purk

If you have the fund, I highly recommend the SDS. With all the tuberolling capabilities, the SDS can drive just about any headphone out there with surreal sense of power and refinement. Mike summed it up pretty well regarding the SDS and L3000.

909 & KG, Show us the pictures of that rivet amp? I would love to see one. Thanks.

It took him one month to repair and it was covered under the 7 years warranty. I can't recall anyone offer that kind of warranty in the headphone amp market. I'm not posting here to protect SP, but I did have great experience with them beside the long wait time. I believe it was a diode went bad. Purk

And is that like less than 1% out of the amp he bulit? My SDS is one of the first amp that he built and for the past 4 years, I had one problem and it was repaired under the 7 years warranty policy. The repair took 1 month. My SDS is approaching 7,000 hours and it still run like new.

FYI, it is very nice to have 7 years warranty for my SDS. I don't have any problem with the build quality of SP amps. P2P wiring will always look less organized than PCB; however, they also sound slightly better.

in her mid 20s. Sorry...couldn't resist.

It is a long wait ...but his work really is worth the wait.

Oh well...my highly modded Sony SCD777ES only come with a single-end input. So......

Tom....that is my impression exactly. I really love the way the HE90 sounds...and probably prefer it slightly over both of the R10s. Maybe..but not this year. Too much money spent already!! How about do me a favor and get 2 more R10s and let us know how they respond to balanced amp? IMO, the R10 already have excellent soundstage. What they really need is a lot of power to drive them. Hey... at least you get to hear every single pair of R10 I own/owned. Mike...what you really need to do is upgrade your SDS to the upgrade I got and get another pair of R10s. We (you, me, and Tom) know how good the R10 can really be. You really need to sell one of your L3000 and get the R10. Again, would love to vinyl, but that is another 5K right there. Well...I want to, but going balance is just so damn expensive.

The difference is just the chassis nothing else really. The circuit is still the same according to Mikhail. Again, Mike is running his SDS with 7119 or 5687 or as an output or gain tubes, which can be good but not great. This configuration do adds impact over the 6SN7 configurations if you are running the 5687 as a slam configuration but loose out in refinement and air from the all 6SN7 configurations. OTHO, the improvement from running the 6BL7GTs & Tungsol 2c51 and GE 12AY7 in his amp can be very drastic. I wish Mike go ahead with his amp upgrade....but he probably will never ever do it. I am not sure whether he realizes that he is missing out on what SDS can really do with the right tubes.

You should get the following: 1) 400 Voltage 2) Blackgates PS capacitors 3) Blackgates High Capacitance capacitors output 4) Adjustable Bias 5) Pre-amp output I believe all and all, it was certainly less than 1k, which is very well worth it. The upgrade to Piltron will likely be additional 1k, and another 1.5K for those audionote caps. I am extremely satisfied with the upgrade that I got. Maybe...one day...I willl jump up to the audionote caps. 1.5K is slightly too much for capacitors.

That's the average for me. I had three repaired/upgrade works performed by Mikhail and in most case i got my amp back with in less than 6 weeks.

Typical Mike. He don't want to be without the SDS so he has been running the slam adapter for over a year. What he needs to do is send his amp to get the upgrade to high voltage, which is totally worth it. It might take Mikhail a months or two to do it, but we all know it worths the wait.

Yeah right... Keep stealing stuff from me.

Hirsch, Thanks for chiming in. You won't loose any finese associated w/ the 6SN7 tubes if you drive the R10 w/ Slyvania 6BL7GTs and GE 12AY7. What you gain is bass, soundstaging, air, and slam.

Yeah....I had all those problems with the edition 9 when I had Mike's pair for 3 weeks (you can read most of my complaints about them on headfi).....too much bass, uneven FR, strange timbre & presentation (I'm blaming S-logic), not that refined next to a proven legendary headphones, and cold and recessed midrange. I'm glad that people have starting to recognized some of thier short comings. I rather prefer the HD-650 w/ a nice upgrade cable over them.

B/c I heard what the R10 out of the SDS-XLR sounded like when Mikhail came down to Atlanta a year ago. The source was pretty nice but not that great (Consonance Droplet). Also, I have confidence in Mikhail and I know that my source is a lot nicer than the Consonace Droplet.

