Torpedo

I agree, however, measurements even very elemental ones but using proper microphone and a decent dummy ear, if made under the very same conditions, would give a hint about the differences among mk1 and mk2 in the midbass and other areas. It's not that much knowing the exact response on each phone, as knowing where the differences take place and their relative importance to the rest of the frequency spectrum response.

I'd like to see some well measured frequency response graphs, using a competent amp, comparing the O2 mkI to the mkII. Therefore we'd know which of them is more accurate and how our brains "understand" that.

Fantastic Nate, I was concerned you were going to freeze shortly Take care.

I find it interesting nonetheless. If they managed to produce headphones with the flat response of the HD600 or better, and with the lower distortion levels of the HD650, with improved impulse response and eventually more sensitive, they could be monster cans. Moreover, add to that package that they were closed or in the least provided more isolation than the current open design HD6xx, selling at some price point below $600, and I'd be scared if I were AKG, Ultrasone, Grado and the other competitors in the dynamic phones market.

Fabulous Pete, congratulations for your purchase. I hope you like it, it's a very good amp for the price, let's know how you like it.

Thanks for the update Malos. I wish you were lucky with your finals

^ LOL, you're very bad

I'll be getting them on its due time when the loaner program goes on, but I haven't heard of it, so not sure it's working. As things are going by, I'm afraid they'll take a couple of months or three to get to me

Welcome mate . Ask Tony, he's very happy with the recabled Etys and he'll be able to compare them to the W3 shortly.

Eli "paperboy" Reed - Roll with you [2008] Definitely this guy has energy

Whatever

A high price doesn't make a product any better, and all you know it well. I'm also not saying that the Denon used alone driving speakers would suffer some hum, it's probably dead silent. Those receivers show hum issues when used as sources or preamps. That's my experience and other people's too, but this doesn't mean Tkam's unit "has to" be huming necessarily and he should accept it as is. Specially after knowing the device didn't hum previously. However I'm prone to believe that he hardly will get rid of the hum when using the receiver as source or preamp. In any case I wish him the best of lucks

Sure, I'd have disagreed with myself too if I had known the problem appeared so many months later. I must have skipped it in your OP I'm assuming nothing else changed in your system a few days or even weeks before noticing the hum, and that it could have passed unnoticed until that moment. I didn't try to mean that being a common issue with AV receivers it's correct, right or even acceptable, but when used as sources/preamps for good sets of amps and speakers those devices get noisy. I read a lot of messages about similar issues at AA when I was more active there.

Zero 7 - The Garden (2006)

I regret to be insistent, but I don't think the Denon is misfunctioning, those hums on AV receivers are quite common Good luck fixing it mate

I have my Tri.fis with the Westone cable, but there's some work which has to be done in the tiny connectors to have them fitting into the Tri.fi's jacks. I think they were doing it at Jaben, not sure since I got mine used with the Westone cable already adapted.

LOL Aren't those portable?

I wouldn't touch it that soon, wait at least for 200-300 hours. I know you have a lot more experience than myself on components and burn-in times, but caps, and those Black gates are new, take some time to sound right. You wouldn't like to know about V-Caps TFTF

It's a modded version. John modded it in 2002 IIRC. Newer modded units have basically the same mods, but a more profuse use of Black Gates, which I'm not sure I'd like. A friend of mine owns another one but with an external trannies box (not the whole PS). It sounds different. People having heard several modded models says all sound different for unknown reasons even to John. Spritzer, I haven't listened to the Audiozone, so that makes things quite different. The Melior could sound harsher than a NOS DAC depending on the transport.

Ooopss I didn't get the quote as I wanted. This is a reply to GPH I think in the first page: Not necessarily so (about the need of having perfect pitch to enjoy and understand sounds). Can you name all the different colors and their slight variations and assigning them their frequency value? Probably not, and not a single painter, movie director, photographer... in the world can do it. Does that take any value to their art or the people enjoying it? As I see it not being able to assign a frequency value to a note, and therefore a "name", doesn't equal not being able to differentiate a 410Hz tone from a 415Hz one, and knowing for sure which is higher. They're different things.

IMO having perfect pitch is just having the ability to put a right name to a note, which is completely different to recognizing notes as different, being able to know if a piano is well tuned, recognizing instruments for their timbre and knowing if the timbre reproduction is right, acknowledging if a band is performing well tuned and playing in time.... For a musician can be handy having perfect pitch, but for the rest of human loving music, I find it quite irrelevant.

Very true. In fact, my Bidat despite being on 24/7, it never sounds the same to me when starting a listening session than about 20' later. Spritzer, the Melior I tried here didn't sound anything like you're describing, so give it a chance. IMO it's mellower than the DAC1, and probably it's bass is no match, but has some other very interesting properties, which for me are more important.

Congrats mate, the bitstream is quite nice, but it won't give you the bass the Bidat has. Still give it some serious burn-in, it will change, however I'm afraid it's not what you expect.

I haven't been blessed with that ability. It's something you just can't train. I can get close by a 3rd interval more or less, but never the right note, if I hit it, it's just pure chance. I still remember with hatred the music dictations in my elementary school days. If the teacher didn't give a reference...

I've listened to one of the Pioneer receivers using Icepower modules -I can't recall the model- at a friend's who has my same speakers. He writes reviews for a consumer electronics magazine, so he receives on loan many pieces of kit to judge, which I go to listen to his place quite often. This was the system being closer to mine that gave me more valid judgment terms. I also listened to a Jeff Rowland Concerto at a dealer, so set up including speakers was too different to get any solid impression on the amplification alone. However I found some signature in the voices, I mean that sort of artificiality I mentioned before, which was quite reminiscing of the Pioneer. Using the Tripath module I've listened to a T-amp, which wasn't bad at all for the price. In fact surprisingly good for what I expected having listened to other cheap D amps previously. However its power limitations were too big to find something to blame exclusively to its digital nature. I can't recall other D amps worth mentioning, mostly midfi models lacking interest, so my weak memory discarded them. A friend of mine has built a D-amp, not sure what modules he used, which in his opinion sounds really good -I take his opinions quite seriously-, but I haven't listened to it yet. I have to schedule a trial at home with him. Maybe it's different to other D-amps I've tried. Like I said, I'm quite confident that they'll manage to make those things sound as good as anything else. Well, in fact they've already done, some of those amps like the JR I bet sound better than many SS or even tube offers. It's just that the mistakes are different, so it's our own preference which will decide what we like better.