The Abyss

[atothex]

Having an unpopular opinion is acceptable, but what is the point of attacking established members? Also, to just say something sounds great without giving any point of reference whatsoever is just dumb. So it costs a lot. Does it sound better than an ecba? Pinnacle? Gsx? We all know a few dorks who say beats are the best sounding headphones they've heard... and they're not lying, but that kinda opinion is just uninformed.

Edited June 30, 2013 by atothex

[spritzer]

Ahh yes, the "I've heard it and it was awesome" reply, a true classic.  The true refuge of anybody without a single clue what he's talking about. 

 

First, any of the Cavalli amps being expensive to make is as ludicrous as the Abyss being worth it's lofty price tag.  JPS comes in time and again claims that they needed to tool up to produce it but isn't that the cost of any manufacturing venture?  Same with Cavalli, milled stuff from China is dirt cheap and so are punched steel boxes.  Nothing else in there worth a whole lot so what is so bloody expensive?  The problem with both companies is clear though, excessive markup is the only way for them to recoup the investment.  Take Stax as the polar opposite, the SR-009 is expensive but the markup is very low so Stax have to sell a lot of them to make end meets. 

 

If we expand on this a bit, RSA makes enough money for Ray to own a Lambo but does Justin own one?  Since I'm listening to an ECP L-2 now, that is definitely in the low markup category too. It also dares to be different which is very refreshing.  

 

Second, we draw our conclusions from full schematic of the amps not a quick glance at a picture.  The circuits are then simulated and finally built.  As the number of prototypes has grown it's become quite a burden to keep all of them hence the move to small dynamic amps that are much easier to deal with.  Just to show how bad it is, I used my WES just now as a weight to secure a set of speakers in the trunk of my car.  Yeah, too many amps. 

 

Lastly, this does bring up an issue with HF and the idiots that populate it.  Amps are lumped into groups that make no sense and everything is judged based on price because nobody has enough sense to see what's underneath the hood and try to learn what makes them tick.  Take the LG as an example, who in their right mind thinks it is a good idea to cram just about any dual triode in a circuit and expect it to perform at all?  Anybody with even the least bit of sense can see that tubes have very different specs and no circuit can be even remotely optimized for all of them at once.  The L-2 must drive people mad as there is no tube rolling, just this one tube with a gold pin version too. 

 

SS amps aren't any better as everything is lumped together with no attempt to see what makes it all work.  RWA compared to the GS-X when they have nothing in common etc. 

 

Now I'm bored and Kevin wants me to look at some new PCB's... 

[Nebby]

Last I checked specs and measurements were done by an impartial third party company precisely so that they wouldn't be accused of lying by people with personal grudges (the fact that this even has to happen in something as niche and obscure as the headphone market is pretty sad.

 

I'm all for impartial and precise measurements, but what sort of measurements are we talking about here? All I could find on this page was this:

 

 

Specifications

THD and Response measurements by Avenson Audio

 

Maximum Power: Approximately 9W into 50R

 

THD+N: 0.0015% @ 3W into 33R

 

Response: -1db 3Hz to 650kHz @ 3W into 33R

 

which seems to me to lack a fair amount of detail.

[justin]

It also says a lot about the Abyss that it's show with the LG though.  The amp is such a pile of crap that Cavalli should be proud of the mediocrity and it is crushed by far cheaper designs.  Specs are BS too but that's a given with Cavalli.  Hell a basic Dynahi is more than 4 times as powerful and can stay in Class A.

 

they're both exclusively marketed by The Cable Company, i dont think 'synergy' has much to do with it

[blessingx]

Ahh Guttenberg, how stupid can one person be...

I try to give the guy a break, but every other post is ridiculous. Take todays -

Poor audiophiles, why don't we get the respect of those who collect Corvettes or boats or smoke???

http://feedly.com/k/15VuPFK

Edited June 30, 2013 by blessingx

[kevin gilmore]

From the cavalli web page and stuff cavalli has said

 

maximum power 9 watts into 50 ohms

 

absolutely every solid state otl amplifier I know of with a reasonable power supply

increases its output power as the load impedance decreases. which means that

it should deliver more power into 32 ohms than it does at 50 ohms. yet this amplifier

and the liquid fire both deliver less power into 32 ohms than they do at 50 ohms

because of the power supply.

