Which R10 should be recabled with a balanced cable?

[purk]

Yes...get the one with less bass recabled. Mikhail told me that a highend SP amps can really bring out the best in R10s. IMO, Mikhails slightly prefer the R10 with less bass than the one with more bass, b/c the less bass pair is more accurate sounding. It also has better seperation instrument, midrange, and air surronding recording.

True, even the R10 with more bass doesn't have a lot of bass impact. I would prefer a bit more, which means the R10 with less bass can seem really lacking in bass. It can be especially jarring when switching from the HD650, L3000 or O2.

Mike, why don't you join in a bit and answer some doubters here? Mike stopped by yesterday to listen to my setup HEV-90+HE90, SDS-SE w/ Both versions of R10s, and L3000. C'mon Mr. Ulveling.

[mulveling]

Yes...get the one with less bass recabled. Mikhail told me that a highend SP amps can really bring out the best in R10s. IMO, Mikhails slightly prefer the R10 with less bass than the one with more bass, b/c the less bass pair is more accurate sounding. It also has better seperation instrument, midrange, and air surronding recording.

Mike, why don't you join in a bit and answer some doubters here? Mike stopped by yesterday to listen to my setup HEV-90+HE90, SDS-SE w/ Both versions of R10s, and L3000. C'mon Mr. Ulveling.

Well, it is true. Over IM, Purk threatened to infect my computer with a virus until I admitted that the R10 on his special amp has like way more killer bass than the L3000 on any amp I will ever own

Seriously, Purk's SDS SE amp with those tubes he's got in there, is pretty crazy. I'd never heard the R10's sound nearly that lively with rock and heavy metal...even having heard an extremely maxed-out SDS XLR with a balanced R10 in the past. I was a big, big doubter, but no more. So I suppose good bass impact can be coaxed out of them, though to be fair this was only 1 hour's worth of impressions. The more-bass R10 had a little more bass impact than the Orpheus system...and the less-bass version had a little less, but still sounded great All 3, or course, are more detailed and refined than any other headphone I've heard, with the biggest soundstage out there. The Orpheus was very, very neutral and flat through the bass region. It made the R10s sound like they were adding a touch of sugar, a little sweetness to the mids, and a little bit of rumble & boom to the bass (never thought I'd compare the R10 as "boomy"). You know what though - I was really digging the sweeteness and atmosphere the R10 added, especially with an electric guitar, the acoustic guitar, and violins. The Oprheus is something that you just know you'll have to spend serious time with to really unravel its intricacies.

On the other hand, I was expecting the Orpheus to to choke on a metal CD (Iced Earth - Days of Purgatory) like the Omega II/KGSS did in the past, but it managed to glide through it in a manner that was both musical and powerful. Very, very musical.

Any 3 of these headphones, with the SDS SE/Hev90, were definitely the best I'd heard those particular CDs & SACDs. But Purk, man - you need to get a vinyl source STAT. Your downstream components are practically begging for it

[purk]

Thanks Mike..... BTW, I yet to fix my damn IM.

[Dusty Chalk]

Well, it is true. Over IM, Purk threatened to infect my computer with a virus until I admitted that the R10 on his special amp has like way more killer bass than the L3000 on any amp I will ever own

[purk]

Dusty,

You are missing out man. The R10 can be a bass monster...but still not as much as the bass slam of L3000 but very close. You will be very surprise when you actually hear my R10 w/ the SDS-SE. Pretty nice ...let me tell you. I spend a lot of time fine tuning them to the way they are now. They are really on the same level as my HEV90+HE90.

[grawk]

But you can't get it in black on black

[deepak]

Dusty,

You are missing out man. The R10 can be a bass monster...but still not as much as the bass slam of L3000 but very close. You will be very surprise when you actually hear my R10 w/ the SDS-SE. Pretty nice ...let me tell you. I spend a lot of time fine tuning them to the way they are now. They are really on the same level as my HEV90+HE90.

purk next time you guys have a mini meet let me know

I have the weekends off and if I can get an extra Friday or Monday off that's perfect for a visit to the souf

[mulveling]

purk next time you guys have a mini meet let me know

I have the weekends off and if I can get an extra Friday or Monday off that's perfect for a visit to the souf

Cool man. You're welcome over here too, but only if you smuggle me an R10 over from Purk's. He won't miss it; he's got 2

[deepak]

Cool man. You're welcome over here too, but only if you smuggle me an R10 over from Purk's. He won't miss it; he's got 2

lol, thanks Mike

I see a second HE90 in purk's future, he doesn't seem to be sold on this speaker thing

[Icarium]

Yeah Purk got me too with the virus :/ I was a fool to trust him. I thinkkk it's gone from me but I infected Johnsonad and he is spamming me nonstop now.

