jp11801

And dual seal lead acid batteries for clean power

Now I need to rally enough people to get a Headamp gilmore light SE (built around iem usage) made.

Andrew thanks for the link, the UNL-8 is really something special and as much as I love the UNL-2 the 8 better. The primary issue for consumer audiophiles with these boxes are 1) the physical interface, the 2 requires either re-terminating your rca to TRS on one side or using rca to TRS adapters. I re-terminated my cables last night and ditched the adapters. The UNL-8 requires custom breakout cables to stereo use as there are a myriad of cable options from the breakout. 2) the computer interface either the metric console or sonic console ( just about the same thing) is daunting for a non-studio person to overcome at first. I wound up creating a template for myself for playback of computer files and recoding of LPs but it took some experimenting. Those two somewhat minor issues aside I think they offer unparalleled performance at a more than fair price the UNL-2 is a screaming steal at $1695 new and $1100 or so used. It is my hope that these become more available and with support from audio retailers who can help set you up.BTW both the Metric Halo and Sonic Studio folks are awesome to work with and offer great support.

mine has optical as do all the new units when MH upgraded to the + version that included an additional board.

so did you place the order and if so what color and art

folks these absolutely rock the house and as much as I like the HF2s I find myself using these straight out of the dac/amp in the home rig over all else

I'd go no lettering just smooth and try to go gun metal like my pico!

good reason to get them recabled had a crazy thought how about a recable and custom re anodizing:eek: I smell a group buy

Felt great about myself prior to my post and feel even better after it. Seriously you have no fucking clue about the community over there and even less about the one we have here. Bye bye

Everyone except you douchebag

IMHO there are better ways to go, Ori is a good guy and respected in the local audio community but his dac/amp sounds a little bright to me

Listening directly out of the sonic studio 302 and it is pretty amazing. These do scale like crazy same song out of the iPhone is really good but out of the SS302 multiple levels of improvement.

Jerry could have saved me 5 years of searching and multiple purchases if he came out with these in 2004. While I've heard better sound overall, I've never heard better sound out of my Iphone or netbook>pico rig. It is so good that I am really considering going portable with the HiFiMan (or something that offers stupid quality/portability) and call it a day. To be able to get this detail and tone out of these little marvels makes me question the uber big rig idea. My only quibbles are: 1) very short cable, I'll eventually get an aftermarket cable or extension. 2) I'll need to get them adjusted as the fit while good is not perfect Pluses: 1) best in class sound quality for an IEM and rivals top end headphones (betters them in detail, layering and tone) 2) ability to take world class sound with you as in a pinch an Iphone is acceptable 3) takes the enclosure out of the equation but does not sound small like some iems I have heard/owned This is a real game changer I can't wait till more people have them. THey did open up with a night of burn in or I was in a better mood a day after they arrived. I would take some of Ed's comments to heart, if you have not owned customs before give them a couple of days for you to acclimate to how they feel and make sure they are inserted and seated properly. Mine were not seated properly for the first day or so and it was painful after an hour until I got the hand of it, I thought because I had iems before I could use the same technique for inserting them.

oddly enough the stumbling block for many audiophiles with pro audio is the set up. For example the Metric Halo units need 1/4 inch jacks to rca converters or a reterm of your existing cables and then you need to learn a pro interface that was designed for multi channel recording not 2 channel playback. These are not huge obstacles but create frustration in the critical few days just after purchase that I would venture cause audio folks to throw in the towel. It is totally worth the minor learning curve for the price to sound ratio.

Mike happy birthday !!

I am really curious about a comp with the ayre qb9, my local shop has the ayre and a MacBook pro so maybe I should stop over and put them head to head.

