Janus

Max to Cog

Max to Cog

Out with the Microamp... in with the GS-1

I nominate myself.

I'll be honest. I already have a great cd player, but bought a Cambridge Audio 840c just because of the FOTY status it has here. I would like to say my Naim sounds much better, and you should all sell your 840's and maybe by the end of this year you will have enough to buy a Naim. I also bought a Sennheiser HD650 just because it is popular here and scales damn well. Scales mountains maybe... considering how light it is. I think I'd rather be grounded to the earth though, with my speakers. Same deal with the microamp..... Actually I bought the microamp because none of you people here have reasonably priced headphone amps and the opinion of headroom here is pretty neutral. See, I did all this just to fit in, and what do I get? I get you all turning vinyl and beta deuce deuce on me.. I'm tired of this conversation, let's talk about something else. I'm leaving.

So says the guy with the 1/2 inch wide Cardas headphone cable

The fee was actually $800 but he deducted $300 if you used HD650s, and another $300 if your speaker setup means more to you than the headphone rig. Count me lucky

Did it go something like, ? to which I was going to reply

The only photo felt like I needed to take. The IEM's are from Nankai (of Head-Direct), the same ones where the PK1 come from. These were prototypes of their IEM's which function quite like ER-4P/S. The ugly contraption in the middle that looks like a couple of resistors wrapped in heatshrink is exactly what it looks like. It is an impedance adapter. I listened with and without adapter and felt they sounded like isolating PK1's with higher quality bass. Nothing like the ER-4 in sound, only in function. They were very hard to drive, but the pico handled them very well. The music was full and did not exhibit any kind of blatant faults. The soundstage was more realistic than the ety's, and overall felt more dynamic. As fulfilling as the er4s lows and midrange was with the pico, this ugly thing one-up's it. Resolution was fine, but there could be more air and nuance. The only thing that I don't like about it besides the fit (more on that later) was that the lack of extension in the highest highs. The fit sucked for me. They would fall out no matter what. I was provided alternate tips which fit better, but eventually unseated and would fall out after a few minutes anyway. I was informed they would be inserted maybe as deep as universal UE iems, or even less deep.

Maybe that is why the player was used in the "challenge" where people were asked to differentiate between the G08 and the predator. I did not take the "challenge" because I did believe they would sound the same. That was probably the intention of the challenge, I think maybe 10 people chose the predator dac over the two who chose dac off (meridian out). That was pretty sad.... Then again at least the predator dac was "voiced" for the amp, while the meridian to the predator amp section was probably the most random thing ever...in the negative sense. I think many others couldn't tell between the two. I myself did not need to "tell" or be "challenged." All I did was plug the etys into the predator and after maybe a few minutes of disjointed imaging and very distorted presentation- I removed the iems in horror. With K701's plugged in which presented a tough load, the bass disappeared. Obviously the Senn's fared well but that would be akin to saying well a big slow ups truck is REALLY good at carrying packages so I will get one instead of a nice sedan that does everything well.

No it wasn't the squarewave. The thing was actually called "transparent" or "transparency." Either that or they just wrote the words on the front panel for some reason. It was a giant chassis, maybe 25 inches wide by 6~8 inches tall if i remember correctly. It was solid state, and was a preamp/headphone amp with a numeric display on the front, and comes with a remote control. I think there were more than one boxes. It was like a "system" or something if I'm not mistaken, because next to it, was another box- with maybe two dozen bnc connectors....

Right the singlepower "transparency" solid state preamp with volume control was a fine piece of sound. I didn't get much time with it, but it was up there with the big toys. Again, it was connected to a meridian... The design totally took a turn for the modern. The display screen and skeletal front panel gave a different feel than the usual overbuilt glossy black pieces. The Krell headphone amp with external power supply was really something too. The bass was absolutely visceral, as expected of krell. The krell too input from the ack dack, which I was no too fond of. I would love to hear the amp again, with more familiar and preferred sources next time. What is it with the omnipresent meridians.....Do dvd roms and opamp output stages synergize well or something?

Hi! headfi is down right now, so I think I'll just post impressions here! The good folks at the meet pointed me to this site, as I didn't know there were other headphone forums! First of all, before I can gather all my memories, here are a brief list of things that stuck in my mind as specially worth mentioning: The Pico(dac+amp) out of someone's laptop -> er4s I came with huge expectations, and knew I would be dissapoited especially because ever time I know something will be fabulous and perfect, I would always overestimate the thing. The Pico though..... It were as if all the hidden impact and lushness suddenly woke up in the etys. Like how the kiss from a prince wakes up the beautiful princess. My findings of extreme transparency, layering, and microdetail were confirmed with full sized senns. The soundstage wasn't bad either . I came. I listened. I loved. So many meridians.... The SR325 Balanced out of the balanced small amp (forgot the name) and the toaster supra. These are the grados that I could live with- I liked them better than the hp series, especially out of the supra. I didn't catch the source. HD650 out of balanced mini three, with Hertsens Signature Dac as source and some Arcam cd player as transport. The owner and creator, Nate, told me the price of the little balanced amp and I couldn't believe how great it was. Honestly, at first I did not feel for it, but after hearing an apache out of a G08, with the same headphones and cd, I came to appreciate how much better the two one-of-a-kind boxes were. Real giant killer. HE90. Third time with these headphones. I did not think much of them until now. I am seasoned enough to realize these are just about the most natural sounding headphones out there. Pushed by ES1, sourced by meridian. Some things that didn't surprise me at all: The Predator in dac mode with HD600. They sounded very energetic. Overall impression was a very congested Hornet that was then limited by some kind of mid-fi dac. I recognized the sound signature of both the dac and amp section in a heartbeat. A friend of mine told me to compare the predator and pico for her, and even try to measure it- but do to technical difficulties(her bad directions on how to use RMAA) and lack of time, I did not get to compare both "technically." BUT. I did not need to. It was hinted that the Predator will also be ~500. They do not belong in the same pricepoint. One sounds like a home component and the other sounds like a beat up hornet gasping for air, being pulled down by the weight of the mediocre dac. I believe it would compete better with the likes of the total bithead. The Pico amp section. I recognized the sound signature of the amp section, and it is most likely the weaker link. The dac is strong, but to ask for any better amp section would be stupid because of the size and intended usage. All in all, it sounded good, and sounded better than many of the high price luxury name stationary setups there. Some things that I did not particularly enjoy: [*]K1000 out of Apache. Abysmal does not begin to describe the shortcomings. Granted the minithree balanced did not fare much better either- but it was sad because the Apache power supply was Dual Mono and looked huge compared to the pathetic little dual power supply in the minithree bal(two power supplies from one wall wart?) [*]The take t2. Boy it was dark, deep, and just.. cavernous sounding. I remember awhile back during an urban expedition where we explored the abandoned subways under Rochester. The sheer blackness and spaciousness just overwhelmed me. That was the first thing I felt with this pezio/transformer setup. The setup was T2+transformer <- Dared MP5 speaker out <- Meridian something (508 most likely). [*]Sony R10 out of anything. I cannot see how this thing is "reference" level. [*]Westone3 out of ipod+alo lod+ portable amp(romanee's amp). The ipod and amp and cable were fine. The iems on the other hand were not very enjoyable for all the hype. The only upside is it's well integration between highs all the way down to the abundant lows. There was not a hint of discontinuity. Then again, the whole sound signature reminded me of E500's but dipped in syrup. Slow, with thin highs just trying to peek out of the dense fog. Much more natural than the E500 but then not much else going for it besides that. More impressions in a little while..