTW, and if I can help with like SolidWorks drawings or anything like that, I'd be happy to help if I can. In any case, thanks everyone for the suggestions! I'll have a loot into the CKKiii as well!

Wouldn't it be a bit too bold for a first time DIY experience, though?

Thanks, Purk I think I'll just keep the MKI, especially because I have no intention of going the orthos' route yet. I'm very happy with the headphones I own, and the only one that I consider buying is an HD600 (again)! So maybe those $900 would be better spent on some nice-ish tube amp as an alternative to the GS-X for my Senns – like a Bottlehead Crack even, which could also be the introduction to the DIY world that I want to have sometimes!

Indeed! They mock him but it's actually quite clear that they all know pretty well what they're doing behind the wheel!

May's La Ferrari review was probably the best piece they've come up with in a long time!

Thanks a lot for the opinions guys, they were really helpful! I appreciate it It is a tough decision, especially as I know that, as roadtonowhere and Peter said, it's still a 1% and more psychological than anything... on the other hand, I can't deny that a red MKII is drool-inducing. Will mull it over and see what happens! Thanks again!

I know you guys usually don't like this sort of post, but I can't make up my mind and to me this is the best place to get some help. I apologize in advance for any inconvenience! To make a long story short: I might have the opportunity to upgrade from my MKI GS-X to a beautiful red MKII for about 900 bucks. However, I have a buyer now for my MKI (which is extremely lucky as selling it should be a pain in Brazil) and the MKII guy is about 90% sure of his sale. If I make the buyer wait, he might give up and I'll have a hard time selling the GS-X later and will probably miss the opportunity to grab that MKII. If I sell it now though, there's a risk that the guy won't sell his MKII later on (although it's a bit unlikely). If that happens, however, I could go for an Audio-gd Master 9 that's for sale in Brazil for a good price. I don't know how it compares to my current GS-X, but I read somewhere that they're close and that KG holds it in very high regard. Also, in this scenario, I'd have some spare cash to drop on a better DAC than my current Yulong D100. So my question is: do you guys think that the upgrade from the GS-X MKI to an MKII is worth the money and the risk? If it is, would the backup plan (Master 9 + some good $1000ish DAC) be any good compared to what I currently own? BTW, my preference is for a transparent and refined wire-with-gain sort of sound that goes well with anything from my Roxannes to the HD800, the HP1000 and some other power hungry headphones. Thoughts?