aerius

The 12W6 & 12V6 I'm rather familiar with because I recently bought up the entire surplus shop's stock for my own uses. I have a rough build (push-pull design) using the ECC40 as the input & phase-splitter with the 12W6 in triode mode and it sounds pretty nice, but I'm running into distortion issues at higher volumes since the ECC40 is pretty underpowered. Killer with Grados, not so good with my K340, I'll probably put a 12SN7 or 6BL7 in the phase-splitter/driver slot next and see how that works out. Results are promising so far. I can't wait to see how your amp turns out.

More thoughts on the Raptor PSU. Looking at the size of the heatsink I'd guess the regulator's giving off about 5-10W of heat, and the off-board mounting of the resistors would imply that they're dissipating about 2-3W each. So low end estimate of 11W and 19W at the high end for power being wasted in the PSU. Assuming a 25W transformer which is about the most you can hope for given its size, in a best case scenario the donut's right on its limits, and worst case it's way its rating. It looks nice, but the design is shit. Anyways, what am I looking forward to? Earl's transformer output Singlepower, and toroidal output transformers no less. That should have serious drive & slam along with the ability to drive any headphone with ease, and with higher power tubes like the 6BL7 or 6BX7 it's going to be a beast.

I'm pretty sure I got a good seal since I couldn't hear a damn thing from outside. Heard'em at a couple meets with both flanges & foams, it absolutely needs tube gear and even then I still didn't like it much. To me it's for someone who likes the HP-1000 sound as opposed to the RS-1 or PS-1 sound.

I know, and IMO it's still pretty borderline at best. From spec sheets, 5687's are good for 7.5W per tube on the high voltage plates, 12AX7 is 2.4W, for a theoretical max of 17.4W. Let's say the tubes are run at about 80% of max which is typical of many modern designs, that gives 14W. Assuming a 25W donut that's not too bad, leaves about 10W for the caps & regulators. A 20W toroid and that margin's getting pretty thin. Take into account the current spikes from the caps charging up on each AC cycle and that margin's close to gone. Personally I want the donut to be rated for at least twice the power that the tubes are pulling, and preferably 4 times or more.

I do have to question the Ety ER4 recommendations, it's very different from the Shure sound and I'm not convinced it's the right way to go. To me at least, Shures have a decent balance with slightly rolled off highs while the Ety ER4 is painfully bright with super-tight and to me, lacking and dry bass. The ER4 is among the most sterile and analytical IEM or headphone I've ever heard, and with an all solidstate signal chain it just spells trouble IMO. Personally I'd much rather grab a Shure E4, not it's not quite as detailed & resolving but I find the balance is a lot better and the tone is much more to my liking.

Heat dissipation, keeps the resistors from burnng the board. Though the way he does it would never meet standards. You're supposed to bend a kink like this to keep resistors and other parts off the board instead of going straight in. That's because it is. I can buy a switcher very similar to it for $8 at the local surplus store, in fact they might even have the exact model. No, it's not just you. Scaling off the IEC socket the picture is LARGER than life-size on my 17" monitor which is set to a 1024 x 762 resolution. That Plitron transformer's probably rated at around 20-25W tops. Which means this power supply is almost as underpowered as the original one.

Actually I was thinking about gluing plastic tabs on them, marking up the price about 20 times, and then selling them as "amorphous high density insulating cable risers".

I hate to be a party pooper and all but a Dynahi? Granted I've never heard one with an RS-1, but to date I've heard two of them with an HP-2 and my Grado 225 and I was not particularly happy with the combos. Yes it's detailed, extended, dynamic and so forth, but it doesn't do the full wrap-around soundstage of a good tube amp. It doesn't have the "reach out and touch it feel", then again, not much does. Also, better check the gain on the amp unless you want your ears blown out, I couldn't listen to one on the stock gain with Grados, way, way, way too loud.

If I had to take a guess I'd say that some people aren't getting laid enough, but I could be wrong since I only took one Psychology course in university many years ago...

Well...I guess I know what to do now with all the shot glasses I have lying around....