[purk]

Dan....very sorry. A friend of mine spread it to me. At least she is a nice looking girl.

[Dusty Chalk]

Dusty,

You are missing out man. The R10 can be a bass monster...but still not as much as the bass slam of L3000 but very close. You will be very surprise when you actually hear my R10 w/ the SDS-SE. Pretty nice ...let me tell you. I spend a lot of time fine tuning them to the way they are now. They are really on the same level as my HEV90+HE90.

No, really, you can stop with the joking now. I've heard R10's. They don't even have bass potential. And to compare it to the L3000? Dude, that's the bass reference.

Tell me what tubes you are using, please. Hirsch has a balanced R10 and a SDS XLR, and he probably has that particular tube compliment -- if he does, I will take a listen for myself. And you will laugh, "ha! He fell for it. He actually thought that a R10 could have bass!"

PS I got my Rotrings. They have little red circles on them. Other than that, they're all black.

[purk]

I'm using 12AY7 and 6BL7gts tubes, bias set to high w/ high voltage option. Mike wasn't kidding on this. He was very impressed with my R10s. I have both versions and they sound great. My SDS has the latest upgrade from SP with blackgates and other stuffs. Also I recently got a new tube rectifier PS from Modwright Sony SCD-777ES. That modwright player also has around 3K of mods from R. Kern. So itsn't just the amp...but the combo. I have tried the G08 and it was very nice but as good as my Sony. Again...we are not kidding. Mike really like the way my R10 sounds. Also, Hirsch's R10s is the lighter bass version...so that's explain why. If you demand bass, you need to get a bassier version to try with his amp.

[Icarium]

Yeah man. Hirsch had 4 R10s at some point and he sold his two bass heavy versions and kept the two bass light. So obviously neither of those two will be the max bass an R10 can produce.

As for tube choices? Shrug, that's up to Hirsch to say. Perhaps he doesnt maximize for bass but maximizes for a different sound. So who's to say the true potential for bass. I heard the r10 from ray samuels b-52 an amp

that I wasn't super taken with but it did really bring out some very impressive bass that at least could compete with a L3000 as far as texture and tone though I'm not sure about quantity or extension.

So who's to say what a fully unleashed one can do. I mean frankly I'm skeptical myself, but using Hirsch as a baseline for the bass potential of the R10 is a fallacy since bass light is SIGNIFICANTLY less bassy than

the bass heavy version.

[deepak]

Is a SinglePower amp truly transparent if tube rolling makes such huge differences?

[Icarium]

Hrm again its a question of what you mean by transparent. Transparent as in frequency response passes through it uncolored, transparent in relation to the recording? Or transparent to the original musical experience? I don't think tube amps in general test very well compared to a well designed/built solid state amp. I think with particular tubes you can make a Singlepower amp about as transparent as your standard manufactured tube amp can be. I would think at least on par with the Zana Deux if not possibly more so with some of the more high end ones (Apparently Maestro actually does have a significantly different topology compared to the SDS which surprised me... this is kind of a tangent but apparently a Maestro is more detailed sounding/transparent/clear compared to a SDS which will have better tone/musicality).

Is there a degradation when you use a tube adapter? Logically for sure. Though I have been unable to detect much of one when weighed against the gain in sound quality by using much higher quality tubes than your average 6SN7. I'm sure if I knew exactly the perfect tube complement I could probably have that built in and the amp optimized for it... but I dunno if it'd ever be worth it to give up the flexibility. The difference in rolling different tubes with adapters is really huge though. I dunno if any 6SN7 type can remotely touch a decent 2C51 or even come close to emulate the sound that one can offer in the driver position.

[granodemostasa]

Hrm again its a question of what you mean by transparent. Transparent as in frequency response passes through it uncolored, transparent in relation to the recording? Or transparent to the original musical experience? I don't think tube amps in general test very well compared to a well designed/built solid state amp. I think with particular tubes you can make a Singlepower amp about as transparent as your standard manufactured amp can be. I would think at least on par with the Zana Deux if not possibly more so with some of the more high end ones (Apparently Maestro actually does have a significantly different topology compared to the SDS which surprised me... this is kind of a tangent but apparently a Maestro is more detailed sounding/transparent/clear compared to a SDS which will have better tone/musicality).

I always heard the maestro be be rather un-transparent, (at least at the national). I liked the extreme better for that purpose.

