Icarium

Yeah I dunno seems like a personal issue.. I have no problems with fit, but then again I do have the head of the chosen one.

Alex is in Europe for work/fun (His day job).. says he'll get the foam out when he's back Monday.

The synergy with a gilmore lite is pretty much ridiculous, but yeah that d3a/e810f (Nikongod and I will follow suit at some point) should be ridiculous x5 ;p

Certainly possibly they could have coded their own solution via an fpga.. that's similar to what j4cbo is doing. If they are then that's like all sorts of victory.

Happy birthday duder.

Yeah really I should probably be using it for my dac3 since it doesnt have a secondary PLL like the dac3.1 hrmm yeah.

Amen if the OP can find a dynahi within his price budget and the gain isn't too much for his low impedance headphones (I have it resist attenuated at I think input?) then it is probably my favorite though a dynalo with a top of the line justin power supply/gilmore power supply/sigma22 is comparable. It just depends on if you like a more aggressive sound or a more refined/relaxed sound. As far as resolution/details/mids/lows/highs/soundstaging the rest is all about the same. I like aggressiveness for a majority of my music

Tough to say... Craig feels there is more flexibility with 300Bs and I think he thinks it'll be more musical which for his preferences puts it more in the AD1 arena but... shrug I don't think he's spent as much time yet or has 300Bs (He wants to hear NOS WE too) I think this may not be answered fully until second run starts getting completed.

All the headphones you mentioned are low impedance which is good times. I've heard m^3s seem to do well with grados? So that's definitely an option. I'd look at a gilmore lite or the ckkiii as well. If you can get the gilmore lite with a dps or have a sigma22 made (possibly even better) or a gilmore v2/v2 se. I imagine anny combination of that will run you between 200-500 dollars... The gilmore lite though if you discount the wallwart or a power supply will almost for sure be too small for your needs... the ckkiii and m^3 are in general larger units. Personally I prefer dynalos (Gilmore Lite/GS-1/GS-X) which scale exceptional well with better power supplies (Sigma22 and whatever Justin has that isn't a wall wart). They have the edge with regards to clarity/low noise floor/micro details. The CKKIII is no slouch though and has a fuller yet not overly lush/warm sound, with more bass than the gilmore lite with wall wart (With a better power supply though this flips heavily to the Dynalo's advantage). The M^3 I'm less familiar with but It is a pretty powerful amp with some customization options with regards to op amps and power supply. I just have bias against it because I like my solid state fully discrete Then I'd get a sonic frontiers trans dac/parasound dac1000 (Sounds better stock I think to the 1100 but doesn't do hdcd)/parasound dac1100 for another 100-350 bucks and be set. The trans dac is about the size of a benchmark (I don't know if that's tooo small for your requirements). I'm guessing the pico is out of the question due to need for spdif input and size requirements. The parasound stuff are hefty pieces of vintage gear. If you need hirez though they are out as well. Oh yeah this is really what I think is an optimal sub-1000 dollar rig. Even people who don't agree with my taste/recommendations probably will admit that it will slaughter the fuck out of a meier cantate. My opinion is meier stuff is terrible, which sucks since Jan Meier is a really nice dude who has really contributed a lot to the community esp with regards to HE90s ;p, but yeah I find his stuff a terrible value at any price. Very thin/sterile sounding without being at least compensating with detail.... Oh yeah.. I dunno if you are interested in tubes or not.. but.. I can't think of anything I'd be interested in at ~500 dollar level that isnt DIY. Maybe falkon's Trafomatic Head One.. but I think it's 900 new so.. might be too close to 1k. Used is tough since it's a rare head-fi/head-case purchase. If DIY is option a spud or a modified spud is probably what i"d look at. Just don't go OTL for low impedance cans and if you go transformer coupled then don't get something with cheap/shitty transformers.. sadly that's tough to do ~500... though maybe some used woo stuff qualifies too dunno.

Well the chassis themselves are like what? 500 bucks for a set? Or like 700 if you include all the mounting brackets and other random bits? It's not a bargain per se, but the chassis is going to be like professional finished/powdercoated and not be ugly... maybe not quite as nice as the bhse/frank cooter work, but You get your moneys worth if it looks matter to you. Plus its amp chassis + power supply chassis so really two...

I take full credit for my only valuable contribution in this thread! Titanium knob!

Pabbi linked a picture of one at some point and I think he's the only one that's built one? Talking with luvdunhill who I believe designed it? He says that its actually more like the woo amp WES or was it the GES? I forget which one its like... but yeah it's a whole other direction. If you consider the BH to be one tangent and the Vulcan to be one tangent I think the T2 is somewhere in between sharing like 50-75 percent overlap with the BH... but with more tubes to roll and other differences. Anyway I'm not technical so correct me if I'm wrong?

