jp11801

I had the yatra and loved I use the bloom now and it is great actually not too far off the yatra from memory. The bloom is a .24 and with the Mod Squad phono pre I have plenty of power but the Mod Squad provides 70db of gain I believe.

yes HPA I meant mini and yes I found the duet better than it from both a dac and headphone out perspective

just get a great vinyl rig and needle drop the wax to 24/88.2;D

Look if you want to upgrade going with a Head Direct EF1 or a Novo is not a real improvement save your $$ until you can buy a real improvement. I may be in the minority on this but I thought the duet was better than the micro from a HP out and DAC standpoint.

We can ask if Steve can do that again. The issue with taping it is that none of the music can be contained in the taped version due to copyrights. So you can get Steve but none of the music still great though.

To ensure people are in the know here as well this is the latest and greatest from CanJam 09 speakers. We hope to have a few more but this was the one that I know we needed to have based on the work he and Joe have done with the Blue Note series. Now I just have to make sure I can get a seat. Well hats off to Voltron for setting this up for CanJam 2009. Steve Hoffman and Joe Harley (Music Matters) have graciously agreed to speak at Can Jam Saturday 5/30/2009. The talk is going to center around their recent ground breaking work with the Music Matters Blue Note reissue series. For those that have not seen Steve talk, the hour or so is filled with amazing music and anecdotes from his work. I guarantee everyone who attends will get a ton of enjoyment and knowledge out of this lecture. At the San Jose Headfest 2007 Steve's talk was standing room only! Here is some information that Al has provided for the Steve Hoffman forum: Originally Posted by Voltron "Steve Hoffman and Joe Harley have graciously agreed to speak together at Head-Fi's Fourth Annual International Headphone/Audio Meet, aka Can Jam 2009, which is happening May 29-31 at the LAX Hilton. All members of this fantastic forum are also invited to attend the meet and catch the Steve & Joe Show. The focus of the talk will be the Music Matters Jazz Blue Note reissue series, not surprisingly, and it will be a great opportunity to hear some of the behind the scenes info and even more importantly cuts of music in their historic master tape form. Steve's talks are legendary, and he was the highlight of our Second Annual meet up in San Jose so don't miss it!" I had the pleasure of attending one of Steve's talk at CES and it was outstanding. The hour plus was filled with music as I had never heard it and entertaining and informative information.

Paul welcome

Just got home after the whirlwind trip and if I had it to do all over again (next year) I'd take three days at least. The senns upon reflection are really a no brainer and I am sure will get better reviews when paired with a better amp than the dac1. I have nothing against the dac1 but at the end of the day it is a dac with amp in it not the other way around. If you are planning on buying one of these the same amp rules of engagement for 650s should apply. Good amp will equal good sound but great amp will take them a whole hell of alot higher. Other gear fly bys we werea ble to hit: Ultrasone Edition 8s, not a bad headphone and on par with the Ed9s. Small ear cups and they are very shiney. Sound was good and detailed and lacked that unnatural sound I often complain about with the pair of ED9s I had. Still for the price I'g do with the HD800 unless I wanted a $1400 portable headphone. They also had an amp there on display the Al listened to but seemed to have a few technical difficulties and was not funtioning properly. Quad Room, as a nod to the head to the Quad heads here we stopped in. They had a pair of the stats up and running with an all Quad electronincs package. SOund was nice and organinc but lacked any real drive and emeotion. Maybe it was they room or maybe it was my expectations but we left after a track to seek out greener pastures. Hanson Speaker Room, Great rig but missed the bulls eye. They had the Hanson big dogs in here $60k worth of speaker the Kings. The front end was a beautifull Redpoint turntable and DCS digital player that was driven by C.A.T pre and power amps. Nice sound and almost world class but suffered from a top end that could have used a bit of taming. Great stuff but I expect perfection when the total rig price is well over $100k. TAD has two rooms going, one with their big speakers and one with stand mount larger monitors. In the bigger room they partnered with Ray Kimber who was demoing his isomike recordings. Great sound in both rooms but the smaller monitors sounded better to me but it may have been the music or room set up as I have heard the larger speakers really shine in the past. Both rooms used pass lab amps and the smaller speakers had the berkeley alpha dac in use. The berkeley dac is one I really want to audition in my rig as everything I have heard about this dac screams home run. Red Wine Audio, when Al and I spied Vinnie Rossi and the RWA audio room we had to stop by. For those that haven't met Vinnie he is one of the good guys out there in the biz. RWA has the new Isabella pre/dac into a tube power amp (el34s) feeding new two ways from Europe. The speakers were nice but not totally my things and at $4500 I need to be better wowed. I really wish he had the hemp speakers from Omega only because they represent a point of reference and I could have gotten a better feeling for his pre/dac. If you are ever at a show spend some time with RWA great guy and he has always treated me right. We caught the Steve Hoffman talk at 2pm in the KS cable room. First of all Steve is a class act and if you ever get a chance to hear him speak do not miss the opportunity. His knowledge is without peer and his delivery is down to earth and funny. Other than the three loud and obnoxious members of the well known audio media/MOT that sat behind and talked through a few songs and droned on and on about some cable maker like he was Moses it was time well spent. Steve covered alot of ground in 70 minutes from Sinatra to Nat King Cole, the Beatles, Art Pepper and more. Probably most interesting was listening to the direct mike feeds from the Sinatra and Nat Cole sessiosn with the echo chamber treatments that are on the LPs and CDs. WOW sound like you are right there in the room the equivilent of a sonic holograms. He played a clip of I'n So Tired from the Beatles White Album that has such extension both low and high that is just not present on the cds or lps. Lets hope that cataloge get better treatment in the years to come.