First we have vibrators, which are toys which vibrate. They come in many shapes, most are cylindrical with a tapered rounded end. Some have multiple heads, and there's even a vibrating rubber duck, but that's besides the point. Then we have dildoes, which are soft or semi-soft toys which look like a penis. Generally made of silicone rubber. From that, we derive the vibrating dildo, which is a semi-soft vibrating rubber penis.

I just ordered one for my GF's birthday next month.

Made a couple more changes. Power supply transformer is now fixed at 240V, and the 820R cathode resistors on the output tubes are now switchable between 1k and 640R. 1k is for 6SN7 and 6BX7 tubes, and 640R is for 6BL7's. 6BL7's are happier and sound more open at this new operating point, and the other 2 sound the same as before as far as I can tell. This amp will cleanly drive any dynamic headphone I can think of, even the K1000. Tyll said it sounds good, so build my amp damnit!

On my admittedly substandard computer setup it sounds like someone turned on the megabass boost for that little stretch of drumming. Sounds like normal bass drums, but with the bass turned way up.

Might be because they sound better. I have 12D4 damper diodes on my amp and briefly tried out a 5X4G. Wasn't quite as quiet as the damper diodes and the sound wasn't as natural, the highs were a tad more sibilant. Damper diodes also have a nice delayed turn-on which Kevin Gilmore said is essential for the life of the output tubes. Now I can't confirm this but someone on the DIYaudioforums had an RCA catalogue from way back when with all the prices listed. A pair of 6AX4 or similar damper diodes actually costs more than a 5AR4 or other such large bottle full-wave rectifier. So they're cheaper now but not back then.

Millet to M3 is IMO only a small upgrade at best that's not really worth it, especially with RS-1. To me the META, PPA, and M3 series of amps work better with Senns and don't get along quite as well with Grados. I'm in agreement with en480c4, save up for a while longer and then splurge on a high-end tube amp.

I mentioned on Head-fi a couple months back that HiFi News & Reviews (the June issue I believe) had done an article on cable break-in. What they basically did was take a brand new cable and set it up as a loop between the output & input of a soundcard. Then they ran a piece of music through it a bunch of times and plotted the errors and the spread between the errors. After that broke-in the cable and ran the tests again, with the result that there was less spread in the errors. They concluded that there was a difference, but that it's still too early to make a definitive statement and that it'll take more tests to come to a conclusion.

Actually if you saw the MTV awards Samuel L Jackson said something like "the only thing better than 'Snakes on a Plane' is 'More Motherfucking Snakes on More Motherfucking Planes'". There's probably a clip of it somewhere on Youtube or google video.

Yeah, it's 2 kick drums, either that or he's got a killer double kick pedal. I've heard pretty much the same thing except a lot louder with a lot more pounding at a Slayer concert.

Haven't heard one from RAM, but I have heard a CD player (Biggie's) with transformer outputs, and it is the best CD player I've ever heard, and this includes Naim gear and the Class? Delta series. As I understand it the transformers get driven off the DAC chip(s), which filters out the ultrasonic noise and makes the sound smoother and more natural. Downside being the output voltage is a bit lower and it may have some difficulty driving long cable runs. Transformer quality is critical, don't let them cheap out on you, get the good stuff like Lundahls.

Beer and hookers for everyone!

Power supply updated to Mk2Mod2 status. Now using a bigger transformer from the surplus store along with a hybrid bridge rectifier. Uses UF4007 diodes and 12D4 vacuum tubes, all resistors are 5W. Quieter, with less hiss & hum. Dead silent with my Senn 580 and K340, just a bit of background hiss & hum with my Grado 225, but I suspect it would be a problem for Ety & Shure owners. Still have some grounding & wire routing issues to clean up which should kill any remaining noise, but I'm too damn lazy.

You're both totally right and you're both totally wrong. There, are you both fucking happy now?

It'll rain if you want it to rain. There's also a firehose hooked up for some odd reason... It's loosely based on a real life event I once witnessed.

The key to doing the tuning is to change only one thing at a time so you know which changes are doing what. It's a pretty obvious thing but many people (including myself at times) tend to forget that and/or lose patience and start changing more than one thing at once. Sometimes you get lucky, usually you don't, and in either case you have no idea which change made the improvement. Good luck, and I hope you find a tuning you're happy with.