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Trafomatic Experience Head One - Page 3

post #31 of 176
2/16/09 at 5:30pm
Nice to see that someone is enjoying this amp. We have a local retailer for Trafomatic but I haven't had a chance to audition this one yet. It looks stunning and very interesting. I must say that I prefer the wooden look on the website to the piano black of yours. Both of them look very good though. Thanks for the review.

btbluesky: Nice avatar you got there.
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post #32 of 176
5/4/09 at 1:56pm
Thread Starter 
The driver tubes for this amp are rather rare (readily available from Russia, but not many other manufacurers) and thus tube rolling seemed to be out of the question.
Then I saw an auction for two NOS Telefunken EC2080, and my hopes were rising.
Then the auction ended and I'm back again....
Unbelievable that people actually pay that sort of money for a set of tubes..
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post #33 of 176
5/4/09 at 2:00pm
That's more than the cost of my DAC, amp, and NOS tubes COMBINED!
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post #34 of 176
5/4/09 at 5:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kees View Post
The driver tubes for this amp are rather rare (readily available from Russia, but not many other manufacurers) and thus tube rolling seemed to be out of the question.
Then I saw an auction for two NOS Telefunken EC2080, and my hopes were rising.
Then the auction ended and I'm back again....
Unbelievable that people actually pay that sort of money for a set of tubes..
Wow.... I didn't know tubes ever got to those kind of prices! Are you still happy with the amp, Kees? There is a distributor for Trafomatic here in Toronto that is selling them for an attractive price and from what I have been reading it seems like a good fit for an amp that is good with a wide variety of headphones.
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post #35 of 176
5/4/09 at 5:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kees View Post
The driver tubes for this amp are rather rare (readily available from Russia, but not many other manufacurers) and thus tube rolling seemed to be out of the question.
Then I saw an auction for two NOS Telefunken EC2080, and my hopes were rising.
Then the auction ended and I'm back again....
Unbelievable that people actually pay that sort of money for a set of tubes..
If you have the dough and they sound 50 percent better or even 100 percent better then I do understand why people pay so much. It is frustrating though to know you have options but they are too expensive to stay grounded and keep the wife. I can get a few hundred by her but 1000 for tubes? No way!
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post #36 of 176
5/4/09 at 6:19pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mr.khali View Post
Wow.... I didn't know tubes ever got to those kind of prices! Are you still happy with the amp, Kees? There is a distributor for Trafomatic here in Toronto that is selling them for an attractive price and from what I have been reading it seems like a good fit for an amp that is good with a wide variety of headphones.
Yes, I am still very happy with this amp. If you want an all-round tube amp and if you can afford it, get it.
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post #37 of 176
5/4/09 at 6:37pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by olblueyez View Post
If you have the dough and they sound 50 percent better or even 100 percent better then I do understand why people pay so much. It is frustrating though to know you have options but they are too expensive to stay grounded and keep the wife. I can get a few hundred by her but 1000 for tubes? No way!
In my experience with tubes there is usually a difference in sound signature that you may like or not, but hardly ever is one better or worse than the other. I wouldn't want to bet on it that these Telefunken are actually better than the Russian tubes, most definitely not 50% or so.... It has happened to me that I bought relatively expensive Mullards to end up liking the much cheaper Sylvanias better.
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post #38 of 176
5/4/09 at 6:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kees View Post
In my experience with tubes there is usually a difference in sound signature that you may like or not, but hardly ever is one better or worse than the other. I wouldn't want to bet on it that these Telefunken are actually better than the Russian tubes, most definitely not 50% or so.... It has happened to me that I bought relatively expensive Mullards to end up liking the much cheaper Sylvanias better.
The fact that you like the Sylvania's better is why you would like the Tele's better. Tele's will have a nice clean, clear highs, Mullards are extremely warm and rolled off in the highs. But 1000 bucks is very stiff for a set of tubes that may last 5 years, then what? If I were you I would just scan eBay.com once and awhile and maybe you will get lucky.
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post #39 of 176
5/4/09 at 7:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kees View Post
Yes, I am still very happy with this amp. If you want an all-round tube amp and if you can afford it, get it.
Thanks. I put aside funds for one of the entry level amps EF1, Jade, etc, but I don't mind putting more money into something that will offer a significant improvement over the headphone out of my Apogee Duet. I also plan to get a pair of the infamous K340 in the future so I want to make sure I have enough power to drive them properly.
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post #40 of 176
6/2/09 at 2:27pm
While still very happy with my Experience Head One I came across this image:



Does anyone know if this is a new (or maybe old) design? It looks of a higher quality (if you take a closer look at the fittings, knobs, headphone jack) and it seems to have a larger transformator too.

Does anyone know what going on here? Seems like a silent product upgrade if you ask me.
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post #41 of 176
6/2/09 at 3:47pm
Thread Starter 
Definitely new.
There are some other pics too.
they were uploaded on May 15th.





















It is merely a visual facelift though.

Not all pictures are relevant, but you just can never have enough nice pictures.
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post #42 of 176
6/2/09 at 3:52pm
Holly smokes that is some good lookin stuff.
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post #43 of 176
6/2/09 at 4:27pm
Damn, this amp looks even better now! Hope my local distributor has the new version by the time I am ready to grab one.
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post #44 of 176
6/2/09 at 5:52pm
Looks very interesting and slightly more professional. And they definately improved their build quality too. Would be really interesting if there are some other changes as well, because as I already said, the transformer itself looks larger.


Edit: Whoaa... I was so fascinated that I didn't really take a closer look at the other products. BUT they have a tube DAC!!!111OneEleven

Edit2: I'm reading the article now too (didn't have the time before and in fact I don't have any time right now either ) and it seems that they are face-lifted, revamped versions.
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post #45 of 176
6/3/09 at 4:09pm
Oh man, they look good.
It seems like they've redone exactly the three things that I don't like that much about mine. Namely plastic gold-coated feet, -faceplate and -knobs.

I also notice that that there are a lot of us that use the Havana as source, and have GS1000s at the end of the chain, weird.

I like that Gamma, but it's got no optical input, and where are those tubes? It looks like they're sticking out on the underside.
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