Toronto Meet Impression

[aerius]

The short version. The various Chinese tube amps need a way to set the channel balance, every single one had horrible channel imbalances which fucked over the soundstaging & imaging. I don't know if it's crappy QC or bad tubes, but it wasn't pretty. It drove me nuts and I couldn't listen to them much, so no real impressions on them.

Philodox's new amp is great with high impedance ?phones, but I suspect it was current starving the Grados. Normally I need to turn the volume way down when going from Senns to Grados, but with his amp I had to keep the volume knob at nearly the same setting. The amp was brand new so I hesitate to make any definitive comments on it, it started out rather bright & sibilant at the beginning of the meet but at the end it had filled in & smoothed out significantly.

The RSA Hornet sucked. I tried it with my Senn 580 and it had a very compressed soundstage which has very little depth. It couldn't put sounds outside the head, the dynamics sucked, it reminds me of bad MP3's played through my computer soundcard. I'd rather listen to cassettes out of my 10 year old Sony Walkman, at least that doesn't sound digital and it's probably less coloured as well.

The Aikido amp is surprisingly good, it drives everything with ease and it effectively has no sound, very transparent. I didn't have my K340 with me so I did all the listening with Senn 580's and Grado HF-1's. I don't think it has quite as much detail as the McAlister amp or my own, but that could be source as well since the latter two were driven out of nicer CD players.

The band at the bar...well...let's just say they probably came pretty close to having tomatoes thrown at them.

[philodox]

The short version. The various Chinese tube amps need a way to set the channel balance, every single one had horrible channel imbalances which fucked over the soundstaging & imaging. I don't know if it's crappy QC or bad tubes, but it wasn't pretty. It drove me nuts and I couldn't listen to them much, so no real impressions on them.

The Darkvoice too? I thought it sounded nice with the K501's... the volume switch broke on it before I could hear it with my K340's. Then again, I listen a lot louder than you and channel imbalances are less bothersome to me because of that.

Philodox's new amp is great with high impedance ?phones, but I suspect it was current starving the Grados. Normally I need to turn the volume way down when going from Senns to Grados, but with his amp I had to keep the volume knob at nearly the same setting.

I noticed the volume thing as well, weird. You think that is because they were current starved? The Grado's sounded pretty good, but I think they were missing a bit of bass and had an even bigger bass extension issue. Probably not enough output capacitance I guess.

[ojnihs]

The RSA Hornet sucked. I tried it with my Senn 580 and it had a very compressed soundstage which has very little depth. It couldn't put sounds outside the head, the dynamics sucked, it reminds me of bad MP3's played through my computer soundcard. I'd rather listen to cassettes out of my 10 year old Sony Walkman, at least that doesn't sound digital and it's probably less coloured as well.

I really wish someone could lend me a AE-1 or something to compare my Hornet to, because I have literally no other experiences with amps (nor recollection of any) to really know what good amps should sound like. When I listen to my hornet, I basically go, "so this is what a amp sounds like...huh"

[n_maher]

The Aikido amp is surprisingly good, it drives everything with ease and it effectively has no sound, very transparent.

Any idea what tubes the Aikido was running? And what it used for a PS?

[philodox]

6H30's and 6CG7's

The PSU was relatively simple I think, but that is the beauty of the Aikido.

[aerius]

The Darkvoice too? I thought it sounded nice with the K501's... the volume switch broke on it before I could hear it with my K340's. Then again, I listen a lot louder than you and channel imbalances are less bothersome to me because of that.I noticed the volume thing as well, weird.

It was way off, I'd say it was at least a good 5-10dB louder on the left side. I wish I'd brought some tubes to try out to determine whether it's a tube problem or an amp problem.

Any idea what tubes the Aikido was running? And what it used for a PS?

6H30 and either 6CG7 or 6FQ7. Filament power supply was a generic switchmode unit run into a basic regulator of some sort, B+ appeared to be a simple regulated supply.

Further thoughts. The orange-brown Ultrasone wasn't to my tastes. While it was reasonably smooth & even, it doesn't have the detail level of the K340 and worst of all there's a huge gaping hole in the centre of the soundstage. It desperately needs cross-feed.

AKG K81 was a pleasant surprise. Not nearly enough bass for me but otherwise it was quite nice.

Tried the K701 again and I still don't like it. I'd still rather get an iGrado.

[philodox]

AKG K81 was a pleasant surprise. Not nearly enough bass for me but otherwise it was quite nice.

You must be joking... they are bass monsters!

[philodox]

Philodox's new amp is great with high impedance ?phones, but I suspect it was current starving the Grados. Normally I need to turn the volume way down when going from Senns to Grados, but with his amp I had to keep the volume knob at nearly the same setting.

I just figured out what happened here.

The K340's were being driven balanced and the Grados were not. Sort of makes sense when you look at it that way.

[aerius]

You must be joking... they are bass monsters!

No, I'm not joking, my Senns had more bass than the K81DJ. Then again every AKG I've heard other than the K240 and my K340 are somewhat lacking in bass, so it's just the AKG sound.

I just figured out what happened here.

The K340's were being driven balanced and the Grados were not. Sort of makes sense when you look at it that way.

That still doesn't explain why my Senns & Grados needed about the same volume setting, as both were being driven single ended.

Anyways, how's the amp coming along? It was getting pretty good at the end of the meet, how much better is it now?

[philodox]

Yeah, that is curious. [about the grados and the senns]

As for the K81DJ, I hear it differently. Maybe it is a volume level thing.

Anyways, how's the amp coming along? It was getting pretty good at the end of the meet, how much better is it now?

Its burning in nicely... I'm still in the 'enjoying my new toy' phase though, so I don't have any insightfull observations yet.

[Looser101]

Any idea what tubes the Aikido was running? And what it used for a PS?

My Aikido uses 6CG7 on the input and 6H30 on the output, as already posted.

The PSU is a simple CLC for the B+.

Heater supply is powered by a switcher and then regulated down to 12VDC by a standard LM350 regulator.

The beauty of the Aikido design is its unique rejection of power supply noise, this allows for a cheap and cheerful power supply.

I haven't updated it in a bit but there is some more info here: http://renatod.googlepages.com/home

-Renato