grawk

duet: needle drop, full sized connections, bus powered pico: tiny, even with the power supply They both sound great with grados and etys. but if you dn't have a use for the adc, and mostly want portability, the pico wins. The power supply doesn't make anywhere near enough difference compared to the size of the duet.

Happy birthday to you and matt!

$125 for a 4x8' sheet of 3/4" ply? OUCH. I'm glad I get lumber for free.

That's called negotiation.

Boils down to IC is the only real way to find out what current market conditions are. No matter what people paid in the past, it was for gear in the past. Most of that stuff doesn't sell every day, so you have to figure out what the buyers shopping now are looking for. If you come to a price agreement, then you sell. Otherwise, you don't.

I'd say $350 for serious on the hf1s, and yah, $160 on the k501s.

I'm comparing the headphone out on the minidac to the one on the duet. The duet is world's better. I didn't like the headphone out on the minidac. Note however, that I'm talking about using my ears, and my grados.

The k501s have been selling for about $160 or so, I believe, but I sold mine years ago for $135. The HF1s have been selling for about $185, which is pretty good, only lost $20 in 4 years. I'll send payment for them asap, what's your paypal? The others, I have no idea.

I have never made a serious post about the bose, and have never mentioned the ESW9 prior to right this second. So, my only contribution to this thread was to say you're acting like that guy with the stick in his ass. I continue to believe that.

I think I do. Unfortunately, I sold the minidac, so I can't compare directly. But the headphone out is 1000000% better. And I think I do prefer the duet to the minidac. But when you include the cost, I 100% prefer the duet. $480 AD/DA vs $750 DA, no contest. Especially when other people buy them and make needledrops

Seems to me that "sounds worse" is more accurate for phil collins...

I haven't expressed an opinion on the gear. I'm not interested in the category even. But you're showing up talking like we should bow before you.

Apple made it so apogee only had to worry about the quality of the converters, and handled everything else for them. Saved them a lot in development costs. The result is unbelievable. It's cheaper to buy a duet + a mac mini than to buy anything else comparable without the mac.

If you haven't sent the hd600s yet, don't. I am buying a set . The zachypoo cable on the other hand, send up

It's like you want people to think of you as that guy walking around with a stick in his ass.

Todd's Philips is probably in your ballpark, and a big switch from the meridian

Just for fun, try this experiment. Open the 24 bit recording in a sound editor, aligning the file so that the loudest point in the performance is at 0dB. Then convert it to 16bit with dither. See if you can tell the difference

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5uw07iEkjU]YouTube - Bill Gates' Farewell - Microsoft at CES 2008[/ame]

http://www.break.com/index/monkey-needs-a-drink.html

Sure, I can add that to my review

Or don't have line of sight, which the aex makes easy . Putting the AEX away from the mac, means you could need to control a remote mac.

Ok, using a radio shack spl meter and white noise, I level matched the duet headphone jack to the m3 headphone jack. Realizing that the m3 is balanced, using cinemag transformers to balance the inputs. The m3 has better bass control, better details, and is more "full". But the duet headphone jack is no slouch. And it's a LOT smaller. First few minutes of testing says duet is a nice portable solution (while nowhere near as portable as the pico ). Comparisons with the pico will begin when the package from california gets here. And of course, extended listening will happen with both, I just figured I'd post initial duet impressions.

OMG this thing ROCKS. Drives the hf1s well, sounds great so far with the m3 as a speaker amp and headphone amp. I can't wait to give it the head to head with the pico.

I haven't heard anyone complain about the volume when using line in, only from the dac. And even then, not everyone has a problem with it. If you don't already have a pico, give it a shot and see.

It's set as low as it can go.