Asr

I'm here to please the masses Dusty, so whichever the majority wants. Pros for daisy-chaining: - the circuit would more easily accommodate international folks and the USA folks willing to ship (or buy from) abroad - receiving something from one person and sending to someone else = even moar fun - won't matter if there's an odd number of people Pros for pairing up: - probably easier to deal with as far as the PMs go - warmer, fuzzier feeling from the two-way exchange?

Ok well with hirsch on the list that leaves an odd number of people, so I might as well leave this open for a bit longer. New cut-off will be 5:30 PM MST on 11/19. And I think I'm going to officially call off the Secret Santa now, as I'm guessing the majority doesn't want to do it. Also, in the event we end up with an odd number of people, anyone want to volunteer gifting two people? If no one volunteers I'll take care of the extra person myself.

Ok I'll add stragglers like hirsch to the list but after today, that'll be it. The Secret Santa thing is still uncertain but response so far indicates it may not be happening.

Alright well at this point I think everyone wanting to participate has signed up by now, so the cut-off is right now instead of 11/30. I've given serious thought to the Secret Santa method since screaming oranges asked about it. IMO half the fun is getting a gift from someone you know (or kinda know at least) and I think I could make it work by boiling the list down into groups of 4-10 people each, instead of doing just 2-way (or even 3-way) Secret Santas. So if no one objects, I think I'm going to go ahead and do it. I intend to subjectively compile the groups but I'll do my best to match up people who know each other of course. As a gauge of interest, anyone who's signed up can send me a PM with their mailing address and music gift considerations (be as specific as possible down to artist or even title). I'll update again here in 2 days based on how many PMs I get, if any. If I get no PMs (or just a few), I'll just toss everyone into a randomizer as I was going to do originally. (See my post #1 for the link to the participant list.)

That's it, I'm self-imposing a music ban for a while after this batch. Bearfoot - Doors & Windows Black Sabbath - Paranoid [Deluxe Edition] Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited Bill Evans - Sunday at the Village Vanguard [XRCD] Iron Maiden - Number of the Beast Neil Young - After the Gold Rush Neil Young - Harvest Norah Jones - The Fall (pre-order) Phutureprimitive - Sub Conscious Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon [MFSL] The Eagles - Hell Freezes Over [XRCD]

1. Did you actually read my post #358 or just skim over it? 2. While I like and use a few aftermarket power cords (which are listed in my profile over at HF), I'm going to take a "no comment" position on the power cord question. I don't really believe they make much of a difference especially on a source component (I could believe them being more important on a power amplifier for example). 3. A power cord does not affect how much input power goes into the component that it's plugged into. 4. I wouldn't say my impressions are very valuable. They were based on a couple hours of listening and I wasn't listening extremely critically either, I was listening only for the most immediately obvious differences. 5. I intend on providing more impressions when I have the DAC back and can try the Listen and Measure settings along with its balanced output. The DAC was set on Listen btw, I didn't note that before.

In less than 8 hours we have almost twice as many people than Head-Fi's collected in....4 days? This is one of the reasons I love HC.

You can work out gift details with your exchange partner after you know who it is. I'll do the pairing off after we hit 11/30. It'd certainly be possible to do this in the Secret Santa method but then everyone would need to PM me their mailing address (for the people I don't already have info for). If you guys are comfortable with that, then why not. Edit: actually, I think we should toss the Secret Santa method. I thought about how to do it and it'd be too complex to coordinate with too many variables that turn it into a guessing game. We'll leave things as-is and folks can PM each other when we have the final list.

