Take a look at my new Blue Circle SBH Headphone and preamp

[Nanoha]

Thats an understatement...

Rudistor makes POS amps...

[Frihed89]

On the SBH vs. Graham Slee amp. if my memory serves me correctly, Al Wylie at Blue Circle had this amp and it was Al's interest in head amps that in part prompted Gibert Yeung to develop the SBH. I think Al's words were, "no contest".

I have heard a lot of head amps and I own some pretty good ones. The SBH is a very good headphone amp, sonically, its ability to drive a wide range of headphones, its build, and how it tests. The power supply makes a big difference.

[darkless]

Rudistor makes POS amps...

I'm curious, when and where did you guys listen to any of the mid-fi+ Rudistor amps? Which model?

I ask because I try to base my head-fi education on the experience of others, so I feel that it's important to know the reason why you guys bash his gear. I assume you've actually listened to it in order to form such a strong opinion.

As a preemptive note: I'm not in any way defending or pimping Rudi. I have no interest in his gear whatsoever and the only piece of his that I've auditioned was the RPX100.

[Nanoha]

I have not demoed any Rudistor other than the "portable" one and the RP5.1 (the tube one). They were not impressive in my opinion. I've talked to Spritzer and a few others about the internals; not too good there. The "POS amps" line was a joke in response to what Spritzer said; to me, they're just mediocre (my first post). But from what people keep trying to tell me, they're worse than mediocre.

[Icarium]

I thought it was only poorly designed/weak amps that suffered from this problem?

On a related note, I listened to a Rudistor RPX100 today with a balanced and unbalanced L3000, balanced and unbalanced HD650 as well as a Qualia and a Koss A250. Never once did I detect any deterioration when plugging in another headphone while another was already in place. The owner of the Rudistor told me that Rudi did mention that the amp would have no trouble at all driving multiple cans at the same time.

Off-topic: The Qualia still sounds bright as heck out of an RPX100. Whoever claimed that it sounds its best out of that amp must've been smoking something.

More off-topic: The Rudistor power supply could use some better power filtering, since there was a noticeable constant-level hiss when a headphone was plugged in and no music playing. The owner told me that his house had a particularly noisy power grid (confirmed using a voltmeter). Still, IMHO a good amp should be impervious to such issues.

Hrm. I don't know if I was the one that said it sounded the "best" out of an RPX100. I did say that I liked Qualias out of my RP010 Classic which was originally designed for Nik by Rudi for Qualias. Though it isn't the best amp by any means for the Qualias. Certainly don't know what the RPX100 sounds like as I haven't heard them so maybe it wasn't me. Though I would think the RPX100 should sound similar to the RP010 as it is the same topology as the RP010B which is the second version of the RP010 Classic. I wouldn't classify the Qualias with the RP010 as bright at all in comparison to say with the KGBR (balanced reference i.e. precursor to the GS-X) where it was a notch brighter with. What cable are you using? Qualias are a bright headphone period... have you heard them less bright out of something else? The RP010B did have a slightly more upfront sound with more organic mids and more prominent slightly punchier bass and I miss that at times.. but its more a question of the merits of punchy versus laid back sound and apparently the organicity/mids were really just distortion.

I also noticed the hiss with the Qualias and the RP010 though I didn't think that was really out of the ordinary at the time since there isn't a single headphone amp that I've heard be completely hissless with the Qualias as I think they are the most sensitive headphones out there. The amp that does the best job with them and hiss is the reference half of my SS-1 where it is barely detectable but you can still notice the absence of something when the headphones are unplugged versus when they are plugged in but it does a pretty good job.

[Frihed89]

Oh, I see. I'm not completely sure, but I think that by hooking up the headphones while playing music through the power amp/speakers would really mess with some things since they are both using the same circuit. Kind of like when you plug two headphones into the same amp and the impedance gets chopped in half.If you'd like to see pics of the internals, send me a PM. Kevin Gilmore posted them up on here at some point, but I'm not sure what thread they are in. It should make you feel better about the shape of yours, as I'm betting mine was worse.

I think you are right. I also think i saw those pictures you talked about and if I remember correctly, it looked "interesting". The layout on my equipment may have been neater, but it was very poorly built. I hate to think waht would have happened if one those caps had come in contact with the case (and me at the same time).

Well, it looks like headfi is back up. I'll post my listening notes for the SBH on both sites, both about the head amp and pre-amp sections.

