atothex

O my. That's truly epic.

Well, you just have to choose one. I'm saying you can go either way; both are OK. You can even add a reclocker or whatever in between the USB converter and the DAC if you're paranoid about jitter.

What's the difference between adding a shitty USB converter vs using a shitty USB implementation that's already built in? Too bad you don't have a desktop.

I didn't realize Jazz had a rep... Well, I knew about PJ and Scooter at least.

Man, how can someone so retardedly wrong speak with such fake authority? It's pretty insane.

So is stupid obnoxious bass and scooped mids out? If so, then I think a good Dynalo or M3 + Sigma22 + AD2000 + sweet vintage DAC + pro sound card would be my choice. Or HF2 with bowls for the bassy bass and less forward upper mids. Woo amps are pretty slick, but damn those things keep their resale value like Civics. I don't go looking for them used, but I don't really see good deals on them. So you're probably already pushing $1k for a used Woo 6 SE.

A Tooleaudio Adcom thing should be a decent source... Although there's a weird O2+metal thing here that I don't personally understand.

Hey it's Rupaul!

Randomly found a lolcat from 1905 on Wikipedia: Damn, lolcats is old.

Yeah, but unavoidable here at Sausage-Case.

Name-dropping will get you everywhere round these parts. Hi Grawk!

The big 40! Happy bday.

It broke my DAC cherry, too. About a year ago. I am now several thousand dollars in and trying my best to keep the headphone rig under $5k...

Ooohh I just checked your profile. Club Transdac.

Wow, about the last word that would come to my mind would be "veiled." Sounds pretty damn fast and clear to me, although the tone was off and fit was terrible.

Well, it's not on the DAC list that I normally check. CD-Player-DAC-Transport List

Oh, btw I was able to compare these briefly for like less than an hour at home. DAC was the modded Transdac and transport was via *ahem* motherboard coax . 6CG7s on the CTH; RCA I believe, although it could've been GE. They're both very good with the HF2s for sure. The CKKIII is a bit cleaner, while the CTH is a bit warmer. I'd have to probably volume match and listen more extensively to determine a winner. With the ATs, though, the CKKIII is definitely superior. For whatever reason, the CTH turns the ATs top-heavy and bottom-light. The CKKIII presents a more balanced sound. Still, I preferred the HF2s from either of them to the AD2000s with either of them. Damn AD2000s are picky imo. I'm keeping the CTH for now and gonna listen exclusively to the Grados until I get my next amp.

Yeah, I know it's pretty intimidating being new to amps and all, but it's really quite simple. If the amp isn't mentioned here, it's probably not worth considering. It's much easier to list good amps than bad amps, right? There are plenty of good amps to choose from, anyways. HF-friendly analogy: why waste your time/money auditioning Skullcandies when you could be picking among Senn/Grado/Stax/AT?

I don't particularly care for bargain tube amps. They had better have an awesome design, because you're probably either gonna have output impedance issues (OTL) or cheap transformer issues (transformer coupled). If I absolutely had to have a commercial tube amp, it'd only be Trafomatic or Woo or Yamamoto in approximately that order. For DIY, the L'esspressivo is one of the more interesting designs among the cheap tube amps. Can one actually build it for $100, though? Not sure. If you really have to have a tube in there somewhere, hybrids might be the better choice choice, especially the EHHA or Stacker. Not many people have heard them, so they don't have the rep of an M^3, but they're intriguing for sure. But since you have no phones or amps, definitely consider IEMs or stats. Think about it. If I were to personally build a bargain rig from scratch, I think I'd get IEMs. $100 or so for a Mini^3 is a lot of money saved on amplification, dontcha think? Edit: Actually, fuck it. Ignore all that junk above; I don't want to confuse you with too many choices. Get a Dynalo + Sigma22 and AD2000s.

OK I think I can guess who's who amongst the people I've never met, but would somebody mind giving me a rundown?

Wow 3 Danjam threads... Do I want to comment in all of em? Heh.

They're tearing him a new one heh.

Sucks... Yeah I guess ordering stuff from Eddie Current or Headamp aint exactly the same as Audio-gd. I'd probably be a lot more tempted to DIY if I lived in Europe.

You find HD800s to be clinical/inaccurate compared to these? Well, anyways, I was just wondering the other day. All of my personal dream amps are American. Do people overseas have severely limited access to great American amps for auditioning? Do y'all actually have some secret stash of badass amps that we don't know about?

So would that mean a speaker amp before the TakeT converter box should do the trick? Or are we not taking that converter box into account? I know absolutely nothing about this TakeT... other than the fact that I'd like to hear it.