boomana

I like! I'll use it every time Reks makes an an awesomely correct statement like "cats suck." there, fixed that for you --admin

Not even this little one?

:'(

If there are to be dog smilies, I would would like to counter with cat options. Here are some suggestions:

I don't have much experience with stats, which is a good thing as I'd be wanting them more than I do already (been lurking the the Stax thread on head-fi for well over a year, and now here). The only real listening time I've had has been with the HE-90 with the McAllister, Egmont, Aristaeus, and Woo GES amps. The only Stax I've heard were Thrice's woodied Lambda Pro's, now belonging to my son (who should give them to me on mother's day ) with the Woo, and with both an Equinox SA10 and Exemplar Denon 2900 as sources. I really liked them. Really liked them. It's the first pair of headphones I'd heard at a meet in over a year that I kept thinking about long after the meet was over. I read these threads with too much interest, but without hearing for myself, they don't really mean much. Maybe next year. Right now, I wouldn't even know where I'd start.

Just curious why you want to go custom. Is there something that you're looking for that isn't available right now? I think custom's great, but I also question if the one-of-a-kind plan might reduce what you can get for your money, but then again, if you get the right builder, you might end up with something real special.

Do you plan on basically choosing the best you can for your needs and being done with it, or are you approaching getting these headphones as a beginning, or, in other words, are you planning on getting an amp, upgrading your source, etc. down the line? If it's the first, I think Dusty's recommendation is good; if it's the latter, Rek's would be my choice for you as well.

I thought they were good headphones, just not as good as quite a few others when system matched (6X0s, 701s, W5000, etc) They do everything well, just not great. They also don't scale all that well, from my limited impressions, and what you hear on one system is not all that different from what you hear on another, better, or even balanced rig. That's not to say they don't respond to changes (they opened up a bit after changing sources from my Lector to Exemplar Denon), but nothing to make me think that what you get when you open the box will be much different no matter what you do (markl mods, and recables unknown). I think at the time I heard them (two separate occasions; both for only a couple hours in non-meet conditions, and maybe for a couple more total in meet conditions), I just couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about, especially considering the price. That's why I was hoping to like the D2000s, as I thought they might be worth it, especially as a rare, decent, inexpensive closed headphones.

I guess I was referring to what I've been told as the advantages of Class D in general. So is there any point to this amp other that looking cute? I'm not interested in getting one, but just in why it was made that way.

I heard the D5000s out of that rig, Thrice's balanced beta and Wadia, and with my own rig (they left the headphones in my room at Tampa so I spent some time with them). I also preferred the 650s.

So I get the whole high power, high efficiency thing, but forgetting battery life and some ooomph, what about sound? I'm mostly wondering why people haven't been making Class D portables since good battery life and power isn't a bad thing? Sorry for the noob questions, but I'm really curious. Are there disadvantages to sound, even if the power can drive Senns, for example? What do you lose by going that route?

They scare me, too. :'(

I enjoy it still very much. Other than adding the secondary power supply when I sent it back, I'm not sure what else Mikhail did to the amp, or if all the black gates (I also add outs at a later date) are finally happy, but my amp doesn't sound at all like the amp I first bought. jp11801 has heard guzziguy's Platinum as well, and says the same. His is a bit compressed in the midrange, and doesn't hold the same attack and speed as mine (per John). We both now have the same source, and John wil be hearing it again next weekend, so I'm curious to his impressions since he knows my amp well. It's the best Senn amp I've heard in the $2000-3000 price range. I was a bit sad that it got no attention at the Florida meet, but there were so many new toys to play with there, I didn't even get to hear all I wanted to for as long as I wished. I like to think of mine as high-end mid-fi. Hirsch's is levels above mine.

Okay, but battery choices are plentiful. My damn little Diablo has been going for a few days straight, and isn't the Tomahawk supposed to go for 5,000,000 hours on a couple AAA? Is there any sq advantage, or is this more about efficiency and novelty?

So, this is coming out in a week. As I'm busy trying to learn about such things, I'm curious as to why someone would choose to build a Class D portable amp, or if it's such a good idea, why, with the explosion of portables, hasn't it been done more (I think Headroom has a Class D desktop, but I don't know of others)? http://www.i-qube.nl/index.php?id=18 EDIT: I'm thinking mainly in terms of sound.

Well if someone wants to give me some D5000s, I'll do the kitchen sponge or pillow mod and try them against the R10s. I'll even have my friends who could care less about headphones try them out. Didn't that guy start a thread awhile back saying he'd be dead in a few months? I'm serious. I remember thinking, how odd. Maybe he's dead now. I haven't seen him post. Nik had/has his thing with the AirTight and K1000s, and until FooMe stepped in with the cage mods and Zanden, Nik had been promoted to the all-knowing K1000 guy, not unlike markl and the R10s. I think most people reading those threads will believe most anything they say on the Denons, mostly because they want to believe it, but also thinking the high-end dynamic demigods have spoken. Purk or Hirsch or someone may have the cred us mere mortals don't to counter it and not come off as a mere sour-grapes type, but I think Hirsch really likes the Denons as well.

I did a thread like that...well, a "I don't get it" thread...months ago. I didn't say these headphones suck, because they don't, but more or less stated my opinion that I didn't get what the fuss was about, especially considering the price, and preferred a rather long list of headphones over them. It didn't exactly go over well then. I can only imagine how it would be received now. Ah well. I'm laying low over there for awhile. If people want to love their 650s with a Go Vibe or their D5000s with pillow inserts, they've already made it clear that disagreement is perceived as both wrong and as a personal attack. If markl and Nik have golden ears, who am I to disagree? To put the D5000 in the same league as the R10s, though, is just nuts.

I think it was vintage RS-1s for HP-2s or PS-1s.

Stay away from those X-Cans, and ignore those posts that talk about how good they are with Senns or anything for that matter. In one of the very few mini-meets at jp11801's where we actually seriously listened to gear as opposed to everything else, we had the X-Can 2 and 3, Pink Floyd modded and unmodded, two Heed Canamps, a Darkvoice 336, and a EC/SS. It was the battle of the entry-level amps at that time. They were simply trounced in all areas by the Heed and EC, and in some by the DV. My Heed had just arrived that day and I opened the box at the meet. Miguel's X-cans had his special 900-hrs of burn-in on them, and still it wasn't even close. I wouldn't even recommend any of those amps for the HP-2, unless as a bedroom rig, where my Canamp excels. Sure you can!

Something must definitely be wrong. Those are antonyms for the HP-2 sound I know.

Now I understand. Thanks.

I've read that the cord is pretty stiff, but so are the Cardas I've got now. I'm actually too cheap to buy a cart when an old Amish built coffee table (too big for functional coffee table) works perfectly for me, and looks strangely nice between my Abbys. It's also good as I use my headphone amp as a pre-amp, and I just slide a bean bag chair alongside for happy, lazy listening. Since the table is low to the floor, I've not had any trouble with stiff power cords, as I haven't needed to try and straighten them out to reach. I'm probably missing something, but I don't know what that means.

That's a lot of shoulders