 

furthermore alex has said that the liquid gold uses standard + and - 15 volt power supply

rails and that the amplifier has mosfet output transistors. This would imply that the amplifier

has a rail to rail output voltage. No mosfet that i'm aware of except for highly non-linear low

voltage mosfets for power switching applications are capable of this. So the 9 watts is

highly optimistic.

 

One of the highest power headphones amps.  Really??

Even a single ended dynahi has more power and more class A power, a balanced dynahi

has 4 times the output power, the GSX mk2 with the 20 volt power supply rails has more

power, rays piece of shit darkstar has 80 volt rails and stupid amounts of power etc.

 

Fully balanced and differential ?? If that is the case, why is there a drv134 in there to convert

single ended to balanced?  super symmetry dynahi does that all by itself. Schiit mjolnir also

does that all by itself. No single ended to balanced converter needed.

 

Pure class A output for the first 550mw...  Seriously... The first dynahi's were 18 watts of pure class A.

The current GSX are 4 watts of class A (or something like that)

The krell ksa5 klone is 5 watts of pure class A

The new singlepower squarewave clone is adjustable from 2 watts of pure class A to 3 watts of pure class A

(single ended)

 

THD of .0015% @ 3 watts into 32 ohms.  how about 9 watts into 50 ohms. And how much feedback is there, what

is the intermodulation distortion, because with a thd that low, there has to be oodles of feedback.

 

From the looks of it, its definitely a nice chassis.

 

So I ask...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwbyH9THoQo

Edited June 30, 2013 by kevin gilmore

[spritzer]

 

I'm all for impartial and precise measurements, but what sort of measurements are we talking about here? All I could find on this page was this:

 

 

which seems to me to lack a fair amount of detail.

 

 

Add to that that the "impartial" body doing said measurements is supposed to have a financial stake in the company and some how measures higher S/N ratings than is possible at room temp for anything it's all on the up and up... 

[jgazal]

(...) Take Stax as the polar opposite, the SR-009 is expensive but the markup is very low so Stax have to sell a lot of them to make end meets. 

 

(...) 

 

Even with Yen recently devaluation and grey market, they still sell them in Japan at the same price. It is impressive how they respect its domestic market. They are really honorable people.

[DefQon]

So Ultrasones then?  Aren't they just Beats with some shiny added? 

 

 

We go through this every time something new comes along.  It's always MOAR BETTAH!!!  than what came before and the people banging the drum will move on as soon as something new surfaces.  This goes round and round and round and...   The truth is quite simple though and very few new products are actually giving us something new.  The Ortho's may be the hot topic but in reality it's the HD800 which is the real star and where there has been proper progress.  It's not perfect but no other dynamic can match it's abilities. 

 

It also says a lot about the Abyss that it's show with the LG though.  The amp is such a pile of crap that Cavalli should be proud of the mediocrity and it is crushed by far cheaper designs.  Specs are BS too but that's a given with Cavalli.  Hell a basic Dynahi is more than 4 times as powerful and can stay in Class A.

 

People have been asking us about clone boards but I really don't see the point.  It's the equivalent of cloning that Lampazitor crap when it should just be put to the torch.  Still it is expensive so it must be good... 

Haha gotta love the straight up honesty with your posts Birgir. Yeah unfortunately it is true, people thinking more power is better or something newer is better though sometimes it is true not necessarily all the time though. It comes straight to my original point that I bitched about in my thread on HF about the Abyss that it is only natural for JPS (a cable company with high mark up prices) to market the Abyss as the so called "best headphone" with that eye gorging $5.5k price tag. Joe's excuse? I recall him saying "ohh because we spent $30k+ on equipment we have leverage the prices by selling these at $5.5k" 

 

I haven't heard any of the high-end/hyped Cavali stuff except a few of Alex's earlier DIY creations they are not that bad ($200 in parts or so), but I recall a few moaning about he's stuff being a rip off for what it is worth sort of like Woo stuff, but it is coming to a stage where it does piss me off where you get a few Cavali fan boys crapping thread up by saying "the LG/LL/Lau is the best" etc etc.

 

Hey, although the Lampizator has a fucked up design, imo probably the best DAC I've heard to date with one his level 4 configurations I've auditioned but I can't say I've heard much high end four figure priced DAC's as well. 

 

On the other hand now Apex has been brought up, I never did know that the man behind the scenes of the Apex Pinnacle/Butte etc line of amp's was Pete Millet. Just fking wow!

 

P.S The HD800 is awesome 

[diebenkorn]

 

If we expand on this a bit, RSA makes enough money for Ray to own a Lambo but does Justin own one?  Since I'm listening to an ECP L-2 now, that is definitely in the low markup category too. It also dares to be different which is very refreshing.  