Ive got to check mine to see about optical. It is just a unl2 with a new faceplate and a sticker on the rear for the new serial number. Once I hooked up the FireWire, analog outs and analog inputs for vinyl transfers I haven't looked at it. It is a stupid good deal at $1700 at $1500 it's criminally good.

not likely as I gave up spinning the silver discs over a year ago with no plans to go back. If I have a next upgrade it is to the Metric Halo ULN-8 once they start hitting the used market in about a year.

right now it's ultra getto with rca to 1/4 adapters but I have some 1/4 mono jacks on the way from Nate to re-term my cables. sorry I was wrong in my write up about optical (didn't flip it around to to do the writing. Great firewire dac and maybe an even better adc section for needle dropping and the occasional delusions of guitar recording. Oh and the Amarra 4 (unl- is a serious step up from this but at 3-4 times the price it's something for me to aspire to someday rather than think about owning today.

while peeing in the sink may have some twenty something drunken allure I'm in the no fucking way camp here.

anyone that either buys or tries one and needs help doing the initial set up, lmk if I can help.

or in 30 days he can buy yours for $325 shipped;D

I've owned this piece now for a few weeks and have been pretty tight lipped on the sonics publicly. After a few weeks of use in my system damn if this isn't the best dac I've owned. Higher resolution than any of the dacs I've had in the house, greater frequency extension, no top end glare, great tone and just reports the new and does not seem to editorialize. In the house now are 4 dacs and the Sonic Studio 302 takes top honors. I've got an esoteric here on loan, my modded TranDac and the Apogee Duet. I was first turned on to the Metric Halo unit by Ironbut right around the time of the VSAC event. I researched the living crap out of pro audio dacs for a while and it kept coming back to this one (at least in my budget of sub $2k). I looked at the apogee rosetta 200, weiss dac 2 , lavry DA11 and the RME Fireface 800. Well after reading I eliminated the apogee as the reviews were pretty evenly split between both the Metric Halo and the Apogee and the Metric Halo has mic pre amps which could come in handy acting as a gain stage for direct to ADC needle drops, once I pick up the RIAA eq plug in for my unit. The RME unit held promise until I tried a fireface 400 and could not get it work with my mac after several attempts. When I brought it back to Guitar Center the guy there told me I was the second person to bring in the RME for not working out of the box that week. I quickly nixed the RME from my list and that left the Weiss and Lavy. I really like the Lavry and several people I know own either the DA10 or DA11 but after doing the math the Metric Halo was still tops with its ADC section. I still lust after the Weiss but can't get over the fact that I need to buy a separate ADC unit to perform needle drops. Well I set off to buy the Metric Halo used and kept missing them used both on Ebay and Craigslist but lucked out and found the Sonic Studio branded UNL-2 locally. I am listening to the unit right now and I swear it has made my digital section come close to my analog section, something I thought would take a few years and much more $$$$ to do. The unit has a built in headphone amp that works very well with the Grado HF-2s and surprisingly the JH13s but I think might suck with Senn 650s, 800s or AKG 702s. Through both my headphones and my speaker rig it has brought the level of transparency up several notches. There is a presence that I have not heard yet from digital that spooky was that the record or was that sound in real life thing happens much more with this dac. The big bonus for me are the inputs as there are mic preamps with 70db of gain as well as passive inputs with trim pots in case the signal is too hot you can take a few db off. This is really killer for me as I love to digitize my records. I may end up using this as a digital phono preamp in the future once I get some plugs to load the cart. Any way if you are in the market for a dac that works great as a computer interface you should really check one of these out. There are also coax and optical inputs if you want to come from a cd transport. I would gladly throw this in the ring with other dacs in it's price class up to 3-4 thousand. Now I recently heard the Amarra model 4 (metric halo unl-8 without mic pre amps) and that was really special and highly recommended if you have $6-8K. The UNL-2 is $1700 new from MH and can go to $2400 with optional DSP.

just to clarify CanJam at RMAF, the intent was to draw greater interest in the headphone annual event and broaden the level of knowledge regarding the annual event to a greater audience. While it is inevitable that people will agree or disagree with the potential outcome of the naming of the event the goal was to broaden the audience. Yes RMAF will have greater attendance than a CanJam annual event but the focus of the attendees is very different. I believe that both events can co-exist and gain from on another, but well see as time goes on. I would welcome any local participation or help in RMAF and also would welcome ways to market the Chicago event at RMAF. Ryan, just saw your post after mine went up, no vendor I have spoken with has indicated this to be an issue. We have gone a step further to attempt to squelch this by creating a bundle price to entice early enrollment in Chicago. I have no doubt that Chicago will be the largest and best event to date both in scope, size and attendance (both vendor and member).