mulveling
Responses from mulveling
| Schiit Freya plus. Is this an upgrade? I used headphone amps as preamps for a while. They can sound good, but a dedicated pre can be better optimized for that application because it never needs to drive loads below 10,000 ohms, which has implications for the choice of parts and design ... | |
| Schiit Freya plus. Is this an upgrade? Yeah - lots of empty space indeed! Those pics alone could score Freya+ the thunderdome victory - you know how superficial we audiophiles can be. | |
| Schiit Freya plus. Is this an upgrade? A preamp that seems whisper quiet in a typical system can suddenly have very noticeable noise (from seating position) when placed in a system with high-sensitivity speakers & amps. If your speakers are below 90 dB, your system probably won’t b... | |
| ARC Ref 6 VS. Vac Renaissance MK V I’ll probably be borrowing a VAC Master from my dealer soon, to compare to my Ref 6. But I saw a photo of the inside and it looked a lot like the Ren V circuit, with the main difference being PSU (much in favor of the Master). The Ren V SE might b... | |
| Anyone compared a KGSSHV with a KGSSHV Carbon? The Carbon is more dynamic, more detailed. Notably larger soundstage and better bass impact (and these are the Carbon’s particular strengths vs. other high-end electrostatic amps like the BHSE). The 007 is a notoriously difficult headphone to driv... | |
| Anyone compared a KGSSHV with a KGSSHV Carbon? The Carbon is much much better than the KGST, especially paired with a 007. It's also notably better than any KGSShv (I've heard 4 variants of this amp), though a Mjolnir KGSShv is indeed a fine choice for this headphone too. I also love tube gear... | |
| NAD C368 and KEF LS50’s I have a C368 in my girlfriend’s system and like it, but 80 Watts is 80 Watts. We got a HUGE sound quality boost by piping its pre-outs into a Parasound A23 (Tannoy Eyris DC3 speakers, 89 dB/ Watt). The C368’s preamp and DAC sound great, though. A... | |
| HeadAmp Blue Hawaii HP amp A BHSE with 007 or 009 will give you much more satisfying bass than the HD800 for sure. I never liked the Sennheisers, and lack of bass was one of the big reasons why. I’m still scratching my head as to why the HD800 has had such a stellar reputat... | |
| UPGRADE FROM VPI SCOUTMASTER I have a good local friend who’s a smart, cautious guy. He’s owned a Scoutmaster for some years now. He’s very thoroughly explored the Scoutmaster-to-Prime option, and conclusively settled on sticking with the Scoutmaster. From what I understand o... | |
| Any experience with Tannoy loudspeakers? I listen to a lot of hard rock and metal. I used to own Kensington SE. They are very good for that music, but you don’t want them in too big a room so that they have trouble pushing out satisfying bass pressure - or use them with subs. You’ll also... | |
| Any Hagerman Trumpet users have tube suggestions? Owned a Trumpet a few years ago; very nice amp. It’s really hard to beat Telefunken 12ax7. I mean you can, but the Teles are far more plentiful and not too expensive. I believe you can also use 12at7 (or 12ay7) in the 12au7 slots (in fact mine did... | |
| Increasing gain for your vinyl front end when pre-amp doesn't quite have enough juice At 4.5mV output on your MP-150, you’ll likely be running way to close to the overload margins of a phono stage running at 59 dB - especially a budget phono like the Mani. So in your case, yes adding a headphone amp with a net gain of around say 10... | |
| Under speakers Vibrapod or Gaïa Do people still use Vibrapods? Not very effective. And as noted, they don't even last. Many excellent options today, including everything mentioned here besides Vibrapods. | |
| Forever turntable under $2000 Hard to go wrong with a Concept in that range. Ensure you get the fixed-bearing arm (Satisfy), though. The magnetic bearing "Concept" arms are way waaaay too sensitive to footfalls and heavy acoustic feedback, and will jump out of the groove when ... | |
| Importance of impedance matching cartridge with phono stage? A whole lot of low-output MC’s like to be loaded 100 ohms or less in conjunction with many active MC phono stages. If you get one of those, the new additional settings at 200+ won’t help you anyways. Of course there are exceptions, e.g. Benz Ruby.... |