n_maher

tkam the balanced cables are on the way!

No you're not, you're acting like a jackass. You clearly don't. Acting like a jackass is a privilege earned, not given when you sign up. You want to discuss, fine, tell me how I wasn't discussing and where I allegedly took too much credit or whatever I did that was elitist? There's precious little debate, attenuating the output of an amplifier (not a source) is a terrible idea no matter how you slice it. You might get away with it on a preamp if you carefully considered the input impedance of the following stage but again I'd question why someone would ever choose the least efficient path and one that is more likely to muck up the signal. Perhaps I should have been more clear, based on my research and in my opinion using a resistor divider on the output of the source would be my first and preferred method for dealing with the problem of insufficient range of volume adjustment when changing the gain of the amp in question is not practical.

Have no fear, we can hang out with our inferior budget stats. No O2 in my future.

Uh, pardon me but what the fuck is up with your attitude? Are you trying to piss me off? I knew why it was a shitty idea and told you as much, output impedance and damping factor are linked concepts and was exactly what I was referring to when I said: The whole point of amps like the beta22 is that they present a near-zero output impedance which allows them to have very tight control over the headphone regardless of the headphones impedance. Change that and by default you affect the damping factor and the amp's ability to control the headphone. Now, there are those that would argue that having too high a damping factor is a bad thing, but that's another discussion. How do I know? Because I took the time to do the research. Credit where credit is do? I gave myself essentially no credit. And how am I being an elitist? You made a comment about people crapping their pants with reference to output attenuation, therefore I used the word shitty to describe the decision to attenuate on the output. Get it, it's a fucking pun.

I beg to differ and justin explained it better than I could have Why would you imagine that? You can select tightly matched, high-quality resistors that are impedance appropriate. In that scenario this first attenuation stage would probably be doing less harm to the signal than the variable attenuator that you're using as a volume pot.

And by doing so complicate the heck out of the arrangement and also have to deal with a lot more power dissipation over the resistors.

The gain of the the amp is also tuned with compensation caps which should be changed for different gain configurations. So the switch required to change all of that for even two channels would be mind-numbingly complex and the wiring would be begging for noise. And it would have to be a pretty crappy in-line attenuator to roll off any portion of the signal now that I look into it further. I'm sure there are crappy ones out there, but provided you choose wisely you shouldn't see any real signal degradation. If a source has north of a 2V output you can probably safely cut that in half (6db reduction) and still have more than enough signal for the amp to work with.

No difference, but the pot is always on the input. Rough wiring diagram: source ---> attenuator ---> amp ---> headphones

I'd only do it on the input. From where I sit the output would be a very bad idea since you'd be destroying the output impedance of the amp. No pants crapping here, but it does sound like a shitty idea.

Glad they worked out for you. I've been playing with numbers based on Justin's simple resistor-divider suggestion and wondering if something like it wouldn't be a great way to add "gain" adjustment to something like the beta22. It wouldn't be all that difficult to make it up on protoboard and wire it to a multi-position switch. It would make it a lot easier to build the beta so that it would be far more suitable for both speaker (high gain) and headphone (low gain) use.

$20k for an Orpehus, I think I'll pass. paging Ray Samuels...Ray Samuels get your checkbook please...

Sweet!

Happy Birthday, Young!

You talking about my link? It's just a youtube video that won't f'ing work regardless of the 3 different links I've tried, that are all working just fine.

It's official, I love Sia. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jabkk5m5Zi0 Can't get the embedded video to work for this for some reason???

You don't disappoint, the Ed9's do though! *zing* I'm hoping that next year's CanJam will be in LA so I can make it with the excuse of visiting my little sister. I assume that if the meet is that close some of your big rig will make an appearance?

I expect better from you...

Oh my...

Ohh, there are other gems out there... http://www.istanbul.tc/mahir/mahir/

If that's all it takes for it to be sufficient, great. Also, I'd love to see the required mods to raise the bias up a bit from the stock 580VDC. I know that some of you have already done this and have specific thoughts about what bias the 950s really like to run at (above 600V). I'm sure this is just a matter of tweaking a few part values.

What are the required specifications for the KGSS trafo again? I was going to contact a trafo-man'f today anyway regarding a custom transformer so I might as well ask them about this project as well. Colin mentioned the following: 100VA R-core transformer with 300v-0-300v at 80mA,0-6.3v at 2A, 0-18v*2 at 1.2A, and 0-12.6v at 1A.

Sorry they don't make KEF shoes.

We are shoe twins, I love my Keen shoes/sandals/whachamacallits as well.

PFK FTW Of course jena-anything would be at the head of the list followed by most of the ALO re-cabled stuff.