Icarium

Yeah the 6BL7 GT is amazing. But I recognize that the Bendix 6080 is probably superior.. though whether to the point where it justifies its price tag over my Sylvania 6BL7 GTs (Which I like better than my actually made by Hytron 6BL7 GTAs which Mikhail actually said is the only pair he's ever seen)... different story. Of course the Bendix 6080 probably will outlive me while my Sylvanias will probably need replacement every 3-5 years or so. So 6080s may be the better value in the end!

Yeah that 6080 tube is sick as hell. Still I am doubtful that my amp has truly been obsoleted! Syclone who has bought foo_me's he90/es-1 system says that my amp destroys an upgraded extreme platinum, but he also wasn't using the sickness that is a Bendix 6080. Perhaps one day I can stack my amp versus your amp tkam and I can see if I need to upgrade or not ;p

Shrug you can verify this with him if you want. Purk told me this originally and I've verified it with him (Hirsch) before in email as well. I think the reasoning is that with his amp the airier less bassy one just simply scales better. I know he is getting rid of one (Probably his single ended stock one) but yeah still they should still both be the bass light version. Edit: And like I've said. I am skeptical that even the bass heavy R10 with any tube combination can really be anything but at best 1 full notch below headphones like the ED9/PS-1/L3000 in bass quality/quantity. But of course I haven't heard purk's set up ;p I'll check it out myself when my bass heavy pair arrives. Still, I am not completely ruling it out like you seem to have

Must say TKam, while my Singlepower amps are decent. I am somewhat jealous of your amp. Mikhail whipped out some Bendix 6080s at the the post-meet hang out and though we didn't have an amp that can use them they seem like damn impressive tubes I wish I could put in my amps! Though Mikhail said that's not doable without some mods ;p

Well depends on your standards, but I think they are about as transparent from a technical standpoint as is out there currently. If not transparent at least translucent ;p Of course I don't own any of them (Though I've heard them all except for the dynamight) so take that as you will though I might be getting a beta22 or dynafet in the future.. i guess maybe a dynamight too I do have boards for those.

Right if you are talking about true transparency really I'd think that a solid state amp that tests really well, re: gs-x, dynamight, beta22, dynafet what have you are the only ones that really deserve to be called transparent.

Yeah no idea. That's just what Mikhail told me. Could have been the tubes in it? I haven't listened to a Maestro myself. I kind of assumed that a SDS was just a Maestro in a supra style chassis, so I didn't see the point. Especially since I figured the SDS was just better since bigger caps could be mounted on the outside than can be fit inside the Maestro chassis. My, Mikhail called them resevoir caps whatever they are for I dunno, big caps are 8.5 inches tall I just measured them again.

Hrm again its a question of what you mean by transparent. Transparent as in frequency response passes through it uncolored, transparent in relation to the recording? Or transparent to the original musical experience? I don't think tube amps in general test very well compared to a well designed/built solid state amp. I think with particular tubes you can make a Singlepower amp about as transparent as your standard manufactured tube amp can be. I would think at least on par with the Zana Deux if not possibly more so with some of the more high end ones (Apparently Maestro actually does have a significantly different topology compared to the SDS which surprised me... this is kind of a tangent but apparently a Maestro is more detailed sounding/transparent/clear compared to a SDS which will have better tone/musicality). Is there a degradation when you use a tube adapter? Logically for sure. Though I have been unable to detect much of one when weighed against the gain in sound quality by using much higher quality tubes than your average 6SN7. I'm sure if I knew exactly the perfect tube complement I could probably have that built in and the amp optimized for it... but I dunno if it'd ever be worth it to give up the flexibility. The difference in rolling different tubes with adapters is really huge though. I dunno if any 6SN7 type can remotely touch a decent 2C51 or even come close to emulate the sound that one can offer in the driver position.

