New RSA amp...

[Smeggy]

Dusty, love the new avatar

[spritzer]

I also saw that Skylab is going to review it it. A clueless fan of barfbeyers which has no 'stat experience or any technical knowledge.

The word on the grapevine is that Ray is having a lot of issues with the A-10 and that's not surprising. If he's trying to eek 600v p-p out of those tubes then they will probably self destruct. It would also account for the lack of internal pics which were promised a long time ago...

[Pars]

Dusty, love the new avatar

x2

[Tachikoma]

So, at CanJam the A-10 sounded very good with HE90 and Jade, fairly good with O2 Mk2 but I didn't get to try any Mk1, and a little bright with Rays HE60 but not terrible. I think I am actually looking forward to reviewing the A-10 with my own headphones (and stock HE60) after the July Colorado meet, so I'm not sorry that I PM'd Ray back in September asking if I could review it. I still have to work out how much I have to insure it for to return it.

I just didn't know it was going to be so expensive, so I'm pretty sure I will never be able to afford one, having been forced into early retirement by my health. I'm going to be out $7,000 in dental bills this year because I put off some work, and now my insurance changed Jan 01 09 and has crap for coverage now. So that means no A-10 for me, or KGBHSE, or WES or anything of the sort. I may even have to sell the GES to help pay for a couple of cracked infected teeth with bone loss that needs a bone graft and then implants.

Oww, sorry to hear that.

[ZoNtO]

Oww, sorry to hear that.

Seriously.... Larry that sucks man.

[grawk]

Great 2nd post, thanks!

[The Monkey]

He's got to get to 5 or else he can't order th...DOH!

[Voltron]

He's got to get to 5 or else he can't order th...DOH!

[Smeggy]

add ^^ smiley to bank

[penger]

Regarding the other RSA portable the Shadow... Samuels posted this:

Pale Rider, most of the portable amps, if not all, that use Digital volume control have been designed with input & output caps in the signal path, that by it self is a no no for the one seeking the purest sound possible with out any colorations. The Shadow has NO caps in the signal path & that by it iself should be the biggest selling point of this amp.

Ray Samuels

Does that even make sense?

[Spiug31]

It helps define its competition - empty box anyone, guaranteed no caps in a signal path

[justin]

Regarding the other RSA portable the Shadow... Samuels posted this:

Does that even make sense?

He is talking about how he noticed the coupling capacitors on the Pico Slim and decided attacking something for being designed properly would be the best new strategy. Those coupling capacitors, IMO, are a much better idea than a virtual ground capable of only 25mA current that that the audio signal also goes through. It all depends how you visualize the schematic...one side of the headphone driver is connected to the amplifier, the other side is connected to the virtual ground (or a real ground, or inverted output in the case of a balanced amp). Something to think about whenever an amp claims it can output 250mA of current...

By using single supply (no virtual ground) and coupling capacitors, there is a true low impedance ground which is the battery negative terminal. The capacitors I am using are new and not cheap, electrolytic capacitors of appropriate size would be too large for a thin portable amp.

There is much more but that can wait until both of these products are in owners' hands.

Edited June 21, 2009 by justin

[spritzer]

I'd take caps in the signal path over the danger of exploding Li-Ion batteries. Just imagine how crappy the other RSA amps are (such as the cRaptor) as they have coupling caps and cheap electrolytic output caps.

[padam]

Sorry, didn't check the other thread...

[dcpoor]

SR-71B, Fully balanced input-output portable headphone amp..... - Head-Fi.org Community

wow, that's a lot of claims he's making. lol

[luvdunhill]

who cares?

[VPI]

I love how he put so many people's e-mails up there for the taking. Maybe I should make a Ray Smuels paypal account and start sending some invoices out.

[blessingx]

I've been looking for a smallish K1000 amp.

[kevin gilmore]

well at least ray is now a head-fi sponsor.

I'll bet jude gave him a great deal.

Virtually identical ibasso product comming soon for about half the price.

How many people are actually interested in a device like this

that is going to eat batteries alive?

Edited December 15, 2010 by kevin gilmore

[fishski13]

sounds like his other offerings have now been rendered obsolete.

[HeadphoneAddict]

Aside from all the marketing terminology, the SR-71b at RMAF sounded great with the balanced LCD-2. Feel free to claim marketing BS if you see it, but I think it's the end result that is most important. A few other head-casers have heard the SR-71b prototype and I think they would agree that it's very good with the right headphones. The HD800 were still a little bright with it, but the LCD-2, HD600, ES5 and JH13Pro all sounded great with it. I wish I had tried the HE-5 LE and HE-6 with it, but there was too much to see at RMAF to spend more time on this.

From my listening I don't think the power claims are unfounded, and I recall being told it will run 2-3 days on a charge at 8 hours a day which is not too bad for the sturdy power output. Some people will choose to use it as a desktop replacement and leave it plugged in most of the time to use with full size phones in their bedside or computer rig.

Certainly if the iBasso amp is good sounding then people can choose that one instead for a lower price. In my case I have several adapters to use the Protector with IEM and full size phones, and I don't want to re-terminate them all to switch to iBasso - at least not before I get to hear one for myself. Since my son won a WEE at RMAF I happened to have a spare eXStatA amp that I was able to sell to help pay for this one. If I hear the iBasso and like it more, then I'll sell the SR-71b and use the proceeds to buy the iBasso and re-terminate all my cables at that point.

[kevin gilmore]

I have no doubt that the sr71b is actually ray's best amplifier ever.

And that includes all of his expensive stuff.

Pretty sad that it is just a balanced meta42. In balanced mode, since

the buf634 really does not like to drive less than 50 ohms (100 ohms balanced)

i don't see it as a good match for low impedance headphones.

I'm going to work up the numbers shortly, but at a minimum of 1.5 ma per

buffer, at 30 volts nominal power supply the no audio standing power is

180 milliwatts. Not counting the switching power supply, and the other opamps.

So i think even 16 hours actually making music is a bit optimistic.

[Nebby]

We have implemented a custom designed “Alps” volume control with four independent resistive sections, two for each channel, with dual shafts, each two resistive sections are controlled by one shaft. This will give many listeners out there the ability to balance the left & right channels independently according to their hearing.

Is he speaking of using two normal pots?

[MASantos]

Is he speaking of using two normal pots?

Yep!!

[nattonrice]

Yes.

It's the most stupid thing to have on a portable amp next to that god-awful connector he uses.