[Icarium]

Yeah no idea. That's just what Mikhail told me. Could have been the tubes in it? I haven't listened to a Maestro myself. I kind of assumed that a SDS was just a Maestro in a supra style chassis, so I didn't see the point. Especially since I figured the SDS was just better since bigger caps could be mounted on the outside than can be fit inside the Maestro chassis.

My, Mikhail called them resevoir caps whatever they are for I dunno, big caps are 8.5 inches tall I just measured them again.

[PFKMan23]

One of the big keys of the Maestro is a fairly extensive preamp. So while you could do a fairly good preamp within the Supra chasis, there are probably still some differences from a true maestro. That said, to me, the Singlepowers are transparent with respect to letting you hear your tubes. That assumes your amp is tuned that way. To me, adding stuff like a stepped attenuator, Paper in Oil caps, the Solen 3, etc... also move that away. That said I don't know that I would call any amps, including the ones that are purported to be neutral/transparent/whatever truly that at all. From what I've heard, they are all colored in some way shape or form. In some cases, they just happed to be colored in a direction that is favorable. But that's still colored.

[Icarium]

Right if you are talking about true transparency really I'd think that a solid state amp that tests really well, re: gs-x, dynamight, beta22, dynafet what have you are the only ones that really deserve to be called transparent.

[PFKMan23]

Right if you are talking about true transparency really I'd think that a solid state amp that tests really well, re: gs-x, dynamight, beta22, dynafet what have you are the only ones that really deserve to be called transparent.

I've heard the GSX, B22, and dynamight, and while they are closer than a lot of designs, I wouldn't call any truly transparent.

[Icarium]

Well depends on your standards, but I think they are about as transparent from a technical standpoint as is out there currently. If not transparent at least translucent ;p

Of course I don't own any of them (Though I've heard them all except for the dynamight) so take that as you will though I might be getting a beta22 or dynafet in the future.. i guess maybe a dynamight too I do have boards for those.

[Dusty Chalk]

Also, Hirsch's R10s is the lighter bass version...so that's explain why. If you demand bass, you need to get a bassier version to try with his amp.

Well, admittedly, "bass" is not what Hirsch "tuned" his amp to the R10's for. But I've had this discussion with him, and he's tried to get bass out of R10's, and the best he could do was LS3/5A bass (I.E. it may have been controlled, but it starts trailing off early, I wouldn't call it deep, although it was deeper than it appears on first listen). But he tries to get at least a semblance of full frequency response, and it's just not there.

Also, I don't think this is true -- Hirsch has two R10's, and I don't think he kept the bass-light versions in both cases -- one of the ones he has is definitely a later serial number R10, though I'm not sure if that's the balanced one or the single-ended one. It's the early models that are bass-light.

And unfortunately, I don't think he has the high-voltage switch -- that's just not an option on his amp, AFAIK.

[Dusty Chalk]

Is a SinglePower amp truly transparent if tube rolling makes such huge differences?

Well, "transparent" is something that a system is more or less of. There is no such thing as a completely transparent system.

That said, there was a layer of "hash" that was missing in the first Singlepower I ever heard compared to every other amp I've ever heard. The Singlepower Supra is pretty much the only amp I know of that have this transparency. An order of magnitude, really.

[Icarium]

Well, admittedly, "bass" is not what Hirsch "tuned" his amp to the R10's for. But I've had this discussion with him, and he's tried to get bass out of R10's, and the best he could do was LS3/5A bass (I.E. it may have been controlled, but it starts trailing off early, I wouldn't call it deep, although it was deeper than it appears on first listen). But he tries to get at least a semblance of full frequency response, and it's just not there.

Also, I don't think this is true -- Hirsch has two R10's, and I don't think he kept the bass-light versions in both cases -- one of the ones he has is definitely a later serial number R10, though I'm not sure if that's the balanced one or the single-ended one. It's the early models that are bass-light.

And unfortunately, I don't think he has the high-voltage switch -- that's just not an option on his amp, AFAIK.

Shrug you can verify this with him if you want. Purk told me this originally and I've verified it with him (Hirsch) before in email as well. I think the reasoning is that with his amp the airier less bassy one just simply scales better. I know he is getting rid of one (Probably his single ended stock one) but yeah still they should still both be the bass light version.

Edit: And like I've said. I am skeptical that even the bass heavy R10 with any tube combination can really be anything but at best 1 full notch below headphones like the ED9/PS-1/L3000 in bass quality/quantity. But of course I haven't heard purk's set up ;p I'll check it out myself when my bass heavy pair arrives. Still, I am not completely ruling it out like you seem to have