spritzer

It is a truly excellent series, one of the best I've seen.

I'd stay away from HP as well. I was in this boat a few weeks ago and I bought a Xiaomi Air 13.3 and I love it. It came with Chinese Win10 but I removed it and installed new Win Pro instead.

Hehe I can believe that. That's why I so want to get one without the built in amp and roll my own.

Yeah you are right. I'm drawing a blank as to where it was but it is on the phones. Might be inside on the sliders... The instructions manual is very heavy on the wank factor. I shot some pics of it and yeah...they basically made the new world order...

I think the serial number is on the top of the phones like the HD800 but I'm not sure. It is certainly in the users manual if that is sitting somewhere around the system.

The DAC output from the internal dac is super low so you might have been using that. Shame they won't allow you to bring a dac and your own files, I was allowed to do so.

I picked those at random as I'm going to do some matching today and see how they play out in the new boards. I'm also going to do different grades of matching if I have time.

I finally got to the post office and picked up some pins... Works perfectly.

It's been a while since I built something just for me but here is something old... So long story short, I was sent some boxes by mistake and the seller said I could just keep them. That also meant I had to find a project to put them. They were tiny 70mm tall boxes with sinks on the sides so an idea was born. It's been roughly 15 years since I built my first KGSS so why not make something to commemorate that..introducing the KGSS Klassik. So this was a pretty difficult birth, cramming the PCB's down to this size while using the same parts I used back in the day...was a challenge to the say the least and well, there is no space in the fucking chassis. So this is a bone stock KGSS like we did back in the day but with a few modern twists. Output resistors, 2SC4686A's instead of the C3675's but that's about it. The PSU is the new SMD version of the old KGSS design. As can be seen, this is a super tight fit and makes something like the KGSSHV mini seem spacious. It does work wonderfully but I need to do something about the Stax socket. So this one comes from the whole host of extension cables I've killed recently and often the threads on those sockets are just toast. So here I glued it in place with some crazy resin glue but it didn't set properly. Other than that, it is a cracking amp and not "that" much bigger than the SRM-252...

Nothing wrong with liking garbage, just look at SBAF and HF where people think Cavalli Audio made something that approaches high fidelity equipment. You liking doesn't change the fact that it is a joke product and the only reason somebody would compare it to the T8000 or the BHSE is its price. We've seen this before with the Woo WES, one out of three owners I've talked to thought it was the bee's knees but the other 2/3's...thought it was a broken piece of shit. So why would it be on the same par as the BHSE? Because it cost more... Like the Trilogy or not, I could not care less but remember one thing, this is the exact same circuit that Schiit thought was too bad to sell for 1k$ and their implementation was far superior.

I'm working on something similar with the T2 redesign. I think I'll just end up using two switches as the LV stuff runs the delay relay.

Not really but bias and the risk of damage is always linked to the drive voltages. So if you push the bias too high, you have to lower the drive voltages.

The GG psu is actually off ebay or aliexpress, the one that feeds the dac. At least in the one I was sent pics off. Too late now to bother finding the pics but I'll see about doing so tomorrow. The Amanero being from Italy is just precious. It's a cheap USB board from China, seriously...go on ebay. My T2 worked just fine once I completely redid the amplifier board. That is the curse of being the first to do something as you would know...ohhh wait, you haven't done anything, have you? As for my PSU's, I make them tiny, it's what I do. They also have this thing called regulation, you should look into it.

One could argue that mcalister audio is just out to troll people... The sheer level of quality here is just startling. If I could only attain this level someday... ahhh one can dream!!!

That's a fuckload of parts!!! I should have some of those pin strips tomorrow so I can confirm if the adapter boards work with the milled 14 pin sockets.

Did you see the serial number on the set you tried? I think the one they had here was nr.26 so it might be the same one making the rounds...

