aerius

It's not that bad. Some Lowther speakers are well over 2 Teslas. Mind you they're not an inch from your skull like a headphone driver.

I seem to recall a certain someone saying something about "no 'stats for '08!" I wonder how that one worked out...

Well, either you're buying a TTVJ Millet 307A tube amp or you're building a similar tube amp of your own.

Be sure to sample BC's #1 cash crop

In case you're not being sarcastic, "Black Sabbath" and "Paranoid" are the title tracks from their respective albums.

I don't know, I initially read the thread title as "another reason for me to get the gun tonight", which makes sense and made me click on the link to find out who boomana wanted to shoot tonight. I was greatly disappointed.

Jimi Hendrix - Red House (Isle of Wight version) The Doors - When The Music's Over

It was the LL1676. K&K Audio / Lundahl Transformers: Superb results with LL1676 in 1:1 mode by Lynn Olson

I don't know, I've never heard the SE version of the Woo 6. The stock version certainly doesn't. I have played with the 6DE7 and similar tubes in a few DIY experiments of my own, I've never been able to make them sound like 2A3's so I'd say it's highly unlikely that they can be made to sound a DHT. Impossible? Who knows, but the odds are highly against it.

Pretty much. The small triode in a 6DE7 is sort of like a 6SN7, but with a lot less power. The larger triode in the tube has nothing in common with a 2A3, except for the fact that they're both triodes. The power ratings are way off, the specs aren't anywhere close, the closest thing to the large triode half of a 6DE7 is a 6BX7, and that's still not quite right since the 6BX7 can handle more power.

Yup, ML used Arlon 25N which is better than FR4 but still a ways off from the top of the line stuff that Arlon makes these days. I'd probably go for the CuClad series or the AD255A & AD260A, or if cost really is no object you can go nuts with the CLTE series.

Years ago when I worked in the electronics assembly industry, we did a small run of boards made from Arlon AD320. They have a whole bunch of fancy board materials which you find on this page. Might as well use the good stuff when you're building an all-out project.

First thing is to make sure your monitor's calibrated properly. Go here and use the links & charts to setup brightness, contrast, colour, and gamma on your monitor. Most monitors are way, way off and that will cause eye strain. At the same time, see a eye doc and ask for tips, and get your prescription checked out while you're there. Your glasses or contacts don't have to be off by much to cause problems, 0.25 diopters could be the difference between no problems and "dang, my eyes hurt!"

A total Charlie Foxtrot.

Final notes, since I have to return the HD800 to its owner today. The vinyl experience was mixed, on a good relatively neutral setup the HD800 disappoints, it sounds much like it does on my EAR Acute with some small variations in soundstaging & detail retrieval abilities. Bit more emotional involving, but not by much. The frequency balance, bass dynamics, and so forth are also fairly close. It's nice I guess, but I sure as hell wouldn't pay $10k+ for what is in my opinion a small marginal improvement in fun & goodness. But there was one setup where it kicked ass, and that's with a vintage Garrard 401 turntable and Ortofon SPU cartridge with some big curvy shiny chrome tonearm. This setup has the biggest, fattest, most dynamic bass I've ever heard, anywhere, and the HD800 finally comes alive & boogies on this rig. The Senn is finally fun & involving, it can now rock out and make me feel the Blues. I finally had a shit-eating grin. But it does come at a price, this setup is not as detailed & resolving as a modern vinyl rig, and it's not going to have the massive endless soundstage with precision imaging that a good modern setup does. A local audio dealer once described it as follows, "the Nottingham (Dais) is like an F1 car, it's super sharp & fast and absolutely precise. The Garrard is like cruisin' down the street in a '57 Chevy, it's not going to touch the F1 car in performance but it's a hell of a lot more fun & stylish. It's just damn cool & fun". So yeah, I finally know what it takes to make an HD800 work for me, so in a sense, mission accomplished.

Your room isn't nearly as big as I imagined it to be, it slipped my mind that houses & room over here in North America are generally far larger than those in the UK, so when I read "large room" I was thinking of something around twice the size of the room depicted in your photos. This opens up a lot of possibilities, the Living Voice Avatar is back in the game, to me it's a Quad ESL-57 with a slightly warmer balance which can play a fair bit louder. It's also pretty efficient & easy to drive, 30-50W is likely all you'll ever need. You could likely get away with ESL-63's as well, though volume might be a tad limited.

Yeah, I'm a hopeless Sarah Slean fan...

Now that soundstage has been mentioned again, I'd like to make a quick note. Sennheiser has finally fixed the goddamn "3-blob" soundstage problem of the HD580/600/650 series. They finally have a coherant soundstage without dead spots in it. Also like my HD580, they sound better with vinyl, even though my digital setup is worth 10X more than my vinyl rig. I don't get as much detail off the records but the overall balance is nicer, with the bass & midrange filling in a bit. Part of it is the records themselves as the LP versions of some of my albums are way better than the CDs, but that's not the whole story since a few of my CDs and LPs are effectively identical when played on high-end rigs. In general, the HD800 sounds warmer & more punchy when playing music on my vinyl rig, and with records, I think I could be pretty happy with it. Partly because my the music in my LP collection suits it better, and partly because for whatever voodoo reason, records just work better with the Senn 800. More investigation is needed, I'll need to see if these impressions hold on a high-end and more neutral vinyl setup than my own.

Actually it makes perfect sense. When you're holding the earbud with the logo and channel marking facing you, it's in the correct position for insertion into your ear.

