B52 Observations.

[bhd812]

I don't think it's a case of one over the other or vice versa. The main circuit that makes a good headphone amp should also make for a good preamp. Put in some extra inputs and outputs, a selector, and it's a preamp. Only the most insanely anal "audiophile" would think adding a few very simple parts like that would somehow make the sound quality worse.

Now whether one markets it mainly as a preamp or mainly as a headphone amp is another matter (and quite irrelevant to the actual performance either way, as a bad preamp circuit will be a bad headphone amp circuit, and vice versa).

thats what i would of thought before i owned the GSX. the gsx with headphones was pure beauty but in different speaker rigs it was not and nice. in fact I did a comparo against an old NAD pre and the gsx in my buddies speaker rig and the nad just had better sound overall. which is sad considering the nad cost the guy $100, and the gsx is priced at around $2k...but then again it was never truely voiced as a pre amp so no worries there.

i tried my CA-2 as a headphone amp and it did not stand up to the hr2 niether..they are so close in build its almost like these two products are clones, again the ca-2 was voiced as a pre and the hr2 as aheadphone amp.

the stealth is amazing as a pre for a speaker rig, and its ok as a head amp but not worth its $2.5K price using it as a headphone only..using it only as a pre then its well worth the price, if not under priced.

again the b52 is going to be the big bad boy pre amp from RSA. the bad part when you get into speaker world you have to price your gear not to high or even more importantly not to low, cause you can miss alot of customers looking to spend less or more. people that have commented on the electronic show room witht he stealth walked away once they heard it was $2,500. they said they were looking for something on a higher budget..fucked up part about hi-fi but its a true part.

the b52 gets sold for less then $4,5k it will loose alot of attention from people looking to spend more on a pre...people who have $15k type speakers and $10k and up amps..these people are willing to spend the money so why would they look at something down the price line? at $5k should be there best point, of course even for me its a shit load of money...omg I cant believe for me how much it is..

Ray does not know how much the b52 is going to be yet, i would say another week he should release the price..I am guessing around $4k-$5k..

[recstar24]

i'm aware, i just like pointing out that RS-1s + Bowls = crap

I concur, completely unlistenable to me, just like PS-1 w/ flats, just the opposite end of the spectrum in regards to RS-1 w/ bowls.

[recstar24]

Just to add my 2 cents. $5000 is way above what I would spend on a headphone amp, it would have to double up as a preamp and be the center of my whole setup. Even $1900 for the Zana is too rich for my blood, whether used purely as a headamp or serving as a preamp/headamp. Considering that I got my hd-25 with tung sol 5998's and black glass roundplate 6sn7 for $400 total, and it has 3 inputs, preamp out, and a tape out, you can see how much I like to stretch my dollar.

[philodox]

RS-1s + Bowls = crap

Hmmm... I like them well enough with Bowls.

recstar24 - Nice deal on that HD-25! I loved that amp, but it couldn't drive my K340's properly unfortunately.

[909]

great score on the HD-25, but your G08 isn't chicken feed nor are your cans. I think that's where one's money is better put to use too.

[DieInAFire]

It's so expensive and far removed from any other amp I've heard that I dunno how I would evaluate it

[Chrysanthemum]

The B52 may be fine but. I will not buy a car from a dealer that shouts commercials at me and offers bad credit financing. And I won't buy an amp from a person that overprises his stuff and who sells equiptment that causes house fires and then charges to correct the fulty product. They are chisters.

[tkam]

Let's attempt to keep this on-topic I split off all the posts after Chrysanthemum's to another topic.

[909]

That's what happened. Something seemed out of place. I knew I made a particular post in this thread and then it disappeared. But it?s only been diverted to a new thread. Interesting?

http://www.head-case.org/index.php?topic=945.msg21095;topicseen#msg21095

[Yikes]

Let me write this down in my calander.

11-07-2006 @ 3:38pm tkam did some moderating.

