spritzer

You might be onto something there. That's why the SR-Sigma 404's sound so great compared to the stock SR-404, I had to reverse the drivers. Same goes for the old Sigma drivers in the Lambda housing. Now why didn't I think of that...

I'd recommend licking them instead... the wires that is.

But, but... you are a company?!?! Marc-E-marc Audio and don't you forget it!!

Sometimes and I'm crazy enough to D/L the same crap twice without noticing.

What makes this even worse is that I'm limited to 80gb a month. That's just 70+ 720p shows...

I can't see any drawbacks here. Moar powahhh is king.

It's a good circuit for sure and it will be interesting so see how it behaves with the SR-007.

Your probably right. We need some internal pics though...

It looks good but I'm not sure about those "glass" shields to be honest. I do wonder what circuit they are using for the fully balanced operation. The GES circuit would need more tubes so is this a Stax SRX? Do you want to see some flames?

The 727 but I don't like how it sounds. It has the ability to push the SR-007 adds too much of it's own onto the music. They do show up from time to time in Japan but often bundled with an Omega.

We need a video to go with the unpacking. Doug, the trend setter, has spoiled us.

From your pics it uses a Neutrik PowerCon which is a very nice, 3 pole connector.

I could use a T1 (or any of the variants) in a pinch but the 717 is as low as you should go.

Simply laughing at somebodies inferior dynamic phones is most often enough to earn some "cred".

Safety would be my main concern and IEC's are a pain to work with. There are plenty of cheap 3 pin connectors out there that won't risk burning up the amp. If you need wire for the umbilical then you can just raid some old computer PSU for 16AWG/300v copper wire. I would also shield it with some copper mesh but it's not really needed.

Like others have said, the DAC chip is only a small part of the puzzle. With the APL players, the choice of output tubes/transformers probably had a bigger impact on the over all sound then the chips. I for one didn't buy an APL player due to the 32bit crap but rather the features. There aren't many players that will play all the audio formats, have a built in volume control and a digital input. I must say I liked the ECC99 tube too since even the premium version is dirt cheap.

You should have received a piece of paper with the transformer to note which wire is which. If you didn't get one then the datasheet should be online.

Win!!! Smeggy needs some Molex connectors then to make the build ultra clean and easy troubleshooting.

I like the whole "minimal lighting for dramatic effect" thing you've got going on.

Do you know if the large sub-board is included which was designed for the 3 channel amp? That makes wiring a lot easier and much neater. As for testing the amp, always start off with the PSU without anything connected to it.

Is it SE or balanced and have the boards been tested? If they are all functional then there isn't much to wiring it up but it is better to know which wire goes where.

Now we all know that Ray's an idiot but this is just too much. Why on earth did he turn the drivers around when they are dipoles? If he wanted to run them out of phase he only had to switch the + and - wires. It may even be worse then that (I'm going from memory here) but the HE60 has slots on the back of the driver which is where the rubber o-ring sits which seals the baffle. I'm not sure the front piece has those same slots so there could be massive baffle leak i.e. no wonder the He60 didn't compare well to the He90.

There are some pics of the A-10 in the Detroit impressions thread and amongst those a picture of the amp section with no tubes. It appears that Ray is using the same sockets as I'm using in the Warthog (PoorMan) which were the cheapest ones I could find.

For all the AC wiring you should use 300v rated wire but since the rest is all low voltage stuff you can use pretty much any wire you like, given that it can handle the current. 16-18AWG is plenty for anything this amp can dish out and 20AWG could even be enough. For the input wiring you can even use 30AWG or smaller but stick with 22-24AWG since they are easier to work with. As for the insulation, teflon has the extra benefit of not melting and thus not potentially contaminating the solder joints.

That's why I would never own a stock Esoteric machine. \ It's the same deal with a lot of headphones too.