Honestly seacard... my thinking was this. The chassis honestly is an amazing deal (I speak from experience trying to source chassis for the Dynafet project) and the boards aren't going to be a common thing either. The fact that the chassis will be finished/drilled/tapped will make this project like 50-66 percent less painful as chassis work is one of the biggest banes of most DIY efforts. Not that the work that is left won't be painful enough. Worst case scenario you try and use the chassis for another project if it comes back to that. I'd spent the 1.3k - 2k it would cost to get the chassis/boards/sockets/rare transistors/parts and get a list of everything else you need and then try and drum up a builder. I personally was going to work through a list of projects I have parts/interest in and hope to be ready to do it myself by the end of 3 years of lesser projects. I was in fact going to get two sets as to have one set to offer to my builder in case I wuss out... alas the money. Unfortunately I had to give it up when I added up what I have in audio right now and it's something like 40-50k (If you include the SS-1 which I wasn't even factoring previously but agh who could forget the travesty/waste of money the Singlepower SS-1 is/was) and another 8-15k for this amp, tubes, headphones.. yeah I had to give it up. If you want an electrostatic amp it's really this, the BHSE, other variations of the BH and the Vulcan that really are at the tip top for me personally and all but 1 of those need DIY ;p. The only thing that could potentially eclipse it is the all DHT amp and its variations (Justin may do it as an aristaeus 2 at some point but cost will be something like 12-20k or something...). That was my line of thinking anyways...

Well so much for no more money spent on audio except for assemblage mods/dynafet.. I am a filthy weakling, but I couldn't pass this up: AD1 Tungsram Electronix NOS Tubes Monoplate Pair - eBay (item 130329582926 end time Sep-11-09 08:57:04 PDT) Time to see what NOS for AD1s is all about though I probably won't plug them in for awhile due to the loose tube issue and the adjusting voltage in the power supply issue.

You guys are actually meeting half way and exchanging stuff?

You forgot to mention that the boards can only have things soldered onto them with a solid platinum soldering iron. Dunno why exactly but I think it's a Japanese thing.

More than my takehome salary for a year (After my promotion with a 30 percent pay bump) is a little bit.. intimidating. I think the Esoteric UX-1 has to go.. I'm not sure I can bear to part with anything else at this point in time :/ If Justin finishes rebuilding the SS-1 or when my Dynaphat (Balanced dynafet) is complete.. then perhaps the Gilmore Balanced Reference can go to the line of people with dibs on it (dreamwhisper #1).

Sigh I think I'm going to have to pull out of my dream of a full fledged electrostatic. Added up how much I've spent on audio and it is a little bit terrifying :/ Almost 2x what I thought it was around... Sorry for being a weak flaker guys.

Yeah who needs Majic-32 and 32 bit hyperstream uber pissing over my shit. I can easily drink a gallon of milk do the same for nearly free!!!

Edit: Moved discussion about spare adapter to PM

Throwing something this Saturday ;p Shooting out some details tomorrow. Gonna have Min's here and do a proper input tube shootout... though ugh I think he has no adapter still.

Telling you.. need 6F8G + an adapter Glad you have a suitable rack slot for it ;p Enjoying it man? Just heard back from Craig's little shoot out: Here is my two cents worth. Built two adapters, 7N7, 6F8G. The 7N7 is identical to it's 6SN7 brother, except for the loctal socket. I have 6SN7's here that look identical to the 7N7's, and they sound the same. Almost all the NOS tubes 6SN7, 7N7 sound better than the Russian made Tungsol 6SN7 the amp ships with. To exaggerate the point the Tung Sol sounds congested, and flat. The 7N7, 6SN7 GE are better, more enjoyable to listen to. I think this boils down to tube structure, the only one being radically different is the 6F8G. Now that tube is amazing, the 7N7 is somewhere in between the openness, and transparency of the 6F8G, I would say closer to the Tung Sol, but why fake it, 6SN7's don't make it. The Raytheon 6F8G, And Ken Rad were my favorite until the Arcturus burned in. Now that tube is precisely right, even the re-worked Grado RS-1's that I can't stand sound good. More open, space, the sense of being transported to another place, and time, wonderful, sign me up, I am buying a BA. After building a small horde I have to say I agree

Thank luvdunhill I'm sure the rest of team j4cbo appreciates it as much as I do We are in no hurry until hifi2000 is settled.. we have a quote without shipping that I'm working on checking over but the cost for chassis work has gone up significantly from what was mentioned...

Right without volume control or tubes you are looking at nearly 3k in parts for parts + boards + transformers + chassis... 2850 to be exact. Might need a few RS-1s ;p

Titanium knob sir, titanium knob!