mwl168

Agreed! I did not pay attention to the sound stage when I auditioned the Focal's and I have no familiarity with HD800 other than a very brief listening in an uncontrolled environment. Going by memory the HD800 is also a more comfortable headphone than the Focal's. The Utopia, if priced at $2000 US, would have been a no-brainer for me.

Got to listen to both the Utopia and Elear while I was in SF last week. Unfortunately I was under the weather and was listening to these headphones through totally unfamiliar upstream gears in a somewhat noisy setting, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, take this impression with a large grain of salt. Both headphones are very well made and comfortable to wear. They are definitely on the heavier side but not quite as bad as the Audeze's. The bulkiness of the cable that many complaint about actually did not bother me that much. I do wish they have come with balanced connection option though. To establish somewhat of a baseline, I also listened to the store's Audeze LCD 2. I am familiar with the sound of Senn HD650, Audeze LCD 2, Stax 007 and 009 (both later versions). To my ears the Elear's sound reminds me of the LCD 2 while the Utopia reminds me of the 009. They (Utoipa and Elear) have different sound signature - similar to what I think of the 007 and 009. I don't necessarily think of the Utopia as the upgrade from the Elear. The Utopia has better resolution and is more neutral yet brighter sounding to me. I do like the Utopia better overall but not sure I can justify the $3000 difference in price. Compare to other $1000 headphones I know of, the Elear is a very strong contender. Now if the Utopia is a $2500 USD headphone then we'll really be talking... Just my 2 cents worth...

These boards are relatively new from Kevin. I don't think there is much discussion yet here in this forum. I plan to start a build thread and post a BOM. But will need to wait till I return home from my business trip.

Each set of boards dropped $2 US due to the larger number of boards ordered than originally planned. This amount will be deducted from the shipping cost to you. All Europe-bound boards were sent to MLA this morning for distribution to the individual GB participants. All US-bound boards were sent via USPS Priority Mail this morning as well. USPS raised the postage on Jan. 22 this year, it's now $7.20. The US GB participants please PayPal Gift me $5.20 to cover the shipping charge. For gepardcv it's $3.2. For those that did not use PayPal Gift please add extra to cover the PayPal fees. Thanks all for your patience.

Just returned home a few hours ago from an unexpected, overseas trip. The boards have arrived. They look great and have a heavy, solid kind of feel to it. Since we ended up ordering more than 15 pairs the cost did come down a little which I will reflect in the shipping cost. Will sort things out in the next day or two and start sending the boards out. The rotten part is I leave again for a business trip in a few days so may not get around to ship all boards out before I leave. Apologize ahead for the delay.

Very elegant I don't see a power-on indicator on the front plate?

On the second photo of the board, the solder joint of the tab of the PZTA06 between the offset trim pot and the 0.1uf bypass capacitor looks suspicious to me. May want to re-flow it.

I love the bit where a 2-gang volume pot is used for a balanced stereo amp...

Found the perfect length (8cm IIRC) screw at ACE Hardware. Got lucky! I screwed the bottom transformer down first with the supplied pads and washers and then stacked the second one on top. It's very secure. I laid out the components (PS, amp boards, transformers, XLR sockets) with the objective to keep the transformers and ac wires as far away as possible from the input wire and the amp boards. No buzz no hum that I can detect

Order placed with PCBnet. Will keep you posted with updates.

Here is a list of the participants and the number of sets (2 boards per set). Please correct me if I missed something. The * indicates that the participant has PayPal'ed me the cost for the boards. jose* 2 Kevin Gilmore 1 gwrskien* 2 PICaudio* 3 Sr Marques* 2 gepardcv* 2 MLA* 1 chinsettawaong* 1 chiguy* 1 MattN* 1 headinclouds 1 livewire 1 Inu* 1 GB will close after today. Tomorrow I will contact PCBnet to place order.

This is way cool Kerry!

Thanks Chris! Two 25VA transformers stacked - one for each channel

Old wine in a new bottle - just finished casing mySS Dynalo today. Dual mono setup - one Antek 25va transformer and one 20VDC GoldenReference for each channel. Just over 14mA current on each output device (MPSWx6). First built this SS Dynalo back in 2014. Every time I took a break from my ES setup to listen to this amp I am amazed how much I like its sound. Wish I had the chance to listen to the top Focal headphones with this amp...

My bad. I meant to close the GB in one week but I read the Calendar wrong. 2/26 it is. GB is reopened. I like to use heavier copper on PCB like the BH board with tube filament traces that carry higher current.

I don't have one on mine either although I do have a thermistor on the AC mains.

I can confirm that the 2 oz and 3 oz copper option is not a big factor in PCBnet pricing - in this case, it really comes down to the number of boards. It is also true that for other fab house (such as Seeed) the copper weight affects cost greatly. I don't know why. I can price out the GRHV boards at Seeed if people are interested. And yes, the PCB board is really a small % of investment compares to the parts and chassis, etc..

Why not follow the high-end audio industry practice and just use duck tape. They supposed to sound better that way!

Another two GRLV live! These are set up for 20VDC rails to power my dual-mono SS Dynalo. Thanks to Pars for his creation and generosity of sharing the Schottky bridges with a built-in AC snubber. Although I have to settle for the LM4040 VREF for now until I get the LT1021.

It does not look like we have enough interest in GRHV to support a GB. We will follow the original plan to close this GB today and I'll submit order Monday. Here is a list of the participants and the number of sets (2 boards per set). Please correct me if I missed something. The * indicates that the participant has PayPal'ed me the cost for the boards. jose* 2 Kevin Gilmore 1 gwrskien* 2 PICaudio* 3 Sr Marques* 2 gepardcv* 2 MLA* 1 chinsettawaong* 1 chiguy 1 MattN* 1

The BH board measures 5.6" x 4.5" (143mm x 115mm). The transistors are meant to be mounted off-board so if using an angle you'll need to add on to the 4.5"/115mm dimension. Like the Grounded Grid and T2, the tubes are meant to be mounted on the back side of the boards. Possibly a few others parts (LED, trimpots) too for ease of adjustment.

I have some Philip Miniwatt tubes.

Enkei is another option I can recommend for rotary forged wheels. I have a set of their 18" Raijin wheels and like them a lot. http://enkei.com/shop/tuning/raijin/ Enkei's been around for a long time and has manufactured wheels for Formula 1 cars.

Got the quote back for the PSU boards. 2mm thickness and 3 oz copper, at 10 sets each the dual board will cost about $37 US each and the split boards will be about $74 per set. I am not too surprised with the high cost, volume speaks.

Update: 1. MLA has gracefully volunteered to be the Europe "distributor" of this GB so I will ship all Europe-bound boards to MLA for him to relay to the individuals. thanks MLA! 2. Thanks to sbelyo for offering. I am happy to add the GRHV PS to the GB too. Please state your interest (number of boards, preference of split vs. dual boards) here. For these HV applications I recommend we use 2mm thick boards. I'll get a preliminary quotes from PCBnet and share the information here. We will likely need to extend the GB for a few days longer. Hope that's not a problem for you all.