Ehhh who hit you with the stupid stick? I've lost count of how many tube amps I've designed so I'm well aware what tubes can and indeed can't do. Nothing to do with my amps either, some of my customers have Lampi dac's which is why I know they are such utter shit. Now, since you know so much about tubes...are tubes less noisy than transistors? Are they better at amplifying low level signal than transistors? Are they superior in terms of distortion and other artifacts that deviate from the original signal? Nope, fuck no and hell no respectively. What you fail to grasp is how tubes are used and where they work the best. That sure as shit isn't a tube output stage of a DAC which is ironically fed by a current output dac. Also since you bring up the T2, I'm well aware of it and I'm even revising the circuit boards now to hopefully increase its performance so let's dwell on it for a bit. Is the T2 the best amp there is for electrostatics...nope, it isn't. Would it be better if you replaced the front end tubes with fets and the output tubes with SiCfets? Yup...by quite a bit actually. That has nothing to do with "tube magic" or other such BS claims based on not having the slightest grasp of what is going on. The fet's are simply better devices, made to much stricter quality standards. What tubes do well is simple circuits, even silly simple sometimes and they are forgiving of "designers" who don't know what they are doing. It's hard to blow up a tube...though some people have tried their best to do so. Ohhh and they were excellent for HV output duty but the SiC fets are clearly better. As for these super qualities which are now just coming to light...is there anything to back up those claims or just your own BS? I take it the GG is still using a Soekris dac fed by an off the shelf PSU from ebay and another ebay special USB input. Well shit...I have all those parts...hell even two Soekris boards so I should throw something together and charge somebody 40K$ for it. I have some DHT's too so let's make it super exclusive and throw a tube output stage that does fuckall but looks super cool...ohh and fuckups the sound for good measure.

Yeah, standard Thermasil will do just fine.

Exactly... Buy a cheap TDA1543 dac off ebay with some hacked together tube outputstage and see how you like it. For me it is just baffling that this garbage passes off as high end. I mean isn't the whole purpose of high end sources to be as transparent as is possible and have as little of a character as you can get away with. This sure as shit isn't the road to get there...

This isn't DIY level...this is no skill amateur hour. Also to think that this shit sounds good needs a high level of delusion to work. This does fit with what the garbage peddlers push, that hifi can be suited to your tastes in a way that simply roll the tubes and find the sound you like. More than you find the individual set of tubes that makes the circuit sound the least shitty...

Odd that a proper Dc coupled input is possible... I wonder if Cavalli would complain about the lack of mosfets...

Nothing so quickly, this more of a long term issue.

Since we've had some more talk about garbage like Lampi dacs...there is something else we have to discuss - the ifi iesl. Long story short, I was asked to look into this for a mafia member and well... I wouldn't connect my phones into this. So let's start at the beginning, the transformers have either a 1:16 ratio or 1:32 depending on the impedance switch. The former is certainly on the low side so you need some power to push this. Their claims for the transformer construction is all fine and dandy for output transformers but they never touch on the stuff that actually matters for electrostatic step up operation. The transformer capacitance is paramount and so is to keep the inductance in check. Let's just focus on the shit that doesn't matter instead... Now onto the bias supply and their capacitor "battery" claims are just so full of shit that it isn't even funny. First of though, how is the high voltage for the batteries generated? I can't see any transformer that could do that from the low voltage DC input. There are some chokes but nothing substantial enough. Also, how are they switching the bias? Those cheap arse switches? Sure fucking hope not and no normal relay can handle these voltages. Now for the really bad news, see the first picture, the string of resistors in front of the 5 pin connectors? Those pretty much have to be the ballast resistors run in series to increase the voltage handling. They are also high value resistors but I can't quite make out the value of them. Now follow the trace on left and see the cap that is there? Yup it is 10nf/1kV so it sure looks like the fucktards put a cap after the ballast resistor. Never, ever do that if you like the coating on the diaphragms... As for the whole capacitor based supply claims, if they run them in parallel then they have 3uf roughly of charge which is quite a bit and I for one wouldn't want to have that sitting on the bias supply should anything go wrong. I also wonder if their dielectric claims extended to the rest of the circuit? The PCB's leak at these voltages as do the switches and connectors.

I've got more, just love this pic: This is supposed to be one of the new and improved ones, the Amber Balanced... Looks all clean but that's just one reason for that...it's missing all the fucking wires. I also love just the sheer number of fuckups that are on the board and I sure as shit can't see any HV regulation. Then there is this oldie but a goody... http://www.tirnahifi.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2966&start=10 This is worse than single power and that says quite a bit.

No...just no. Show me a picture of the inside of the "well done" boxes with "quality PCB's". Also explain how exactly the tube PSU is regulated and what the fuck that tube stage does with the R2R modules? I'm waiting... Ohhh and what quality components? Compare it to the 600$ Denafrips Ares... In short, this is garbage for gullible people who don't know any better. The classic audiophool who thinks "toobz" make shit better when in fact they have no role here let alone idiotic DHT tubes. How is that good for low level signals? Let's just post this gem... So...this is supposed to be high end but to me it looks just like a random PCB's sourced from China, shoddily crammed into a cheap chassis with some sucky ass tube output. It can't even meet CE specs so by definition, this is illegal for sale in the EU.