morphsci

Or going by past experience it will be a dumbed-down version of the XA-5400ES.

So if I arrive at 6:46 PM on Friday, will I be too late for the debauchery festivities?

Yep, the caps are there for our 4 1/2 year old. I just take the caps off and lick the top when I need a little recharge.

That is an old picture, before I actually received the amp. It does not look like that now. It also has proper caps on the tubes.

So I was reevaluating my two-channel system and while things were moved about I decided to remove some of the accumulated dust. I was using one of those swiffers on the ES-1 and I guess it is too forceful an instrument as the green glass covering the readout from the digital volume fell into the chassis. So I am going to open it up and remove the glass and re-affix it to the chassis. I realize I need to turn it over and separate the bottom from the top. There appears to be only 4 screws (2 front and 2 back), of the approximately 1 billion screws in the chassis, that actually hold the top and bottom together. This seems way to easy, am I missing something here? The piece I am trying to retrieve is the glass covering the readout in the image below and the two front screws I believe connect the top to the bottom are the lower screws on each side:

Exactly why digital inputs are a necessity.

Wow, you're lucky, the last time I dealt with Sennheiser parts it took longer than that to get them to actually confirm my order.

Very nice. If it sounds as good as the GES and swings more voltage then this should be a killer OII amp.

If you have never heard Jena balanced K-701s on an amp with some oomph you might be surprised. You know, the monkey typing on a keyboard, etc. Just sayin'...

x2 "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Different beast .... ES9018 not ES9008 chip. But no one has heard it yet, just talking specs and pixie dust right now.

That's what she said ... Ba-dump

I always thought it sounds very "hobbitty".

Did you hear the SA-50? Or was it the older SA-60 or DV-60 or even older DV-50? Just wondering as the SA-50 is pretty damn new. Oh, and the DCC stuff I have seems to be very well mastered and isn't overly compressed (in general).

No argument from me on that.

Good deal. Then you should really look at buying JP#'s Sony TT. It is a great deal and you can pick it up at Can-Jam.

Not disagreeing with you, about that nor saying that you necessarily should like it. Just pointing out that the source of the long-term problem may not be in the player. Also I don't think the compression "happens" with the DAC chips as much as certain DAC chips reveal the compression better. Does that mean they sound better? Nope, not at all, especially if, unfortunately, a good chunk of the source material out there, is not up to the resolving power of some DACs.

Hrm, I do not see how AB comparisons, even if blind, eliminate the possibility that one player is revealing the compression on the disc and another is not. You are essentially dealing with a non-linearity between the player effect and compression effect. You actually need to compare players and source material (compressed and non-compressed) simultaneously and estimate the interaction effect, which then indicates non-linearity of effects (i.e. each player is resolving the compression artifacts differently). That being said, I have been underwhellmed by the quality, or lack thereof, of the output stage on esoteric players. It looks like they are using a new output stage on the SA-50 compared to the DV-50 (and SA-60 for that matter). Does that look like the case to others, or am I letting my wishes get the better of me?

I think it was the royal they.

Well they arrived just fine. That is a shitload of mailers. Should last a long time. I just packed up a series of five albums I'm sending off to Luis and it worked great. They have dual perforations to adjust the width. You can fit about five with the smallest width so I was actually able to double box them. Seems very secure.

Excellent call. QFT

Buffalo32 DAC

I actually downloaded it because his headphone audio lexicon is so dam good. It should be mandatory for anyone wishing to do a review to be able to demonstrate that they have at least a rudimentary understanding of the concept of headstage.

Got one.