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jp11801

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Posts posted by jp11801

  1. So there have been a few threads that have touched on it, but let me ask directly - for those have compared...

    A) Which is the better at DAC only duty?

    B) Which is better as a DAC/head amp combo for occasional transportable use with low impedance cans and which for high impedance cans?

    Any words of advice would be appreciated and if you could qualify/quantify the preference it would be doubly so. Obviously, these two units were designed for different uses, but they are priced similarly and often touted.

    Finally, personally I already have the Pico which I'm currently using as a DAC, so any comments especially from Duet fans if it's worth switching over would be a plus.

    if you want you can borrow my duet for a week to check it out.

  2. Below is the post from Headfi here is the link Norcal Mini-ish Meet impressions 8-9-08 - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio

    Wow what a fun meet, thanks to Dan for opening his home to us all We had a great group of folks there that all shared a deep love of music and gear. It showed with lively discussion. I eneded up staying at Dans place when the group went to lunch so I could get some quite time listening done.

    There was a ton of of top flight gear considering this was a mini meet. Once again even though I was there for 12 hours I still did not listen everything.

    Eddie Current, a tale of three amps.

    The Nautilus, this is one heck of an amp and is a bit of a swiss army knife. It drives single ended, balanced and speakers (8 watts at 8ohms) that are sensitive. Great sounding amp and given its flexibilty could be a cool solution for folks that want one amp to do it all. Of the three amps there it ranked third sonically but not by alot. It is not as refined as the balancing act or the hd2 but it is as good as or better than most amps I have heard in the 2k-3k price range. This amp could be configured for WE 437 driver tubes and that could make it give the BA and HD2 a better run for the money. Craig indicated that the jury was still out on his producing this amp.

    The Balancing Act, what can I say I love this amp. Where it beats the Nautilus and potentially the HD2 is tone. This amp has some of the most realistic tone I have heard. Top to bottom it produces great sound but the midrange is really sweet. I really think he has hit a home run with this amp. It is a preamp/headamp so for speakers a power amp will be needed. Given its strenghts with 650, rs1s, audio technica ad2000s and every other headphone thrown at it yesterday it is a winner. We had the proto version that has a standard power supply and we found out that power supply is going to be upgraded in the production version. Also there was talk of some pretty cool case work on this amp.

    HD2, well since I own it there is a bit of owner bias probably so I'll let others comment on their thoughts. Needless to say after a year of ownership I love this freakin amp.

    KGSS, we had a DX version in the house and I loved it with the lamba pros just a great match. This is an great amp with a nice look and even better sound. I may prefer this sonincally to the BH or ES1 mainly as I am not a huge fan of the pentode sound and find this amp to be smoother in presentation. I am most likely the only person on the planet to feel this way so take my comments with a grain of salt.

    Yamamoto HA-02, I may have treated this amp unfairly in the past. I have heard it with grado headphones and it was not a good match at all. With PS1s the bass was flabby and out of control and it did not fair too much better with rs1s. Now I used it today with the Audio Technica Ad2000s and it was a great match. This does not make a whole lot of sense as the AD are 40ohm and the grado are 32 ohm so you figure the same amp would work well with both. If you own AT headohones and need a cool looking small amp that sounds great you need to give this one a look.

    Grado GS1000, I owned a pair that I bought directly after the New York meet and sold them a few months after getting them. This pair was better than I recall my old pair sounding. Mine had a tendancy to get hot on the top end but this pair was another story. Great balanced sound and when pushed did get hot/harsh on top. No sibilance to speak of the the mids were good not rs1 good but good. Mikeymad has a pair of these that has the mojo.

    Audio Technics AD2000, this high end offering from AT is the Rodney Dangerfield of high end headphones, it just does not get the respect is deserves, IMHO. I have had these for a few weeks and I feel like they out perform the Senn 650s and my RS1s with my amp. They are very open sounding with a very accurate tone. They seem to be amp dependant and scale well rewarding you as you improve source and amp. They are also hard to find in the US. To get real world pricing on these you need to shop on lines stores in Japan.

    Big props to Bigguy and Mrs Bigguy for the brownies and pecans. They are some of the nicest people I have met at meets and it is always a pleasure to see them.

    Mikey thanks for the awesome beverages as well the whiskey and rye hit the spot yesterday!

    thats all for now

  3. grado QC was not as much of an issue in the past and generally seems to be something that has cropped up in the past 2-3 years. This could not be related to QC as the drivers are obviously different. I would not be surprised if grados went through multiple iterations of drivers over the years while keeping the model numbers the same.

