Hanging Out in Sarasota - Page 4

They laughed at Edison, too.

John, Matt, and I were hoping to do more research study, and comprehensive data analysis before publishing, but this scandalous attack on our methods deserves immediate public rebuttal.

Here is the gist of our work.

1. It occurred to us that much of the listening experience is affected by one's mood, or recepetiveness to the music at the time of listening. All agreed that there are occaisions when nothing sounds right or good with the exact same music and gear that at another session are glorious. This is considered the emotional, or subjective side of hearing and experiencing the music.

2. There was also unanimity of thought that technical factors are just as real. Higher quality parts, and better designed circuits make significant improvemments to sound quality. Proper measurement of this set of variables is best done in a double blind environment, where the lstener does not know what equipment is being heard, and must evaluate on perceived sound quality alone.

3. We concluded that we needed a properly designed experiment that a.) guaranteed that the participants wrere in the proper emotional state, and b.) had no knowledge of what equipment was being heard, thus removing prior ideas of what is best.

4. Metholodogy ...

a.) Get double blind - this was accomplished by rigorous selection and quaffing of some of the finest beers available in the city. To insure complete double-blindness, shots of Jagermeister finished off the conditioning session, as that tonic is reknowned for it's medicinal qualities.

b.) Listen to gear, and hope to remember what is being heard.

5. Results ... In a word, astonishing! A whole new line of audio inquiry was stumbled upon. Our work suggests that previously overlooked factors have great affect on sound quality and perception. Much of the original notes have been lost, but my memory may be trusted - as proof, I rarely forget my car keys, and only occaisionally forget important dates.

As alluded to above, we were hoping for more time to properly organize and present our findings, but the besmirchment of our honor cannot go unanswered. Accordingly, we list our findings.

a.) color matters - we were fortunate to have on hand some identical gear in different shades, ie: a red Hornet and a black Hornet, a black LaRocco PRII and a silver one, cables in black, red, orange, purple, green and blue. Here is the initial Naj Color Quantification List (NAJ=NightwoundsTimeagile_onejp11801):

- red is hot, slightly forward, and oh so warm
- blue is cool, moody, and just a tad laid back
- green is fun, lively, and great for pop
- orange and purple were actually quite similar, earthy, worldly, experienced
- black? what can we say of black? it combines a bit of all the others, excelling at no specific things, but the perfect all 'rounder. you can never go wrong with black.

b.) just as color matters, so, to, do shape, texture, and, yes, size I wish I could say more, but our data is still being analized, and to publish in such a learned forum as Head-Fi, we must be conclusive.

So, I trust I have put to rest any questions of our honor and intregrity raised by the scurrilous comments of our co-conspirator, boomana.

What happened to the "what happens at the slumber party stays at the slumber party" oath? Surely not worth breaking just to curry favor with the man? (or men, as I believe both Wayne and Mike are the prosecutors here)

In your dreams ...

The Yamamoto HA02 is a wonderful amp, and I am pleased and proud to have it. It is definitely a contender in the $1000 range (it costs $995, delivered from Japan), but is decidedly not an amp for everyone, though, as it has it's eccentricities.

You will not like this amp if the following are important to you:

- large size, huge metal case, massiveness
- enough power to light a small city
- ability for unlimited tube rolling
- complete absence of tube hum

If you've gotten past the above, and you value:

- beauty, craftsmanship, and design
- simplicity
- headphone versatality, it sounds good with most any
- smaller size

Then the HA02 should be a definite consideration.

For the tube rollers, you are completely out of luck here. The little Yammy uses 2 Western Electric 408A tubes. The only variation will be different manufacture dates, or finding the same 408A tube made under license by Ericson or Northern Electric.

Another note on the 408A tubes. The good news is that they are plentiful, and widely available at $5 to $15. The bad is that their quality seems to vary, so all that you buy may not be usable.

Let's get the one flaw in an otherwise perfect amp out of the way - there is a slight tube hum starting at about 1/2 volume level, and increasing as you go higher from there. Fortunately that is twice as high as average listening levels (1/4 max, or 9 - 10 o'clock is quite loud with all but the K1000s or K340s), so it doesn't really come into play. The hum is totally masked when source signals are present. I also found that overdriving the inputs will exacerbate that hum - when I had full output from the pro level Apogee Mini-DAC, for example), so source matching is a consideration.

As mentioned by others in this little meet thread, the Yamamoto sounds great with every headphone we had on hand, save the K340. By great, I mean that the cans a sounded as good or better than with every other amplifier. Of course this included the AT woodies - the L3000 that I find good with most any good source and amp, and the ATH W2002 which are a notororiously fickle headphone. The W2002s were at their best out of the Yamamoto - as good as from their matching HA2002 or the Sugdens I've heard them with in the past.

John and Vicki loved the k1000 from the Yammy, and I was actually astounded that it drove them without any clipping whatsoever (the k1000 was connected to the speaker terminals of the Yamamoto). I felt John's First Watt was clearly better for the K1000s, and would never recommend the Yamamoto as a primary amp for them, but certainly agree that it made beautiful music with them. All the other cans at hand besides the K340 - they were ok, but the K340 is definitely better from powerful SS (HR-2 and Heed were both there) or something like the Extreme, sounded at their best from the Yamamoto. This included the aformentioned L3000 and W2002, as well as the R10, Sony SA5000, Grado HP-2, Senn HD-650, AKG K701, etc.

There is something that is just "right" about how the Yamamoto sounded with all those headphones. I think different people described it in different ways - what is "right" for each can be different, one to the other (speed, detail, smoothness, musicality, etc). That seems to be the magic with this amp - it is "right" sounding to all who heard it Saturday.

Audio Line Out racabled AKG K701: I meant to mention this much earlier, but my K701s had just returned from Ken Ball at ALO with a recable job - I literally picked them up from the P.O. on Saturday morning before folks arrived.

Ken used some of his magic Cryo cable, and modded the K701 to accept cable to both right and left earpieces. The workmanship was up to his usual highest standards, and looks great.

Even with no burn in, the newly rewired 701 sounded better than ever. Immediately apparent were the bottom (bass) being filled in, a sweetness to both male and female voices that was always missing before, and even more air and stage. All this with no sacrifice of detail or extension. Will be interesting to see if changes occur with use - can't imagine they can get much better.

Alas, no stock K701 to compare with, so you are at the mercy of my audio memory.