What is a Rudistor any way? These guys have no shame when it comes to hijacking threads so i geegeled on Rudistor and sure enough i found this website in Italy where i was immediately drawn to the RP1000 and its use of intelligent tube biasing, no doubt using the intelligent chip. Are you really sure there are really "four mono Class-A single ended amplifiers, two on each channel working in opposed phase to get a full balanced output, or bridged for the single ended output in unbalanced operation?" How about 8?

So, I don't fit in here and i don't fit in on headfi but I still got a bunch of headamps and i have to go somewhere to find some hostages to take.

[Frihed89]

I'm so sorry. I thought this was the bi-polar support group site. But that's over on headfi.

[darkless]

I'm so sorry. I thought this was the bi-polar support group site. But that's over on headfi.

Hehe, good one. Oh, and sorry about the Rudistor thread crapping.

[spritzer]

Rudistor is crap because he is a crap designer and the build quality is beyond horrible. There are many broken Rudistors out there but you can of course not talk about that on HF. Add that to the pretty bad parts quality and high costs and they have nothing going for them. File with McAlister and Ray under "buy if you have no sense or don't know any better".

[philodox]

I'm so sorry. I thought this was the bi-polar support group site. But that's over on headfi.

Again with the bipolar jokes? *sigh* I don't have the energy today.

Spritzer - I think that Ray and Rudi should really be in their own group, separate from Peter. They have completely different issues...

[spritzer]

Spritzer - I think that Ray and Rudi should really be in their own group, separate from Peter. They have completely different issues...

Even though you had good results from dealing with McAlister you are the minority. Badly designed and built amps that are really still in the prototype form and not ready for a public release. He could get better though while the other two are just getting worse...

[philodox]

They aren't badly designed though, just have terrible build quality. That is the difference in my mind. Neither is excusable, so I'm not trying to advocate McAlister Audio. I just think there is a clear difference between someone like him and Ray or Rudi. Ray's build quality is absolutely stellar, but he tends to give you a poorly implemented power supply and a rehashed design that usually has some issues. Rudi seems to do things differently than other designers, and though I don't have the technical knowhow to debunk the designs myself, I trust Kevin Gilmore's opinion.

Also, though I love my amp now, I can't really say I've had good results from dealing with Peter. I certainly got a good initial price, but only through the hard work of many friends have I managed to get the amp to a point where I am happy with it.

[spritzer]

Thanks for clarifying that. I say they are badly designed as the electrostatic amps clipped and behaved in bad manner, something even the HEV70 isn't guilty off...

[Upstateguy]

I'm curious, when and where did you guys listen to any of the mid-fi+ Rudistor amps? Which model?

I ask because I try to base my head-fi education on the experience of others, so I feel that it's important to know the reason why you guys bash his gear. I assume you've actually listened to it in order to form such a strong opinion.

As a preemptive note: I'm not in any way defending or pimping Rudi. I have no interest in his gear whatsoever and the only piece of his that I've auditioned was the RPX100.

I heard this balanced rig at a meet last year,w/ immtbiker's 600s .... sounded good enough for me to remember it...

[darkless]

I heard this balanced rig at a meet last year,w/ immtbiker's 600s .... sounded good enough for me to remember it...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but given that you quote my post above I expected to see something made by Rudi in that picture?

[tiberian]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but given that you quote my post above I expected to see something made by Rudi in that picture?

the nx-33 is made by rudi.

[darkless]

Stupid me and my stupid tiny small screen laptop screen.

I failed to notice the scroll bar at the bottom, so all I saw was the meridian and then a clean cut to its right, leading me to think that the link to the picture was wrong. Sorry about that.

[Frihed89]

They aren't badly designed though, just have terrible build quality. That is the difference in my mind. Neither is excusable, so I'm not trying to advocate McAlister Audio. I just think there is a clear difference between someone like him and Ray or Rudi. Ray's build quality is absolutely stellar, but he tends to give you a poorly implemented power supply and a rehashed design that usually has some issues. Rudi seems to do things differently than other designers, and though I don't have the technical knowhow to debunk the designs myself, I trust Kevin Gilmore's opinion.

I don't know about Rudi and Ray, but I am with Philodox on McAlister. These are good circuits and they sound very good. But it's like they are made by drunken trolls. How could a man who is so sensible about circuits deliver this low quality construction?

Anyway.............I like Canuck products, and I am very partial to Blue Circle.

[Frihed89]

I have added a review of the Blue Circle SBH on Headfi.where are my meds and it also contains a brief comparison of the SBH and my SP MPX3 SLAM SE.

By the way, I have thoroughly enjoyed the posts on this board.