 

I had to look that bit about ray owning a lambo up and yay look what i found   http://www.lambopower.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t62965.html

 

Edited July 1, 2013 by diebenkorn

[RudeWolf]

THD of .0015% @ 3 watts into 32 ohms.  how about 9 watts into 50 ohms. And how much feedback is there, what

is the intermodulation distortion, because with a thd that low, there has to be oodles of feedback.

 

Why do you consider negative feedback a bad thing? Provided it's correctly implemented, of course. I know that Douglas Self, for example, considers feedback (both local and global) to be essential to attain high performance.

[kevin gilmore]

how much feedback?  Generally the more feedback the more transient intermodulation distortion.

There is always group delay. 10 to 15 db of feedback is a good thing. 30 to 40 db of feedback is

usually a bad thing.

[Leonardo Drummond]

 

 

I had to look that bit about ray owning a lambo up and yay look what i found   http://www.lambopower.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t62965.html

 

Holy shit

[Nebby]

Holy shit

 

Yeah, it makes the occasional "Ray is a poor small business owner with slim margins!" comment rather funny, does it not?

Edited July 1, 2013 by Nebby

[kevin gilmore]

actually you forgot that ray also owns a GTR

and he is in the process of buying a new ferarri F12

 

evidently they are not easy to purchase even if you do have the money.

Edited July 1, 2013 by kevin gilmore

[RudeWolf]

We also occasionally have to make tough financial choices to finance our hobby.

 

P.S. Thanks for the info on negative feedback. Looks like I still need to do some more research on this.

Edited July 1, 2013 by RudeWolf

[Leonardo Drummond]

So let me see if I get this straight: a guy runs a very small audio business centered on headphones and owns an Aventador (couldn't be a Gallardo, could it), a GTR and will buy an F12?

 

Looks like I'm in the wrong country, it seems. Or business, for that matter.

 

Joking aside though, this is just ludicrous. When Birgir spoke about the Lambo I thought the guy probably had a 2nd hand Gallardo or something.  Does he sell more than 50 amps a month? His profit margins must be insane.

Edited July 1, 2013 by Leonardo Drummond

[spritzer]

The markups are insane on those things but he does sell a lot of amps.  It helps to have used the same circuit for almost 10 years now in the portable crap... 

 

Hey, although the Lampizator has a fucked up design, imo probably the best DAC I've heard to date with one his level 4 configurations I've auditioned but I can't say I've heard much high end four figure priced DAC's as well. 

 

On the other hand now Apex has been brought up, I never did know that the man behind the scenes of the Apex Pinnacle/Butte etc line of amp's was Pete Millet. Just fking wow!

 

P.S The HD800 is awesome 

 

The Lampazitor could sound ok but high end it is not.  Nothing like a faithful representation of the source material which should be the goal of any source.  I'm not a fan of tubes in sources but APL does get it right and a few others.  The build quality of the Lampi stuff is also horrendous, even worse than APL 

 

The Apex is actually a good point as the Cavalli shills (and any other we annoy at a given moment) say we don't like anything not designed by us but have we ever criticized the Pinnacle?  Nope as even at 10K$ it is good value given the effort and materials that go into making it.  You could get better performance at a lower price but it won't be a SET. 

[jpelg]

One shouldn't assume stuff about other people's finances.

 

I'd still like to hear the Abyss, though.

[aardvark baguette]

Holy shit

 

Cheers.

[tkam]

The build quality of the Lampi stuff is also horrendous, even worse than APL 

 

Wow.  Just Wow.  I didn't think it was possible for anything to be built worse than the APL stuff.

[grawk]

One shouldn't assume stuff about other people's finances.

 

I'd still like to hear the Abyss, though.

When you consume conspicuously, you open yourself up to such speculation.

 

If you want to play poor, you shouldn't drive expensive to buy, expensive to maintain automobiles, and brag about them on the internet.

[morphsci]

Not to mention the fact that when you buy shit like a Lambo, you are obviously compensating for something. Should we speculate on what that might be?

Edited July 1, 2013 by morphsci

[roadtonowhere08]

Not to mention the fact that when you buy shit like a Lambo, you are obviously compensating for something. Should we speculate on what that might be?

 

His tiny hearing range?

[Nebby]

Wow.  Just Wow.  I didn't think it was possible for anything to be built worse than the APL stuff.

 

Image sourced from here