Ive had the senn hd 580 for a few years; the only headphone i have.  I enjoy it but felt something was missing.  For source i have the QLS550 wav player going spdif to a fathom 1543 nos dac, to a Zenos portable hphone amp(no slouch, one of the better amps from a few years ago) In my search...

Hi all dont know if this is the right sub group to post.... i have a 6 month old Trends pa10 preamp. It has a single tube for input stage and is SS for output stage. i have noticed lately that the pot is noisy when volumn is turned up and down; not noisy when volumn is set. This is a relatively...

Hi recently bought a used combo dac and usb to optical converter....as below my question is about setup..it works but strange driver settings in windows xp sound control panel lists: C Media usb headphone set this was not in my computer before, and is the only option ecept the sigmatel C...

Hi all have any of you used this as a music server? It has a digital out, so an external dac could be used. I wonder about the quality of the digital out, as well as how good the firmware works I would like to get my speaker system off my old laptop...it has a small HD and the iomega ext HD...

Hi all Info and recommendations for the following would be greatly apprec... My headphone amp situation is fine, but I need help for a speaker pre amp. laptop to dac to amp6 tripath digital amp to 4 in. full range tang bang speakers at present. the T amp likes high effeciency speakers and...

Hello all I recently read that it is a no-no to run a usb dac if you are using an external usb hard drive as a source for your music files. Is this true? I dont understand why, considering that one has several usb ports available for use. I have my music files on a usb drive; using foobar on...

Have any of you experimented with using different components in the xenos amp. I understand that their are better op amps than the ones used. I have a friend who is very good with DIY...which is why I ask. your responces and experience are apprec Dan

Hi all Been a member for little over a month and have spent more $$$$than I thought I would, trying to find the best sound I can. So now I have seens 580, xenos epc amp, iaudio x5 and sony nw hd5 players. I would like to decide on one of these players, so....ABing concerns and techniques...

OK folks...I know there are alot of electronic wizards here; building your own dacs, phone amps, etc. So what about a transportable true audiophile quality DAP? I know Vinnie is doing the imod thing with clean line out...which is what is missing from all these comsumer audio players. But he is...

Hello all Well, i got a used pair of 580 from Skylab this last week...a nice change from many years with the grado 80s. A thing I noticed: when I cup my hands around the outside of the seens, the sound is only slightly dimisnished, comparted to when I do it on the grados, the sound is choked...

Hello all what does a bad sector on a portable HDD player result in? On my one month old x5 I have found on two tracks a place where the song gets stuck on a phrase and just repeats it until I select the next track. It is not the flac file, as it plays fine on foobar. on the x5 hd, I could...

Greetings Well, today was not a great day. While at my laptop copying wav files and flac conv for my new x5, my leg was caught on grado cord, and rising up I pulled every oof the desk and crashing to the ground. laptop pulling out power cord and echo soundcard, two port HDDs etc...i cried...

Greetings Have a new X5 and Xenos epc amp...a week old so not burnt in. Question; as noted the lineout is dis appointing, so am using the headphone jack. What is the best setting for x5 volumn; best dynamics, soudstages etc before x5 starts to distort? been playing with settings of 17-24...

Greetings all This is my first post...I have learned a great deal by reading the forum, esp grateful to Skylab and others for the comparison of port. head amps. I am a poor guy on fixed SSI income ,so the amp I get has to be the right one for me I have narrowed it to 3 Xenos 1HA-EPC Meier...