Hell mustuv frozen over

[909]

I don't mind, but the thread titled isn't very original

[hirsch]

At the end of the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, Mikhail took his SDS-XLR down to the Virtual Dynamics/Star Sound room to try it as a preamp. The system was one of the big Wadia's driving solid-state monoblocs directly. In theory, a good preamp should not be subtractive. In practice, adding the SDS-XLR killed off some grain that was in the system, made the image more coherent, and added a level of detail that had been missing. Rather stunning improvement in the sound. After that I decided:

1) I'm now a believer in active preamplification. Adding extra circuitry should at best have done no damage, but should not have produced improvement. It did, and the difference wasn't small.

2) The SDS-XLR is almost wasted being used as a headphone amp exclusively. This is a world-class preamp, and should be sold that way.

I haven't heard the B-52 since the National Meet. At that time, I thought the overall sound was very good, but that image was limited to between the headphones, which is a deal killer for me. I'm used to a large image that seems to go well beyond the headphones, and won't settle for less anymore.

If you want to get a quick handle on Ray's sound, listen to the drummer. On every amp of his that I've heard, the drummer seems to recede into the background. The B-52 actually did better than Ray's other amps when I tried that. I've heard the volume that Ray listens at, which may explain this. At that kind of volume, there really isn't room for much dynamic range. A real drum hit at that volume level would pop the drivers right out of a headphone. Although the amps play loud, they have to compress dynamics or clip at that level. However, the problem comes when you hear the compressed dynamics at normal listening volumes. The dynamic contrasts simply aren't what they should be. Once you're listening for dynamic contrast, you can hear that it's missing on every instrument, resulting in a flat, bland sound. The drum and piano suffer the most, though, simply because of the dynamics of the instruments. Prior to the B-52, I thought the SR-71 was the only one of Ray's amps that was even close to getting the drum right.

[tiberian]

At the end of the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, Mikhail took his SDS-XLR down to the Virtual Dynamics/Star Sound room to try it as a preamp. The system was one of the big Wadia's driving solid-state monoblocs directly. In theory, a good preamp should not be subtractive. In practice, adding the SDS-XLR killed off some grain that was in the system, made the image more coherent, and added a level of detail that had been missing. Rather stunning improvement in the sound. After that I decided:

1) I'm now a believer in active preamplification. Adding extra circuitry should at best have done no damage, but should not have produced improvement. It did, and the difference wasn't small.

2) The SDS-XLR is almost wasted being used as a headphone amp exclusively. This is a world-class preamp, and should be sold that way.

I haven't heard the B-52 since the National Meet. At that time, I thought the overall sound was very good, but that image was limited to between the headphones, which is a deal killer for me. I'm used to a large image that seems to go well beyond the headphones, and won't settle for less anymore.

If you want to get a quick handle on Ray's sound, listen to the drummer. On every amp of his that I've heard, the drummer seems to recede into the background. The B-52 actually did better than Ray's other amps when I tried that. I've heard the volume that Ray listens at, which may explain this. At that kind of volume, there really isn't room for much dynamic range. A real drum hit at that volume level would pop the drivers right out of a headphone. Although the amps play loud, they have to compress dynamics or clip at that level. However, the problem comes when you hear the compressed dynamics at normal listening volumes. The dynamic contrasts simply aren't what they should be. Once you're listening for dynamic contrast, you can hear that it's missing on every instrument, resulting in a flat, bland sound. The drum and piano suffer the most, though, simply because of the dynamics of the instruments. Prior to the B-52, I thought the SR-71 was the only one of Ray's amps that was even close to getting the drum right.

not trying to be a jackass, but i am extremely skeptical on the "added a layer of detail that had been missing" part.

[kevin gilmore]

Could it be that adding a tube preamp with a high output impedance driving solid state monoblocks

with whatever cables were used significantly changed the frequency response and what you

think you were hearing was actually a change in tonal balance??

Fact is that there really is only one tube otl preamp out there with an output impedance less

than 200 ohms. And its not cheap.

[hirsch]

Could it be that adding a tube preamp with a high output impedance driving solid state monoblocks

with whatever cables were used significantly changed the frequency response and what you

think you were hearing was actually a change in tonal balance??

No, tonal balance was not being altered that we could tell. We switched back and forth, just to be sure what we were hearing.

I have no real idea what was going on, but everyone who heard it liked it. One thought would be that there was some sort of impedance mismatch between player and amps that was corrected by putting SDS-XLR between them. But that's pure speculation.