Decware Appreciation Thread (MT review up on first page 2-10-12) - Page 27

I have been using a 307A with Pinnacle trannys and a Moth 2A3 with the HE6 both of which sound very good until one gets to the high volume range. Both amps seem to fizzle out a bit and not drive the headphones as well as they deserve. I guess I need a little more tube power or perhaps a hybrid. I really do like the HE6 and am trying to center my headphone set up around them.

I tried my HE6 with my McIntosh MC4100,1900 and 1700. The problem was none of them had the detail of my dedicated headphone amps. I suppose I may have to do a bit of work on them to bring them up to a higher level of performance if I want to use them for the HE6. Eventually, I will likely sell the 307A and get something more appropriate for the HE6 as those will be my main headphone set. I did hook them up to the speaker terminals of my Aragon Palladium monoblocks and they sounded great. But what a lot of amplifier to just drive headphones.

I am awaiting my CSP2+ and Taboo.  I am getting the VCAPS, and a silver wired resistor so I don't have to have the Taboo connected to speakers.  I also ordered the 0.5m silver interconnects from DECWARE to go between the CSP2+ and the Taboo.  I have the 6 foot 8 strand headphone cable coming from NorseAudio.  I will be running the Audez'e Lcd2 rev. 2's.  This equipment will take hours and hours to burn in, so I plan on tuning in a radio station and running it all while I sleep at night.  If you have a better suggestion for breaking this equip in, please let me know.

Regarding burn-in I believe Decware recommends 5 hours on and 5 hours off for the first 100 hours or so...something like that.  That's how i did both of my amps and had no issues.  The stuff sounds so good to begin with, it just gets better the more you listen, so I guess I felt it didn't need any hardcore burning in to be enjoyable.

Just my 2c
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by snapontom 

I am awaiting my CSP2+ and Taboo.  I am getting the VCAPS, and a silver wired resistor so I don't have to have the Taboo connected to speakers.  I also ordered the 0.5m silver interconnects from DECWARE to go between the CSP2+ and the Taboo.  I have the 6 foot 8 strand headphone cable coming from NorseAudio.  I will be running the Audez'e Lcd2 rev. 2's.  This equipment will take hours and hours to burn in, so I plan on tuning in a radio station and running it all while I sleep at night.  If you have a better suggestion for breaking this equip in, please let me know.

For burning in cables and other audio equipment, I highly recommend the frybaby

http://www.hagtech.com/frybaby.html

It also comes with free worldwide shipping.

How come resistors are needed if one uses the Taboo for headphones?  Does this have to do with the CSP2+ as a pre-amp and people with just the Taboo do not need to do this?

Quote:

Originally Posted by snapontom 

I am awaiting my CSP2+ and Taboo.  I am getting the VCAPS, and a silver wired resistor so I don't have to have the Taboo connected to speakers.  I also ordered the 0.5m silver interconnects from DECWARE to go between the CSP2+ and the Taboo.  I have the 6 foot 8 strand headphone cable coming from NorseAudio.  I will be running the Audez'e Lcd2 rev. 2's.  This equipment will take hours and hours to burn in, so I plan on tuning in a radio station and running it all while I sleep at night.  If you have a better suggestion for breaking this equip in, please let me know.

If the Taboo is hooked up to headphones it was recommended by Steve Deckart that the Taboo also be hooked up to speakers or to  resistors.  I am not sure of the specs on the resistor.  It has nothing to do with the CSP2+ in combo.  I ordered the resistors on a silver wires from Steve for $70, that way the amp will work like it is connected to speakers.

Thank you, I did not know that.  Does anybody else sell them?  Mainly for the time factor.  Decware is so busy that if I could get a cheap, temporary pair of resistors then I could use them to determine whether a difference can be heard and if so I'd buy the more expensive Decware version.

Quote:

Originally Posted by snapontom 

If the Taboo is hooked up to headphones it was recommended by Steve Deckart that the Taboo also be hooked up to speakers or to  resistors.  I am not sure of the specs on the resistor.  It has nothing to do with the CSP2+ in combo.  I ordered the resistors on a silver wires from Steve for $70, that way the amp will work like it is connected to speakers.

This is all news to me  though I did note recent comment that 'phones connected to Taboo sound better when speakers are connected as well. Guess I should do some listening tests...

OTOH, as Steve Deckert designed Taboo I'm willing to take him at his word 

The resistive load should presumably be 8 ohms, as that's where Taboo's six watts is rated. But don't take my word on this. We need specs provided by Steve or an EE familiar with output-transformer based tube amps.

Does this resistor issue also apply to the Mini-Torii?

This resistor/speaker loading recommended for Taboo when listening to headphones worries me a bit!

From the little I understand of Steve's design notes, Taboo is a novel design. A side-effect of this novelty clearly is that loading the speaker outputs is recommended even though one would think they are 'out of circuit' when listening to 'phones. This implies there is some degree of interaction between the phones and speakers.

Now consider this: speakers - especially 2-way and up - present complex, frequency-dependent loads. This means the simple, purely resistive load of your typical ortho becomes to some degree complex 

Effectively, speakers connected to the Taboo become an added variable in tuning one's Taboo for phone listening! Added, that is, to the variables of tube choice.

This may be fun or this may be disquieting - certainly the latter for someone like me 

Mitigating all this is that one-way speakers are likely to be connected, and probably present simpler loads than your typical multi-driver, crossover-based speaker.

My conclusion FWIW - I like the idea of a resistor much better as it's a much simpler load than a typical speaker and eliminates an extra tuning variable. [edited for clarity]

ps: And my Taboo started to sound a shade less good recently. It was also recently I substituted Kef Kit (2-way) satellites. Hmm...