Last minute mini-meet

[aerius]

I got a call this morning about a meet which I'd discussed in passing a few weeks ago and then promptly forgotten about. We listened to a stock RS-1, my K340, and a modded RS-1 along with a Grado 225.

The rest of the gear list is as follows:

• modded Audio Aero Capitole
  
• Naim CD5x
  
• modded Denon 650F
  
• EML 20B & 2A3 tube amp
  
• SinglePower MPX3 w/6BL7's
  
• my experimental tube amp
  

The short summary. The MPX3 was not as good as I expected, I thought it would at least hold its own against my tube amp but it got beaten in all respects once I swapped 6BL7 tubes into my amp. The Naim and my Denon are quite similar in terms of sound signature, but the Naim has more resolution and refinement, and it carries a mean groove. Of all 3 CD players, the Naim has the most authority and PRaT. The stock RS-1 is still really good, but it loses a lot of information in the treble compared to the modded one. We supect the #1 culprit is the cable.

Other notes. It's pretty hilarious when you have a meet with a guy & girl in their late 20's who look quite respectable, and a guy who's old enough to be our dad who looks like he stepped out of a Harley-Davidson ad.

Detailed impressions tomorrow or later, cause I drank too much booze during the latter part of the meet and after the meet, and now I have a headache, and I want to sleep.

[NotoriousBIG_PJ]

Interesting tidbit about the mpx. I know Kuma loved Naim gear with grados. I have some recabled rs-1's coming soon. Will see how they compare to my recabled ps-1's.

Biggie.

[Dusty Chalk]

Other notes. It's pretty hilarious when you have a meet with a guy & girl in their late 20's who look quite respectable, and a guy who's old enough to be our dad who looks like he stepped out of a Harley-Davidson ad.

Which one was you? I'd have been the "dad-old grizzly-type" one.

[aerius]

Which one was you? I'd have been the "dad-old grizzly-type" one.

I was the youngest person at the meet. I'm pretty sure I'm a guy, but some people think I'm not, I don't know why.

what were the specs on the MPX3?

It had one of the Solen upgrades along with a stepped attenuator.

Impressions, Part 1

I heard a PPX3 at a meet some time ago and thought it was about even with the proof of concept build of my tube amp. The PPX had the edge in the highs while mine was better in the lows, otherwise it was pretty even. My amp has gone through a ton of changes so I was curious how it would stack up against the MPX3 with 6BL7's. The MPX3 had a NU 6SN7 on the input with 2 GE 6BL7GT's, I decided to make it fair and use the exact same tube on the outputs on my amp along with Mullard ECC40's on the input.

The MPX3 is a pretty good sounding amp, it sure as hell beats the crap out of all the Chinese tube amps I've been hearing in the last while. You really do get what you pay for. However, it comes up short in some areas, namely weight, authority, and dynamics. It can't match the transformer output tube amps in those areas with either high or low impedance headphones.

Playing say, "Wait for You" or "Somebody to Love" by Nelly Furtado and the MPX can't slam the bass as hard, deep, and in control as either my amp or my friend's custom dream job. The bass on those songs is huge, on speakers the woofers will flap around even at a pretty moderate volume. If I crank the volume on my headphones, the bass should give me an uneasy feeling or even a mild headache, the MPX3 can't quite do that. It also seems to have issues dealing with big bass hits in rapid sequence, the first hit is fine, but following hits don't have as much texture and sound slightly blurred & softened. It sounds like the amp can't recover in time to keep control of the headphone drivers.

Soundstage is nice, but surprisingly it isn't as big nor as defined as my tube amp, which I found rather disappointing since I'm using $20 toroidal power transformers as the OPT's of my amp. With 6SN7's on the outputs of my amp the soundstage is about the same, but once the 6BL7's are in there the soundstage expands and comes into better focus at the same time, leaving the MPX3 behind. It doesn't have as much depth & height, and there's a slight soft-focus feel to the imaging, it doesn't feel quite as "there" and solid. For instance, the mandolin on the Sarah Harmer version of "Salamandre" doesn't really come forward and pop out of the background in the instrumental part like it should. Instead of taking a couple steps forward and really ringing out, it only takes a step & half forward and sounds somewhat soft & lacking in authority. I wouldn't say it's veiled, but it isn't as vivid and solid as it should be.

Overall, I'd say the MPX3 needs to be paired with an authoritative and hard-hitting CD player like the Naim, so in that respect my buddy made a good match in his system.

Speaking of which, the Naim CD5x is probably the CD player to get for rockers & metalheads, or any kind of music which depends on keeping a mean groove. This player is all about PRaT, put on any music with a good beat and you'll soon be boppin' your head along. It doesn't have the big enveloping soundstage of the Capitole, but it's still a good size and very well focused and precise. The tone isn't as rich & full as the Capitole, yet it manages to have more weight behind the notes in the bass and a bit of the lower midrange.

Yet it's not a one-trick pony, it's not going to fall apart if you feed it "audiophile approved" music. The Naim can do refinement, the Cowboy Junkies' "Trinity Sessions" album keeps all its nice air & space, every instrument has its place in the soundstage and it all sounds very solid & layered. The percussion will echo off the walls and define the space and you can hear Margo's voice echo & fade. The difference between the CD5x & Capitole is the latter makes you more part of the performance, kinda like the difference between watching a movie at a cheap theatre with a small screen and watching the same movie in a good theatre with a nice full-size screen. It's a different presentation. While it doesn't have the big analog-like sound of the Capitole, it doesn't sound "digital" either, I didn't find it to have harshness or the other usual digital nasties. Compared to my Denon, the Naim adds more of everything except soundstage size. I can definitely dig the Naim.