Hrmm actually if a moderator could replace the list in post #1 with this link, the updating will probably be easier: 2009 HC Holiday Gift Exchange

So I saw the thread Zanth started over at HF and thought hell, why not do our own CD/LP exchange here? I thought for a few seconds about signing up at the HF thread but I would personally much rather exchange with HC-ers over HF-ers. Luminette ran this last year so I thought I'd continue the trend this year. Anyone unfamiliar with how this works can refer to Zanth's thread at HF: Sign Up! For the 2009 Annual Head-fi Holiday Gift Exchange! - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio This participant list can be found here. The pairings are as follows: 4 50 Asr <> Torpedo 21 6 Fitz <> blessingx 11 3 Dash <> Aimless1 10 12 darthsilverice <> dBel84 44 35 shellylh <> MexicanDragon 33 52 luvdunhill <> veloaudio 39 24 naamanf <> grawk 8 40 Cankin <> nikongod 23 48 GPH <> The Monkey 42 7 penger <> boomana 41 51 omegaman <> tyrion 37 32 morphsci <> laxx 45 46 Sherwood <> spritzer 38 1 n_maher <> Absorbine_Sr 20 53 Elephas <> Voltron 28 18 Hopstretch <> Duggeh 17 9 drp <> cetoole 22 5 Genetic <> Augsburger 15 30 diebenkorn <> John E Woven 54 26 VPI <> HeadphoneAddict 34 55 manaox2 <> zippy2001 36 14 MoonShine <> deepak 29 25 jinp6301 <> guzziguy 49 31 tom_hankins <> jp11801 47 16 swt61 <> dreamwhisper 2 13 agile_one <> Deadneddz 43 27 postjack <> hirsch 19 Dusty Chalk

I will most likely write something about the WA22 over at Head-Fi at some point but right now can't offer anything about it as I've barely listened to it. And I don't own a K1000 but I do know a couple people not too far away from me who do. The demo WA22 at RMAF had the 7236. Jack informed me that some final changes were made to the amp between the prototype and the time of RMAF, one of which was easily noticeable - the amp was physically bigger (height was increased by a small amount).

Sylvania 7236 power tubes for WA22 Ayre QB-9 and these movies on DVD (both out today): Pixar's Up [Deluxe Edition], Watchmen: Ultimate Cut

You mean like these? quad Philips EL34 metal base Siemens Halske labeled SYO - eBay (item 330375396486 end time Nov-15-09 13:00:16 PST) I don't really need another set of tubes for my BHSE but if you say they're good....

Nope, definitely less cranky and snarky. As for the looks, well I won't go there.

Well I didn't think anyone would start a thread here on HC for this meet so I didn't take any HC-exclusive pics, otherwise I would've shot a few more for that purpose. I posted my impressions and pics over at HF on page 2 of the impressions thread here: ChiUniFi 2009 Impressions - Page 2 - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio In any case this was a really nice meet, very laidback and at a few times it was also really quiet. It was great to meet the Chicago-area crew for the first time, definitely enjoyed it. Really cool bunch of guys, as always happens at meets. Thanks to Ryan, Billy, Bryan, Jim, and the other dude (didn't catch his name) for the post-meet dinner at Ram, that was good stuff and the beer wasn't bad either. I have to say meeting Dr. Gilmore in person defied all preconceptions I had of him from his posts here on HC. He was really nice and even friendly which I wasn't expecting. Very excited for CanJam 2010 now and there's a good chance I'll see you guys again at ChiUniFi 4 too, though it's a bit early to call that one for certain. Oh and I loaned my Ayre QB-9 to Ryan and Woo WA22 to Jim, so I expect to see impressions posted of those at some point.

IMO, HP1000 > HD600. Dew et! Well then again, I also think OII MKI > HP1000....

Buy a plane ticket to the SoFla meet and then maybe you'll get a chance to hear 404LE on the BHSE, and maybe the ESP950 too? The more the merrier.

How much power do you need? There's the Exposure 2010S integrated which has a few solid positive reviews and isn't too expensive either at $1.1K. Or if you just need a power amp, you could try maybe the Parasound Halo A23.

Hi Wes, what is the RMS voltage output of the D100 MKI and MKII? I didn't find it mentioned on your Web site. Also, I don't mean to offend in any way, moreso of an observation, but I haven't seen any negative reviews of the DAC in the loaner - it's probably just me but I'd hope to see at least one negative opinion instead of all positive. I kinda find it hard to believe the number of people who've liked the DAC so far without anything bad (or at least, less than stellar) to say about it, even about something not necessarily SQ-related.

