willsw
Responses from willsw
| Audiophile demographics? @theo714 got it. If a group has been historically discouraged or denied participation in something, like STEM fields that relate directly to "gearhead" interests, it takes much more effort for a member of that group to pursue an interest in that t... | |
| Constant noisy tubes maybe go solid state? In my experience, current-production tubes have been far, far more reliable than old-stock (new or not). This has primarily been with Russian Tung-sol and Gold Lion tubes, which are both the sort of mid-to-upper range of current production. I don'... | |
| 6SN7 variants circa 2019 - tone, longevity, reliability, value To respond to the earlier mention of current-production Tung-sol's reliability - we used to use all Tung-sol for manufacturing and might have had one 6SN7 failure, though it could have been caused by something else. That is through hundreds of tub... | |
| Warm, lush and dark ... Dac up to 1.2K Disclosure: I rep for both of these DACs, but I chose to do so because of their performance and actually make very little money on salesI third the MHDT suggestion, they sound perfect, and the Border Patrol DAC is also a great one. Some really goo... | |
| Yggy DAC The Aurender has a full-featured, advanced DAC internally, and I imagine the differences could be small between it and the Yggy. I've personally done group comparisons with the Yggy and other DACs and do not doubt what my ears and their ears found... | |
| My jazz collection told me to get a *real* system The Bay area is one of the best places to be able to actually listen to potential purchases, and if you're willing to drive up to Portland, you can expand that experience. I love jazz with the right headphones, with the right speakers, with the ri... | |
| A vote for the little guy suppliers A goal of ours is to fill our listening room only with components that not only sound great, but are made by people we know personally. Anytime I want to, I know I can easily have a lengthy conversation with Gary (Border Patrol), Joe (Wolf Audio S... | |
| Schiit Vidar.... Anyone heard one yet? the salesman there said it sounds identical to the speaker taps 60W output from the back of the (more expensive) Ragnarok headphone amp.I doubt this, as, I believe, much of the development delays had to do with the new topology (not using the same... | |
| Focal Headphones with Linear Tube Audio Had some people in with the Utopia today. The MZ2 does a great job with them. | |
| Tekton Double Impacts Al, he states that almost all (he doesn't say which were not) measurements were taken from the RCA jacks, which would be the preamp outputs. As the outputs are wired in parallel, the output impedance should be 2 ohms, as are the headphone and spea... | |
| Tekton Double Impacts nicks25,Well Pleased AV has decided to go with a different amplifier pairing for LA and will no longer have the MZ2, so we will unfortunately not be present at the show.Regarding two pre outs/splitting the output, the output impedance of the MZ2's... | |
| More discrete R2R Mulibit dacs. I picked up a Denafrips Ares after my USB-only Wavelength Brick was no longer enough for the TV and other devices that I wanted the best sound quality possible out of. I've been burning it in fully before trying any comparisons, but locally some g... | |
| Linear Tube Audio- Any feedback on their amps/ Preamp? Lance, thanks for hosting that shootout! We had another with Mark's system and we've decided to go full Genalex Gold Lion for both the ZOTL40 and the ZOTL10. KT77, 12AU7, and 12AX7 for the 40 and EL84, 12AT7, and 12AU7 for the 10.These Gold Lions ... | |
| Linear Tube Audio- Any feedback on their amps/ Preamp? Because the ZOTL circuit reveals the character of the tubes (and most components in the signal path) so strongly, now that we've made more ZOTL40s and heard them in different systems, we've decided to find some new tube options, as the Tung-sol EL... | |
| Capital Audio Fest 2016 We both noted that the analogue setup in the room with the Brinkman table/cartridge was defective; it sounded out of phase. I asked the vendor about this and he acknowledged that somewhere in transit, it appears that the cartridge went bad (not w... |