They are as good as maybe better tough to say definatively without a side by side comp. They are very fast, transparent with a wide open and very detailed soundstage.

Never call a friend about going to Vegas if your not totally serious. After several phone calls Al and I booked a one day blitz of CES madness to see if the HD 800 hype was for real. I'm on an iPhone so more details to come but the HD 800 is the real deal and to me worth every penny of the $1400 asking price. We got into Vegas at 10am and went straight to the Senn display area for a 20 minute session each with the HD800. All I can say it they sound Great and are competitive with any top tier headphone (current or discontinued). Thanks to Jude, Drew and Tyl for the hookup and it was great to hang with Ed, Naaman and his Dave. Dinner and drinks was a blast! To be continued...

Earl that is a sweet amp congrats

Happy Birhday hope you have a great day

Dan keep calling him can you hide your phone number?

The Who My Generation German Vinyl from the Phases Box Set. Sound is much better in the box than the classic records Who stuff I have heard.

There has got to be a competent tech in the greater LA area that can work on the amp. Well just like Melos Audio Restoration formed after Melos folded maybe we can form SPAR Single Power Audio Restoration. There will be two tiers of service one straight forward and fair priced and another that offer the full experience of additional wait times, refusals to respond, unauthorized work being done and false shipping numbers, this service will of course be about double the standard rate as it is alot of work to do all that.

I really do wish I had a stack or 75 $100 bills laying around to pick this up.

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c73/jp11801/Picture015.jpg] I hope to have mine in a few weeks

my build differs in a few ways I think as I had it set up for 6sn7/7n7 use and had these parts included in mybuild teflon tube sockets vcaps dact stepped attenuator pre amp out 4pin xlr hp out 3 rca inputs should be nice if the proto build I heard is any indication of the final sound I'll be a happy camper

ok so three and a half years ago your FS threads were deleted and the MOD in question stated they would take it up with the entire MOD team for feedback I'm not sure where I see the men in black here. There are DIY amps for sale pretty regularly on HF proving they are not stated clones of commercial amps. Was this a mistake probably was it a conspiricy probably not.

Damn you Postjack I'm going to have to get the Evans box! Has there been a release date announced yet. How is Death Magnetic, I had not heard great things about the LPs? Yesterday I picked up VanMorrison Moondance the Steve Hoffman mastered LP and David Bowie Hunky Dory on Simple Vinyl. They both sounded great but I think I like the Bowie better sonically not Moondance was bad (it's great) it is just that the Bowie album is superb. I just wish they had used better vinyl it is a bit noisy even after a good cleaning.

Mike where are the promised pics damn you! We demand PICS!!!

I would kill to get Derek Trucks live tone, not the slide tone but his picked tone. He uses his fingers like Jeff Beck instead of a pick I love that fat overdeiven tone.

Dan here's to hoping that you get your amp and it is what you expected. I hate to say it but at this point you should be keeping all options open and start to begin to exercise them like a complaint to the Colorado Better Business Bureau for starters. I like the guy in person but this theory that he can add additional shit to a repair job and them expect the customer to pay the bill when it was never approved is insane.

It never fails to amaze me the utter paranoia of people and you ASR when RSA in concerned. While Ray and I have had our differences the use of the word corrupt clearly accuses Headfi namely Jude of financial gain from RS in a way that is not above board. Quite frankly Steve that is just insane and a bit immature, there are plenty of ways RSA could pay Jude and or Headfi that would not be cloak and dagger like maybe a sponsor forum or banner ads has that thought ever crossed your mind. While I do not agree with the rule of no mention of HC on HF and I told Jude so I recognize his right to run the forum he started and financed his way. Personally I could give a crap that you don't post over there hey I'd love it if some of the other review crazed members took your same pledge as well. While HF is not always the place I wish it would be my complaint is not with the Mods or Jude but with the mindless members that follow pied piper pseudo reviewers you that claim to be all about adding to the community without ever admitting that they love the ass sucking they receive for their wordy reviews from members that lack experience that often fail to say all that much of merit. rant off.