blubliss

Thanks, good to hear. He already taught me several things which Mikhail should have in the beginning. He said it is really important to have matched output tubes and I didn't know how important it was . He said my O2s were probably humming due to mismatched tubes??

Thanks for the info . I guess I 'll get it working again and not touch it in the future. Anyway, I took the unit to Blackie Pagano today (he returned my call within a few hours ). His shop/house was really cool and he is 20 minutes from me (which is next door in Los Angeles ). He says it is a fried resistor or two that were in line, which probably resulted from a bad output tube, which I had changed the day before. He will give the unit a once over and make sure all seems ship-shape. I guess he can sort out the circuit from the one working channel. I doubt Mikhail will give me a schematic but i'll ask. Blackie tells me 4 weeks since he is so busy; i could see his line of amps and it was not short. Hopefully he is more reliable than Mikhail, which will not be very difficult. At least I can drop-in if he takes too long. Mikhail and his lies are just too frustrating for me. Let's hope Blackie is better. His repair rates are really low considering some of his clientele.

I would wait until you had it, made sure it works and then provide him with some false money payment dates, and see how he likes it. On a very sour note, I just fried something (there is a black component in there) in my ES-2. I am looking for someone local to fix it, no way it is going into the morass. I don't think it was my fault but i did slightly move one of the tubes while it was on.

I guess Mikhail may not learn until he fails completely. If my amps go bad, I was thinking of asking this guy to take a look: Guitar Amplifier Repair Los Angeles , Tube Amp Repair and Custom at Tubesville by Blackie Pagano Did anybody hear this duality amp at the NY Int'l Meet in 2006 or meet this guy Blackie? He is 15 minutes away from me.

If your sister likes tea, this is a really cool place: Chadotea.com : Home They have about 200 varieties of tea to choose from. The afternoon tea option (~$15) is excellent, homemade scones with this very nice cream, sandwiches, pot of tea, piece of cake. There are two locations in LA.

That was thoroughly enjoyable. Thanks.

Yeah, that was me who called him out. I either have some seriously bad karma for choosing idiotic companies or I am an idiot. I am leaning towards the second one. At least I have solved the glare in my NWO by sending it an upsampled (176.4) from my PC-RME 9632. Sounds great now and no fatigue, but the player on its own should not have the glare issues.

Is the DAP-999EX the same DAC as the CDP-777, seems like it is? This would be nice for a computer setup since the CDP does not have digital input.

There is a Reimyo CDP-777 up at a'gon today $7800: AudiogoN ForSale: Combak Reimyo CDP 777

There is a new Reimyo dac coming out soon which could be promising. REIMYO DAP-999EX Digital Audio Processor Thread over here: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f113/reimyo-dap999-ex-new-24-bit-k2-dac-363419/

now, now i like me some trojans. it's my alma mater and the location of my first & only headphone mini-meet (2004) with iron dreamer, edwood, and jasper994 (in the same building where i lived 18 years earlier).

watched USC pulverize THE Ohio State .

Yes, i did freak out a bit in that thread and was quite upset. However, I am pretty sure it was actually a bad tube since I have run XF2s now successfully. But i am sure I could be wrong and you right. I have no technical knowledge to understand these issues. I am not saying that you are wrong Kevin, just wanting solid proof before fact is stated. You are respected so people listen. When/If you find problems i will certainly be grateful.

Ok, so nobody thinks i am a blind SP/Mikhail advocate who will say no evil, here is a doozy of a idiotic job. About a year ago I sent in my L3000 to be recabled to balanced by Mikhail. Since i got them back i have never been able to enjoy them, something seemed wrong. I tried many tubes to no avail. Well, 909 and I just had a late-night session at my place and lo and behold he noticed that something was amiss. We think he put the wrong drivers on the wrong side. Not only are the drivers facing the wrong direction, the whole housing is reversed. Looks like it will need to be recabled. That is fine since the cable he put on is the stiffest POS ever. Now I hate to add flames to the fire here but the truth needs to out. This guy can be a real moron. Makes me wonder what the inside of my amps look like?

Not true. As soon as something is proven beyond supposition, I will be the first to verbally rip Mikhail a new one as I have done in the past for his atrocious business habits.

Are you kidding? He stated his assertion as a fact. That's silly. Why would you defend him knowing that he hasn't even measured anything. I do have a big boner for people who act as they are truth incarnate, and it is especially disturbing when respected individuals in the community do it.

According to Mikhail, wrong again. How come you have such a big boner for Mikhail? And why don't you call him and discuss the supposed problems with him instead of spewing false accusations around the forums.

Good thing i gave my RSA XP-7 to my neighbor. That should keep the design patrol off my trail for awhile. But seeing the utter genius for sniffing out the worst in everything, they might still find me. Maybe I can fool them by letting them actually listen to one of the products they despise so much. Knowing the public safety/caribinieri mind though, this concept may be too confusing for the rationally obsessed know-it-all.

Uh oh, i hope i don't get my amps repo'd by the HC design police (caribinieri).

I have both a pair of Mikhail's and Synergistic Research top offering (Apex) ICs and with the shielding activated, Mikhail's cable beats the SR in one area especially, not sure of the word to use, want to say emotional involvement. The SR has a bit more bass extension. I would pick Mikhail's cable and it is a third of the retail price of the SR. (i paid nowhere near retail, let's just say less than half, for the SR and never would for any cables). Asr, did you hear the cable in question in your system? If not, your 2 cents are pretty meaningless.

Brent told me last week he may return mid-August??

Fortunately Mikhail did call me yesterday and one of my items had already been shipped and the other goes out today. I told him he gets no money until the tracking shows the item being picked up by FedEx to avoid the false tracking number game. So this completes my business with SP. Since he had already shipped the main item he had been stalling on, i decided not to back out completely. R10s go out today. BTW, he recabled to balanced all the way to the driver on this pair, since it was a later model and he deemed it safe. Future dealings with Mikhail are definitely not on my agenda. Too many headaches.

At least in my case (the other gent) the only tubes I have tried are ones that Mikhail approved and told me would work. As to the comment in the thread at HF that Mikhail has pledged to change his ways, all I can say is I will believe it when i see it. He has said this same thing to me on the phone at least 3-4 times when I told him he can't continue to run his business in this fashion. He is a very convincing talker, but actions speak louder than words. I really hope he means it this time. I still have no reply to two emails i sent on Fr. & Sat. about resolving our outstanding issues.

Seems to me that many factors led to this; which is in the forefront one may never know. I am sure all these things play a part: -fanboyism/shilling -atrocious business practices -poor reliability -Mikhail's incessant need to be creative (guzziguy stated this perfectly) -erroneous delivery dates While i am saddened by this downfall of SP, I am real glad it is out in the open now. My amps do sound very good, but there are some minor issues i would like checked out. Maybe this debacle will help Mikhail change, but my hopes are low at present. And, Tyrion, I want to hear these other amps because my experience is so limited. I have heard nothing but SP stuff so my mind is open. I will bring my stuff to the next Int'l meet and maybe you can help me out.

Unfortunately this is not the case. Galina answered the phone once when I called and had nothing to say. Mikhail has given me at least 3 "this weeks" since Can Jam.