Asr

This so-called review is just full of fail for so many reasons: 6moons audio reviews: Ray Samuels Audio Predator - What relevance do the speakers have unless the Predator is being used as a variable pre-amp? (Oh wait, they do...) - What's the point of listing all those cables when most of them can't be used with the Predator? - What playback software did they use? Which file format did they use? Did they even use a computer? Oh wait they did... - "At the back there is the receptacle for the regulated charger, then the 3-step gain selector and finally the mini USB input to receive the S/PDIF signal." - the last part is plain misinformation - So they could open the back panel but not the front? - "The huge capacitor on the lower board suggested that we had to take care with burning in the amplifier." So a capacitor automatically equates to burn-in? - "You have to keep on feeding the amplifier with a musical signal or else it will go into hibernation." - This is just false, I owned the Predator. Unless Ray changed it recently. - "Both interconnects were run in and we had a choice of headphones - a simple foldable Ultrasone, a Sony MDR F1, a loaner Sennheiser HD-600 and the Ultrasone Edition 9." - Now those headphones are really inspiring (not). And these so-called headphone amp reviewers need a loaner HD600? - Only 3 paragraphs to describe the sound? - "With modern PCs bristling with USB ports, they are all derived from one source point on the motherboard and depending on the quality of surrounding electronics, fining a clear signal is not easy." - This is just FALSE information! - "As a side note, it is advisable to stop any processes on a PC or Mac not vital to the task of reproducing music." - And this is just completely ridiculous. - "When our computer was rid of unwanted processes including firewall and anti-virus software -- barebacking but offline -- we connected the Predator and it was quickly recognized." - Oh geez, these guys are just plain stupid. I hope they got a virus during their review.

I would've hoped Mikhail was above that, but if that's the case...it lowers my opinion of him. But in any case I'm done with Mikhail and his amps, it's too much trouble dealing with him.

Well I think we can all agree the Square Wave XL is not 8-channel at least. And it must be seriously crammed to pack in 4 discrete circuits in that small chassis... Whoa, did Mikhail steal the design of the output stage?

Are those meet impressions supposed to make sense? And I myself question the listening ability of ole HeadphoneAddict there. At the Colorado 7/26/08 meet, he wanted to get my opinion of the WA GES prototype vs Stax SRM-1 MK2 using a Stax OII MKII and Stax Lambda and for a while there we were seriously trading headphones in like 3-5 second intervals. Like anything useful can be gathered from 3-5 seconds. If I'm supposed to provide actual impressions, especially between amps, in meet conditions, I need time to at least listen to an entire track and twice at that, not 3-5 seconds of it. (Though I did spend further listening time after he ended that crazy headphone-swapping session.) He also states there the Square Wave XL is "8-channel". I doubt the Square Wave XL is even 4-channel given its size, the single-ended one only has just enough room for the stereo discrete circuits (and they're the same size!). I'm also starting to question if Mikhail has actually made a Square Wave amp (non-DAC, w/ DAC, or XL version) since 2007, as the DAC version I have was also made in 2007, like the non-DAC one I had earlier. When I traded in at the aforementioned meet, I asked him if he recently changed the circuit and he said he did, and that the new one I had in my hands had it inside. But that seems to counter what I actually saw when I opened it to take pics, which identifies the board as "Rev A" from March 2007.

The D2000 is one of the worst closed cans for its price IMO. I'd rather take the ESW9 over it, which I didn't like much either (but I found it better and more versatile), or the AKG K271S (w/ velour pads of course). I also heard the D5000 at a meet earlier this year (San Mateo in June) and came away with the same opinion of it. Very overrated on Head-Fi, I don't know why it's gotten so much raving over there. I also incidentally heard the Ultrasone HFI-780 at the same meet and thought the same of it - extremely overrated. I can see all these overrated-on-HF closed cans being fine for gaming maybe, but for music I think they're crap. The best high-priced closed cans I've heard so far are the W5000, W2002, and L3000 (even though I don't personally like the L3000 much, but I've come to appreciate its qualities).

I swapped between bowls and flats on the PS1 at a recent meet off the Zana Deux. I preferred the flats myself but could see how some might prefer bowls. The flats made the bass thicker and more fun. But for the cost of either pads, you owe it to yourself to own both of course. It's like an ultra-cheap way to get two sounds out of almost any Grado. I have almost no amp experience with the PS1, having heard it only two times (first out of the Cayin HA-1A in 2006, and last month out of the Zana Deux) but matching should definitely be done carefully. I think it'd be more cost effective to pair with a tube amp since tubes can be easily rolled to tweak the sound, unless you have the time & budget necessary to experiment with solid-states.

Here's a better pic of referenced power supply:

Oh right, well I tend to be fluorescent. Well I haven't read much of Stereophile's past reviews of RSA stuff so I'm in the dark on that. Tellig did essentially rave about it though...

Uh...where? I don't see it on stereophile.com.

I got the September '08 issue of Stereophile in the mail yesterday, and Sam Tellig's column was about the Predator. Would it be wrong if I copied what he wrote now, or should I wait until the October issue is out?

