purk

I had my doubt when I had Mikhail upgraded my SDS, but I confirmed all the parts when I openned up the amp for inspection.

I have been spoken to Tom and as far I know his amp turned on. He, however, still have way of testing out the amp (broken phono stage, and no CD player). I will loan him my Sony SCD-1 during this weekend so he can check it out. I have to admit that it was very bad of Mikhail to send that PSU to Tom, but Mikhail intends to make it up to tom by building him a new SS psu. Again, we will never know until Tom gets his new SS PSU.

Andy, I had a local master repair tech who is very experienced with repair of tube amps to look at my SDS when it stopped working early this year. The problem was with a bad diode near the PSU and the cost of repair was $45 and it was done within one hour. I would not send the amp back to Mikhail unless you exhaust all the local repair possibilities. Mikhail refunded the cost repair to me afterward.

I believe Tom is trying to get Mikhail to issue him a full refund. I'm not sure whether he is going to post the picture of the PSU or not, but Tom will drop by my place this weekend to borrow my Sony SCD-1 to test the functionality of the Meastro XLR preamp/headphone amp.

It should. I can connect the 5910 to my plasma and report back. I believe John only worked on 2 channel modification mods on the 5910. The Denon 5910 has a dedicated two channel playback circuit, which seperates it from the multi-channel playback. I sure hope John continues his work on the Denon units as his 5910 is the best sounding digital frontend that I've tried. Also, I hope that the added on Blueray function will not hamper the two channel playback performance of the DVD-A1UD.

Based on my experience with DVD-A discs on the Exemplar 2900 and 5910, I sorely miss DVD-A. I don't know why but the DVD-A on both of my Denons are better sounding than the SACD counterpart. I mentioned this to John Tucker and he also agreed with my findings. After recieving the Exemplar 5910 three weeks ago, I am now buying DVD-As as well. The "Hotel California" DVD-As album is incredible sounding on the 5910.

Ahh...so that Denon is the replacement of their Denon 5910 huh? I so happy with my Exemplar 5910 right now that I won't upgrade for a very long time.

Nice looking amp Nate!

Elephas, No biggie. I actually have never listened to the HA5000 but I did try the W5000 briefly in my system using the HA2002 and compared it with the W2002. I thought the two phones sounded similar with the W5000 might have slightly better response but the W2002 was able to match the W5000 in many areas. At the end of the day, I decide to keep my W2002 due to its superior cosmetics, comfort, and workmanship. Did you compared the two headphones including the W11JPN in your system, b/c I did. My preference must be similar to Agile_one and Mulveling b/c they also prefer the W2002 over the W11JPN. He also owns the HA2002. FYI, I no longer have the W2002 and W11JPN. What I have now is the W2002 with L3000 drivers hybrid. My W2002 hybrid sounds excellent.

nice...nice... Waiting to hear your impression!

At least...you still have fund to pay for them!!

Congrats then

Don't get me wrong. I still rank my recabled CD3000 among the best closed headphone I've heard. They probably rank 4th or 5th after the R10, L3000, W2002 w/ L3000 and slightly behind my W2002 and a bit better than the W11JPN. Most people don't like the W2002 b/c they never heard them with the right amp. But the HA2002 really bring out the best in the W2002. BTW, the maxed out PPA in a used market should only cost you b/w $200 to $350 at the most. And it isn't fare to compare the Senn HD-650 to the CD3000, b/c the Senn is an open design and we all know that it is much more difficult to design a closed than an open headphone.

I did. I tried the Equinox, Blue & Silver Dragon, Clou Red & Blue, Cardas, and headphile cable. My favorite is the Equinox and Zu and the SD. IMO, the Equinox works wonder on the HD-650, 600, 580 Jubilee, and 580. OTOH, the Zu only work well with the HD-650 to my ears.

Late to join the party. Anyway, I used to be a big fan of the CD3000 and is still a fan of it today. When I had the stock CD3000 back in 2002, I thought the sound was good but not great. So I went and get the headphone recabled with Moon Audio Silver dragon and the improvement in bass, midrange, and soundstaging was worth it. The cable upgrade also tamed the high, increased the resolution, and make the headphone sound a bit smoother. Then the big headphile crazed hit me, so I spent $250 for an R10 sized woodcups for my CD3000. It turned out that the R10 cups upgraded changed what I like about the CD3000's signature so I switch back to CD3000+Silver Dragon. In early 2004, I bought the Senn HD-650 w/ Zu cable, SP SDS from Tom Hankins, and upgraded my source to the SACDmods C555ES. The HD650 w/ Zu was a better phones to my ears, so trade my CD3000 for a Canon G6 digital camera. If you plan on keeping the CD3000, you should check out the maxed out PPA. I believe PPL voiced the PPA w/ OPA627BPs for his CD3000. I had that setup awhile back and the two sounded beautiful together.

Yeah at the current price they are very expensive. But after hearing what they can do one of the SDS-XLR, it is my favorite headphones. Even with single-end SDS, I found them incredible. Whatever floats your boat Al. So you decide that you could hang with 4.5k x 4 on your head right? You and your 4 Qualias!!! No one is as Lucky as you Dan to have a perfect fit for those Qualias. When I borrowed Muveling's Qualia awhile back, it took me about 30 mins to find the right position. I had to hold them in place just to listen to them. They were pretty amazing with SACDs.

Exemplar Denon 5910 just landed on 11/05/2008!

With you mighty amp, I thought you would have the R10 by now.

What was the asking price?

I think he just won that auction a week ago in yahoo japan. The winning bid price was around 480,000 yen. Very beautiful pair though.

Yep, I was one of earliest member of Headfi & Headwize...about 7 to 8 years ago. I saw Vertigo_1's R10 went for $1600 to Hirsch. Back then, folks were complaining about how expensive the W2002 was and some R10 oweners were having very difficult time selling their R10 for around $3300, b/c they cound't find the right amps to drive them properly. I still can't believe that the price of some ultra highend & rare headphones still go up and up. But I'm more surprised that some people want to spend that much for a pair of the PS-1. Maybe its the competive natures of auction compled with ultra highend headphones.

The 10JPN price is a bit too expensive. I wish they price them for around $450 to $500.

Wow...so basically beside the R10 and HE-90, the PS-1 is now the most expensive headphone ever? Even more expensive than the original Stax Omega and the Qualia. I still remember when the a used PS-1 was around $900 in 2004.

More power to him but I do feel bad for the current buyers. We all know that the PS-1 and the L3000 are relatively similar in sonic performance but the L3000 is significant more comfortable and luxurious. Sadly, I have yet to see any L3000 break above 3000 USD yet while the PS-1 is now fetching 4k.

Yep, that was the case for me after I auditioned modwrights, kern, exemplar gear, after owning my SACDmods C555ES for over 2 years. I went through so many CD players in the past 3 years (probably over 20 CDPs), priced b/w $700 to $3000 used, and the Exemplar Denon 2900, Cary 306 SACD, and my kern/modwright Sony SCD-777ES are my favorites. As far as customer service and timeliness are concern, no one beat Dan wright and Matt Ankers, IMO.