Ayre QB-9 Woo WA22 balanced headphones SR-404LE and JH13 but it'll fit only my ears Provided of course that there's someone in FL who'll be able to receive the boxes for these (and if not, I'll bring less stuff). Whoever receives them can also listen to any of them (either before or after the meet, dependent on other factors) and I'll cover the cost of shipping. In fact, if I do ship these to an HC-er, you will listen to either the Ayre or Woo (or 404LE) and will also write impressions. I don't need to send all 4 boxes to the same person btw, can split them as needed.

So....initial impressions (haven't got a chance to listen until now). Two things that have nothing to do with sound quality: (1) this thing has only 3 feet?! Two in front and one in back. I almost tipped it over pushing it down to hold it in place while inserting a power cord. Would've been better with 4 feet for the stability. (2) No power switch is lame. It turns on as soon you plug in the power cord. As for sound, well I had no idea what to expect. I made sure to configure Foobar2K and ASIO4ALL correctly as outlined on Ayre's Web site and then connected it, using the Gilmore Lite and Qualia. Then I queued up some reference music tracks and....I'm disappointed. Not that it sounds bad of course, but it's just not as good as my Plinius CD-101. I kinda feel like I'm continually trumping the horn of my Plinius CDP but it really is awesome-sounding and the QB-9 isn't at its level. The QB-9 has less treble quantity, feels just a tad slower, and has less virtual air (as in, the soundstage sounds smaller). It also seems less dynamic - as in, quiet vs loud doesn't exactly have as wide a range as on the Plinius and notes that have sudden intensity on the Plinius sound kinda dull on the Ayre. I was hoping for awesomeness but got merely only relatively above-average sound.

Well I haven't listened to the CD with the JH13 yet (which I'm looking forward to doing), so my opinion could still change.... Mine took just under a year for Justin to do, so yours might be close.

I have decided I'm most likely going to keep the BHSE. I was previously entertaining the thought of eventually selling it, but I don't think I'll be able to now. Listened to Julia Fischer's Bach Concertos disc twice last night and it was the most amazing thing I've heard. I was liking the HP1000's portrayal a lot, but the OII/BHSE just plain beat it into submission. It was so intensely awesome, the only thing I can compare it to is similar to that point in time while skiing and you see an edge coming up but can't see anything below and for one hairy moment you feel anticipation, adrenaline, fear, & even time itself. The entire CD was like that all the way through (well most of the tracks, not counting the slower pieces). Granted that's a recording-dependent aspect but the OII/BHSE translated it in a way the HP1000 couldn't even dream of. It was scintillating and intensifying and almost kinda scary. I'm still getting breathless just thinking about it.

Julia Fischer - Bach Concertos. This music is just absolutely sublime on the HP1000.

Unless you also have the time and money to acquire a proper amp for the Stax OII, throw that idea out the window. Proper amps include: SRM-717, KGSS, KGBH, BHSE, or WES. You might as well just buy whatever headphones you're thinking of trying, and sell the one you don't like. The D7000 might not be too hard to buy used on HF, not sure about the HD800 since the ones I've seen went pretty quickly. (HeadRoom also has a b-stock D7000 right now at $589 incidentally.) You might also consider either the Audio-Technica AD2000 or the AKG K340. The K340 sounds pretty good out of the Cayin HA-1A when set to Ultralinear (assuming that's the model you have), but that amp isn't quite as good with low-impedance headphones like Audio-Technicas or Grados (and presumably, Denons too). I also previously owned the Lehmann BCL and found it not that great with low-impedance headphones - it worked better with my AKGs at the time and I suspect it'd be ok for Senns as well. Anyone can view posts on HF so I have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe you should try not logging in, if that's what you're doing. And here's another tip: maybe you should try to attend the next Head-Fi meet in Australia.