Pico #073 (black, w/ DAC) is on sale at Audiogon: AudiogoN ForSale: Headamp Pico

Can you clarify on the site how much extra per length unit for both the interconnects and headphone cables? For example, how much for a 1M length of the Apex ICs? Also I see that your cheaper Oracle cable is a silver-alloy while the Apex is continuous-cast copper...is there a particular reason you went with the copper for a higher-end IC? Looking forward to the pics which will answer more questions I have regarding the specific Furutech connectors being used, along with flexibility and weight.

Happy B-day Kees

More pics as requested. The 8-pin IC was really hard to visually identify due to really small print and some yellow gob on it. I scraped the gob away very carefully as much as I could and took a magnifying glass to it. The most I could make out: "ATMEL624" on the first line, "2LC64AN" on the second line.

Happy B-day Tyll!

Oh I did, on my CDP with the Singlepower Transparency, under meet conditions. I didn't make any comments pertaining to sound quality though, just appearance and build quality - I don't think I need to hear them to make comments like those. I've owned a fair share of cables and have researched them quite a bit over the last several months.

I know this thread is old but I just wanted to my 2 cents on Singlepower's cables, which I've seen/handled at two meets this year (CanJam '08 and Colorado 7/26). Pertaining to stuff I remembered to ask Mikhail, he says his cables are shielded (visually obvious, but he did say that regardless) and have copper conductors. I forgot the price but it was a very expensive number, over $1K I think. Regardless of that, I fail to see what could possibly validate the price of his cables. He doesn't use high-grade connectors on any of them (whether speaker cables or analog interconnects) - no Furutech, Eichmann, WBT, etc. I'm not even sure he uses Neutrik because the connectors don't look standard. Physically they're pretty big too diametrically, and I have no idea what validates huge cables in the cables industry - maybe there's an argument for it on power cords but speaker cable and ICs? The construction/assembly really doesn't look all that amazing, I've seen better from the limited set of interconnects I've bought in the past. And he doesn't have name brand recognition in the cables industry either - I mean, anyone who's going to spend over $1K on cabling is probably going to get something more like Siltech, MIT, Synergistic Research, Transparent, et al. This and other incidents I've had with Mikhail make me question what he actually sells and experiments with as projects. If he were selling cables and amps to high-end audiophiles world-wide as he's led me to believe, I'm pretty sure would've read a lot more about Singlepower Audio than I've discovered on other forums like Audiogon, Audio Asylum, AudioKarma, etc, but there's practically nothing. It's very weird, almost all of the info I've read about Singlepower is on Head-Fi, not other sites. As far as the original topic of this thread, I'd also like to add another 2 cents about VH Audio, who makes the Symmetry XLR, which I previously owned. I also previously owned their Spectrum Ag. There are two primary reasons I sold both cables. One, I have it on good record that Chris VenHaus is an out-right liar, and I do mean out-right. Second, I also have it on good record that he sells at inflated prices. Needless to say I did not want to own cables from a vendor who has practices like that. Third, less primary reason I sold them was due to being sonically unimpressed with them. The Symmetry XLR was fine-sounding I guess but it had a critical problem as far as timing/attack compared to my Analysis Plus Silver Oval XLR.

Last I heard, the Square Wave DAC/amp was supposed to be approximately $1K. Non-DAC model slightly less, maybe $800-$900?

Nikon D80 body, Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 lens, Nikon SB-400 bounce flash, and 4GB Extreme III SD card (unpictured). ^ The last pic I'll ever take with my point-'n-shoot Canon SD600!

Well if there's anyone here (or elsewhere, that someone might know of) that could fix my no-bass issue, I'd like to get it fixed. Will pay for time/effort and return shipping of course. I could send it back to Mikhail of course but I'd rather not do that unless necessary.

No, and I neglected to ask, but it's shown up there in the first pic. I'm sure someone here can offer some input on it. I have no idea if it's a good DAC or not. But from what I can tell from the frequencies above 200Hz, it's at least decent-sounding. The lack of bass makes it impossible to critically listen tho.

I was going to post these pics on the other site but this is probably a better site to post these pics on. At a Colorado 7/26/08 meet that I organized, Mikhail traded me a Square Wave w/ DAC for the previous non-DAC one that I had. (It had developed a few problems.) Yay for free upgrade, except when I took it home and used it in DAC mode the next day after the meet there was pretty much no bass. I mean literally. It seemed like everything from 200Hz down was just plain not there. I even compared with a HeadAmp Pico to make sure the problem wasn't with the computer or some other such setting. I asked Filburt and he said this is probably due to the coupling caps. I'll let the pics do the talking:

yay, thanks. I just love the needlessly cartoony gore of that one, it's so re-watchable.

Oh I know, I was just taking your post to one of its possible logical conclusions for pretty much no reason whatsoever. Btw, you wouldn't happen to have the full-length animation of your avatar, would you? I love that one but haven't found it via Google yet.

Yup my avvy's from Descent II.