Yeah man. Hirsch had 4 R10s at some point and he sold his two bass heavy versions and kept the two bass light. So obviously neither of those two will be the max bass an R10 can produce. As for tube choices? Shrug, that's up to Hirsch to say. Perhaps he doesnt maximize for bass but maximizes for a different sound. So who's to say the true potential for bass. I heard the r10 from ray samuels b-52 an amp that I wasn't super taken with but it did really bring out some very impressive bass that at least could compete with a L3000 as far as texture and tone though I'm not sure about quantity or extension. So who's to say what a fully unleashed one can do. I mean frankly I'm skeptical myself, but using Hirsch as a baseline for the bass potential of the R10 is a fallacy since bass light is SIGNIFICANTLY less bassy than the bass heavy version.

Yeah Purk got me too with the virus :/ I was a fool to trust him. I thinkkk it's gone from me but I infected Johnsonad and he is spamming me nonstop now.

Also, there's another development that Mikhail mentioned to me while we were at Dennys way after the meet (Vaporware at this point) I need to tell you about later Mike ;p I think this will be exciting for you heehee, will add a whole new dimension to all his amps (mpx3/ppx/extreme/supra/sds/es-1/everything) and you won't even have to send them in for this ubertweak/upgrade.... provided it comes out

Damn nice tubes though. That tung sol round plate 6SN7 is insanely expensive. Still, not the clearest/most detailed tube, greatt one though. Yeah talk to Mikhail about adapters though ;p

I'd really give Mikhail a call. While his prices are expensive, he does know his shit. He mentioned he has one of Hirsch's pristine R10s for sale as well if anyone is interested. It's pristine though and priced accordingly vs the cheaper Yahoo Japan crapshoot route.

Yeah the Zana Deux is an amazing value. Imo, though you think the SDS sounds warm/lush compared.. you can plug in some diff tubes and right now mine sounds amazingly clear and analytical. I'd say more so than the Zana Deux which when I had them side by side Zana Deux sounded warmer. I ended up giving the adapter i was going to send to you back to Mikhail, but i'd really urge you to get or check out a 2C51 adapter for the driver position. Also if you throw in some 6BL7 Sylvania or other GTs... then you get the kind of sound I'm talking about.

I like the EMU 0404 usb myself. I use it with a Yamamoto HA-02 as an office rig with w5000s.. I probably will have the mini^3 I have coming to me (Maxed with all boutique parts still like 120 or less I forget but my builder is only charging me cost of parts).

Singlepower headphone cables are high purity silver. As are their interconnects. I don't know anything more about their construction. They are not cheap cables. I haven't heard their Qualia cable... but I do have some XLR interconnects on loan from Mikhail that sound pretty nice. I need to do a shoot out with [AK]Zips up and coming flagship interconnect line and Oritek X-2s.

The Ibasso can't even merely claim that is HALF as sophisticated as Justin's dac/amp. And though I haven't heard the iBasso what I've heard from justin's piece and the tech inside I bet it just crushes the iBasso.

Whoa ninja.

He also has EMM labs and lots of other goodies too.

Edition 9s are bad, but I really question their ability to scale well... Since the kind of people that buy them seem to be mostly those that already have sick ass amps or broke the bank to buy them and skimp along on ghetto fabulous amps and are unlikely to upgrade any time soon its really hard to say how well they scale. My impression from others and my ewn experiences is that Ultrasones in general do not scale as well as the AKG and Sennheiser headphones.

Nice, if you want to return the L3000s to me for free I will be happy to take them back recabled and all. ;p

Yeah no regrets with mine. It's a great transportable option and I definitely think it can be improved significantly with mods.

In an amp that has interstage coupling caps...which ones make more of a difference to the sound if upgraded.. interstage or output?

Looks nice, but I'd wait for Justin's device if you can float the extra cash. I have quite a decent chunk of faith in Justin and filburt said it looks tasty as well.

This surprises me too. I thought the dark voice only uses 2 tubes.. so what the Extreme uses 2 for output (1 per channel) instead of 1 like the Darkvoice? Same topology/circuit whatever otherwise? Perhaps singlepower at least uses better parts I'd think. Btw, what are the differences between the GS-1 and Gilmore Lite? I saw the thread on head-fi but it didn't really seem to have any really good responses.. what I gather is.. better parts/more modular build and better power? Edit: Oh, that's what he meant. Meh.