Where it comes up short against the modded Capitole is resolution & detail, not too apparent on either the MPX3 or my tube amp, but glaringly obvious on the DHT amp. The Capitole passes a lot more information, it's like going from a normal movie theatre to IMAX, well, not that big of a difference but it's still a pretty big gap. A lot of stuff which sounds like random noise and gets filtered out by the brain as such with the Naim will resolve into low-level details such as decay trails from cymbals, echoes fading into the background, and recording boo-boos among other things. Kinda like seeing random specks in the background on normal film resolving into people and space planes in IMAX.

More later...

[aerius]

Part 2

We had 2 RS-1's, a stock one and a modded one which was recabled and treated with the EnABL process to reduce resonance. The stock RS-1, as I learned years ago at my first headphone meet is damn good, and I still think it's the best current production headphone available. There's a pretty good sized gap between a modded & stock RS-1, as I noted in a previous meet thread the modded RS-1 is simply the highest resolution headphone I've ever heard, it does things which I didn't think were possible.

The difference which surprised me the most the soundstage, it's a little bit wider than stock but with a lot more depth, and the presentation is slightly less upfront as well. It feels more spacious and natural, there's a lot more room in which sounds can be layered out, and echoes & decays sound a lot more realistic. Cymbals benefit the most from this, in stock form the cymbals tend to get tizzy and overpower things, it kinda sounds like they've run out of space on the soundstage and gone into feedback. The modded pair brings them back under control and allows them to be precisely placed in the soundstage, the tizziness is gone.

It's still unmistakably a Grado though, the bass hump is still there and midrange still has that signature Grado sound, the mods don't turn it into an HP-1000 or anything like that. It takes the RS-1 sound and adds a lot more speed & resolution, plus it clears up the highs and deepens the soundstage. It's smoother as well, but I don't know if I can say it has the liquid sound of the PS-1, it's a different kind of sweetness that's hard to describe. An analogy would be to compare say, Sarah Slean and Leslie Feist, they both have a sweet voice yet they don't sound the same, but can at times, and both are awesome in their own way.

Compared to my K340, the stock RS-1 still beats it out in handling complex music, it's faster and has better separation especially in the low end. I think the K340 with all those passive diaphragms plus being a closed headphone has too much moving mass & energy storage issues to keep up with the RS-1. It also has better detail & resolution than the K340, but loses out in soundstaging. It can't do the big wrap-around soundstage which I've grown used to on my system, but the imaging seems to be slightly more precise. I'd also like to state for the record that a properly amped RS-1 will absolutely murder any current production AKG, Beyer, or Senn.

more later...

[PFKMan23]

What do the mods on the RS-1 entail?

[hungrych]

Is that with flats?

[aerius]

What do the mods on the RS-1 entail?

Applying a pattern to control standing waves and reduce resonance to both the driver and the wooden housing. Also recabled with copper litz wire and driven balanced, along with rounding off some corners and sharp edges in the internal parts. All listening was done with flat pads, as they were the only pads we had.

[Salt Peanuts]

aerius, were the stock RS-1's the current production (ones with serial number and square notch on the metal rings instead of round notch) model?

[aerius]

I think both pairs of RS-1's were older ones. They're not the really deep red ones which some people here have, but they're significantly darker than the current production RS-1's. On a deep-reddish scale of 1-10 with 1 being current production and 10 being the really old ones, these would be around an 8 or so.

[postjack]

I think both pairs of RS-1's were older ones. They're not the really deep red ones which some people here have, but they're significantly darker than the current production RS-1's. On a deep-reddish scale of 1-10 with 1 being current production and 10 being the really old ones, these would be around an 8 or so.

If this trend continues, all the RS-1s in production three years from now will be pink.

"The Ladies' Grado"

On a more on topic note, I have spent the past few evenings spinning Ryan Adams and Steely Dan vinyl, listening to my RS-1 with flat pads through the Dynahi. It truly is a fine headphone.

[grawk]

If this trend continues, all the RS-1s in production three years from now will be pink.

Mahogany darkens with age...

[en480c4]

Mahogany darkens with age...

QFT. The cups I turned for my HF-1s get significantly darker every year.

[hungrych]

OT: Has anyone compared older and newer RS-1s? Is there really a difference?

Also, Aerius, do you know anyone who would do the enabl process on my RS-1? There's no way I could possibly do it myself, but I'd like to hear it.

[philodox]

We need to ENABLE! our K340's Eaphan!!!! Set it up!

[aerius]

We need to ENABLE! our K340's Eaphan!!!! Set it up!

Well, there's the slight problem of my K340's drivers never coming apart again since I had to epoxy them after making repairs to the solder tabs and voice coil wire connection to the drivers...

As for doing the EnABL process, my friend says she ain't doing it again, ever, since she came really close to wrecking her RS-1 while taking them apart and doing the mod, and doesn't see the next time being any easier. Bud Purvine, who owns the patent would probably be the best person since he's done a whole bunch of speakers and headphones.

[philodox]

butbutbut... we can EnABL mine!

[JBLoudG20]

butbutbut... we can EnABL mine!

My money says you break your precious K340 when you do it, and are completely unable to revive them again, forcing yourself to buy an HD650.

[philodox]

A lot more would have to happen for me to buy a HD650... a LOT more.

[JBLoudG20]

Your wife left you for aerius?