    One thing to recall is Grado was almost out of business at one point due to declining sales under Joe and John did alot to resurrect the brand. So IMHO Joe was a much better headphone designer and John was a much better marketing and manager person.

  4. from a visual inspection as well as comparisons to HP2s they do not share the same drivers. They are different and to my ears may have an advantage. I know Ken will disagree as he sees the rs1s as having too hot a top end but I love the mids of these and the better extension both top and bottom over the hp2. They are a more enjoyable headphone to me, the older version that is.

    I would love to get a panel of 4 or so people and do a comprehensive RS1 breakdown as it is still fairly misunderstood how these headphones have devolved over time.

  5. There are at probably /34 versions of the rs1 over time and maybe more. So far I have heard at least three of them. The brown leather headband absolutely has different drivers than the black leather headband/no serial # as we put that to the test at yesterdays meet. The brown pair was more refined with better seperation, the black pair was still great but was not as refined. The brown leather had drivers/screens with a redish hue to them while the black had drivers with a black driver/screen. Both of these are better than the new version by a wide margin and I think there was a change during the serial # black version as well.

    In gemeral the older the rs1 typically the better the sound as the drivers seem to have benn copromised over time. So if a new pair was $650 and an older pair black no serial # was $650 on the used market it would be a no brainer to get the older pair. THey are better looking and more importatnly sounding. Yes the brown leather is expensive but I now regreat selling my pair as the ones I have are great but the others are a notch better.

  6. Ok I can't explain this but maybe one of you can, I am using a pair of Lambda pro headphones with the wrong transformer (srd7 normal bias) with an asl typhoon (kt88 amp 30 watts triode) and it sound fantastic. The sound is ever so slightly on the analytical side of like but no more so than a k1000 but with deep tight bass. Shouldn't this not work out since the transformer is meant for headphones with half the bias of the lambda pro??

    I really can't see how a stax amp is going to better this but I have a srm on the way

  7. I hope this isn't true. I was hoping to open a can of whoop ass Stevieo at the meet.

    why am I flashing back to CanJam, Voltron just about to crush Stevieo for keeping him up all night, then threatening to toss him off the balcony if he was not quiet. Thankfully our favorite curmudgeon was not killed in the incident and all was well come morning.

    there was never remotely close to the possibilty of a physical altercation between Tom and Aaron unless you include Tom hugging Aaron to death.

  8. Thanks, Mom, I'll keep that in mind. It'd be nice to know that everyone else at the meet was an adult as well, though.

    For the record, there's very little cyber-bullying at this site -- you may want to spin this as me vs. Aaron if you like, but I just get very sensitive about that sort of thing, so speak up about that particular offense a little more quickly than the other mods. He's one of the few offenders that I can recall that I've had to say anything to.

    Glad you're not going to be there, asshole. :P <-- see, smiley makes it all better, I just joking.

    Dusty it is a shame how sensitive you are to the topic, not trying to 'spin' this as an Aaron vs you thing this is what I have observed. You have a habit of jumping on Aaron if given the opportunity. If you see it different more in the context of the cyber bullying when Tom just held a birthday party for Aaron and they have been friends for years whatever, but in this case your wrong. I know you are not one to like to admit error. Just ask around if you think I'm wrong on that one.

    As for the meet I'd love to have met you as I find people are invariably different in person than they are on the web.

  9. I don't approve of his cyber-bullying persona, and I actually think that my reaction was pretty low-key. Also, there's jesting-jesting, and there was what Aaron was doing -- did he really need to throw that in there in what was largely a serious discussion? I'll be the judge of that.

    And I'm glad you-all know so surely when he's kidding and when he's not -- I don't, and if I don't, others don't either.

    I won't be bringing any gear to the meet. You can thank Aaron for making me feel uncomfortable about it.That won't be happening.

    The indication he was kidding was the smiley at the end of the phrase that you snipped off. Your reaction was low key only in that it was not as OOT as your previous Aaron conflicts.

    Your desicion to bring or not bring gear is yours and yours alone, rather than drama up the situation why not tell us why Aaron's mere presence makes you feel 'uncomfortable' bringing gear. You are a big boy and should be able to enjoy a meet without the presence of any member taking control of your ability to enjoy a gathering.

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