Unfortunately I am a basshead and a fair bit of my music is improved with a slight to moderate mid-bass hump. Definitely agree that it's a 'phone in the monitor-speaker style. I think it depends on the size of the head-stage called for in the recording, for instance most fullscale symphonic works have a large soundfield since they're recorded in nice big concert halls, and this works well with the HD800's head-stage. Something with a small soundfield such as a recording made in a small jazz bar with the mic being fairly close to the musicians doesn't work that well. I find that the HD800's head-stage makes the space sound too big in such situations. ------------- Further impression. My Blues! What have you done to them? My RS-1 is the go to headphone for all my Blues music, after a good session I'm like "damn...daayaamm!!" and I feel emotionally moved and/or drained. With the HD800 my reaction following a Blues listening session is along the lines of "well, that sounded pretty good but I'm not feelin' it..." I mean, it's great that I can hear when SRV and Albert King break their guitar strings during "Blues at Sunrise" but if I'm not feeling the music then it's not much good to me. I need an emotional connection to my music and the HD800 ain't giving it to me.

Part of it is a fit issue, with the way my head & face is shaped there's a bit of a gap between the pads & the side of my head/face in some places unless the headphone is perfectly positioned, but in that "perfect" position the tips of my ears touch the 'phones or pads and that's annoying to me. It's not an issue with my HD580 since I made a set of custom pads for them, Grados sit on top the ears so it's not an issue there either. The HD800's do sound better if I push them against the side of my head a bit, but not better enough.

EAR Acute CD player, plus a couple DIY tube amps of my own design. By changing the tubes & bias points, I can make the amps sound like nice crisp solidstate or overly warm & tubey with rolled off treble, and anything in between. I generally set it for a neutral to slightly tubey sound, but with the HD800 I had to dial up the tubeyness more than normal to try & get the sound to where I wanted it. I think the HD800 is more in the K701 or Grado HP-1000 family of sound, which is not really my thing, and that's fine. I'm more of an RS-1 person since I own one, and it's not exactly everyone's cup of tea either.

I've had an HD800 on loan for a few days and so far I'm not digging it. To me it's sorta like a super AKG K701, which is unfortunate since I don't like the K701. Yes it's super clean, yes it's very detailed, but like the K701 there's not much joy in the music. Which would be fine if it had no other issues since it would make for a great tool in testing out amps & sources, or doing recording/monitoring/mastering and that kinda stuff. Unfortunately I had several issues. My main issue is the bass, or rather, "where's the goddamn bass? I want my bass back, damnit!" If I play any of the songs off Die, Rugged Man, Die by RA the Rugged Man, I expect big fat fucking bass, I don't get that with the HD800, it's more like what I'd hear from a set of Quad ESL-57's. It doesn't hit hard, it ain't got weight to it, and it can't groove for beans. This is a problem even with classical, say for instance the last couple minutes of "Ride of the Valkyries" which should sound huge with good weight behind it. The HD800 fails here once again, I far prefer the presentation of my HD580 here. Yeah it gets confused and compressed, but at least the weight is there to make it sound huge, whereas the H800 sounds wussy for lack of better words. Similar problem with the XRCD version of "Scheherazade", the bass just isn't there to balance out the rest of the piece. I also noted the upper midrange/lower treble wonkiness mentioned by The Sloth, which showed up in the violin sections of "Scheherazade", it just doesn't sound right. I had some issues with the treble as well, but managed to fix that with the right tubes in my CDP and amp, at least enough so it doesn't bug me at normal listening levels. One final problem for me was the soundstage, as with the K701 it's always too darn big. When the recording calls for a small acoustic space, the HD800 doesn't shrink down the soundstage to match. For instance if you took the Cowboy Junkies' "Trinity Session" and "Whites Off Earth Now", both of which were recorded with the same single ambisonics mic but in very different acoustic spaces (a medium sized church and their own garage, respectively), the reproduction of the soundfield should be very different as well. My K340 is excellent at this, it'll shrink the space right down and make it nice & intimate whereas the HD800 always sounds like the music is in a bigger space than it should be. I've been in the Church of the Holy Trinity where the Trinity Session was recorded (and heard some cool bands & music there), it's not as big as the HD800's make it sound. I think part of the excellent separation that the HD800 achieves comes from making the soundstage artificially large, if you have more space there's more room to put stuff without having it overlap & get fuzzy.

Ride of the Valkyries, and crank the volume way up. Why? Because it's loud & fun, goddamnit. Plus a lot of systems can't handle the dynamics and crap out. O Fortuna from Orff's "Camina Burana", also with the volume cranked up good. Same reason as above. Volga Boatmen's Song as performed by the Red Army Choir (make sure it's the Naxos CD). This pretty much covers it all, it has a ridiculous dynamic range from the opening to the crescendo as it goes from a solo voice to a full choir & orchestra. Most systems will crap out at around the 2 minute mark, but it keeps getting louder for another 30 seconds or so. Wait for the trumpets a bit before the 2:25 mark, if they can't cut through the sound and blast you the system is crap. The choir & orchestra will also expose any colourations in the midrange, and quite a few in the bass & treble as well. If the voices start breaking up, getting "honky" or don't sound natural, I know there's something wonky going on. It also works soundstaging & imaging and pretty much everything else except the ability to play female vocals. Sweet Ones by Sarah Slean. Cause I like it and it sounds good.

Not a headphone meet, and not exactly in Toronto, but it's a meet nonetheless. Audio Meet Announcement