So still not believing this huh? Seriously, Mike even think the bass on my R10 has more impact than my HEV90+HE90. What you need is to listen to a bassier pair of R10s not the lighter bass version. I have both versions, but Hirsch only have the light bass version I believe. I think Hirsch prefer the general sound signature of the light bass pair over the heavier bass pair, that's why he sold them. If you want to really come down here let me know. Here are the setup I have: 1) HEV90+HE90 2) SDS-SE+R10 (both versions) 3) DHA3000 + L3000 4) HA2002 + W2002 Phones: W2002 w/ L3000 drivers, HD-650, HD-600, HD-580 (Zu cable), Stax Lambda Pro, and CD1700.

In atlanta, GA. Mike is 30 mins away and Tom Hankins is 5 mins away from my place.

Yes...my bassier R10 has very nice visceral impact. Not quite the L3000 but definitely a good bit more than my W2002. If you ever come down here, just give me a call. Also, you can call Mikhail up if you don't believe me. BTW, Boomana's system (Exemplar Denon 2900 and Extreme Platinum + R10s) also have pretty nice bass impact. Trust me, I like bass...otherwise, I won't go through all those trouble to fine tuning the R10s.

Not really.... My amp also best the Extreme Platinum as well. The extremely has a wider soundstage that's it.

It isn't just my amp alone, but my system as one. I don't think my R10 will sound this good without my source and that new modwright tube rectifier PS. The PS by itself is aroudn 20lbs and has its own chassis. Regarding the R10, I'm not saying that my lighter bass pair has the bass quantity of my L3000, but my bassier pair does come very close. In fact, I don't feel the need to listen to my L3000 that much any more given that both the HE-90 and R10 are more refined and superior sounding to the L3000. Of course, if I demand PRaT I and pure bass impact, I can always use my L3000 but let's face it I will loose out in air, layered of details, and midrange. If you bring out the bass on the R10s, they are nothing short of an amazing pair of headphone. Beside a slightly more refined and more neutral HE90, I've yet to hear of a better headphone. A little history of my R10 adventure here. When I first got my R10 about a year back, I always like the sonic signature of the headphone but always felt somewhat dissatisfied with weak bass response. I went from Sylvania VT231s+Tungsol RP or Kenrad to Tungsol D-getters + Tungsol RP on my SDS and was stilll left wondering for more bass extension and impact. I later contacted Mikhail for some upgrades after I heard the SDS-XLR w/ Raytheon 6414 tube. The upgarde package included blackgates in both audio and PS section of the amp, high voltage settings to allow 6BL7 tubes to work on my amp, adjustable bias to adjust the tonality of the amps, and more output capacitor to allow more bass impact. I also requested Mikhail to tune my amp to bring out the bass on my R10s. I think he also did some internal tweaking to make the amp more trasparent. This upgrade is totally worth it as it allows me to use the 6BL7 tubes on my amp. The upgrade was a good upgrade from my SDS Slam when I use the Raytheon 6414 w/ the 6BL7gts tubes but a good bit better with the Tungsol 2c51....and even more magical with the GE12AY7 as a gain tube. At that point my R10 was sounding pretty good with pretty nice bass extension and impact, but my whole system improve even more now after I upgrade to a new tube recitifed PS on my modwright/R. Kern SCD-777ES.

I'm using 12AY7 and 6BL7gts tubes, bias set to high w/ high voltage option. Mike wasn't kidding on this. He was very impressed with my R10s. I have both versions and they sound great. My SDS has the latest upgrade from SP with blackgates and other stuffs. Also I recently got a new tube rectifier PS from Modwright Sony SCD-777ES. That modwright player also has around 3K of mods from R. Kern. So itsn't just the amp...but the combo. I have tried the G08 and it was very nice but as good as my Sony. Again...we are not kidding. Mike really like the way my R10 sounds. Also, Hirsch's R10s is the lighter bass version...so that's explain why. If you demand bass, you need to get a bassier version to try with his amp.

Dan....very sorry. A friend of mine spread it to me. At least she is a nice looking girl.

Icarium, The tube you need to try with your headphones and your next-and-coming-R10 is the GE 12AY7. You will be vey surprised how good this tube sound. I've tried the Tungol 2c51, Western Electric 2c51, and Raytheon 6414 and the GE 12AY7 is best of any tube I've tried. The 2C51 is very bass heavy but can sound a little roll off in treble. The 12AY7 has excellent bass, midrange and beutiful and very layered soundstage. The Tungsol D-getter on Mike's SDS is not bad but the 2c51, 6414, and 12AY7 are atleast a step of two better interms of refinement and sound quality. Mike, Nice pictures man. I really need to make a trip over to your place to listen to those beautiful gears.