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chris j said:

Obviously you have no idea who you are talking to or what you are talking about.

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Ok I'll bite.  Who are you and what part of what I said is inaccurate?

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stormfriend said:

DIY question here: my Mjolnir should be turning up today, but my balanced headphone cable won't be turning up until mid January.  Do the pins on a conventional interconnect or microphone xlr match the pin configuration on a headphone output xlr? In other words, if I cut an old interconnect in half, ignore the shield and attach the red/white cables inside to my headphone cable - will that work?
 
Edit: just to be clear, I've cut off the end of the headphone cable too, so its a bare wire to bare wire connection.

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If you mean 3-pin XLR interconnect, then yes, it'll work, BUT all 4 wires must be separate (so K701s and K702s with 3 wires are no good).

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chris j said:

Obviously you have no idea who you are talking to or what you are talking about.
 

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Yes - who are you - inquiring minds want to know..
 
 

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currawong said:

 
If you mean 3-pin XLR interconnect, then yes, it'll work, BUT all 4 wires must be separate (so K701s and K702s with 3 wires are no good).

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Cool, thanks.  They're HD800s and I've run them from balanced speaker amps successfully using the bare wires.  I've not tried rewiring any balanced interconnects before though.

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technica18 said:

I'm almost getting ready to pull the trigger on the Mjolnir but recapping some of the reviews has me nervous cause a lot of people mention how bright and aggressive it is.  The one thing I can stand is too much brightness and that's why bought the LCD-2 which is so smooth and nice in this respect.  I'm gonna use it with the Bifrost at first and I can't match it with a Gungnir just yet.  Should I be concerned or should I just roll the dice?

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The Mjolnir + LCD-2 have great synergy together.  The Mjolnir brings the LCD-2 mids and highs forward compared to the Lyr--which is perfect as far as I'm concerned.  The LCD-2 sounds very good with the Lyr, but it's pairing a warm dark headphone with a warmish amp.  If you could A/B the LCD-2 with the Mjolnir and the Lyr, you'd hear a lot more detail and better dynamics from the MJ without any harshness or overly energetic upper mids and treble.

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preproman said:

 
 
Yes - who are you - inquiring minds want to know..
 
 

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Since you axed....
Professional Electrical Engineer with over 16 years experience designing Power Conversion equipment, Power Distribution equipment, EMC testing.....................oh, and Analog Signal processing.........so after having a hand in designing over $100 million worth of product I think I know how an amplifier works.
 
BTW, I try to avoid commenting on Digital Signal Processing (i.e. digital filtering, equalization, sampling, etc, etc), Digital Hardware, Digital Software, etc as it is definitely NOT my area of expertise.
 
Sorry if that comes across as heavy handed.......but I don't go around telling biologists how biology works, or telling lawyers how the law works, etc.
 
BTW, I have the utmost respect for the electronic designers who work for Schiit, or Bryston, or Pass labs, Cambridge, Audiolab, etc. etc.
The Bryston Headphone amp is not a terrible design. If it is, then their pre-amps are junk too.
A friend of mine used to own a Sumo Nine + Power Amp,  I think the guys at Schiit had a hand in this, an excellent sounding product and (for it's time) a very unique topology, if I remember correctly, this was 24 years ago.
 
Cheers,
Chris

^ the internet seems to be the great reverser. Those expert in a particular topic or field can be treated as if they know nothing, and those who know a little as though they know everything.
 
I have been following Chris J's posts for some time. He is never less than generous responding to questions and - speaking as someone with just a little lecturing experience - I find he has an ability for clear explanation.
 
The irony is I also follow and value Solude, equipment impressions in particular. Solude is equally generous, and obviously has been contributing to head-fi for a good long time!
 
So here we have two valuable contributors at odds...
 
Welcome to head-fi 

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chris j said:

The Bryston Headphone amp is not a terrible design. If it is, then their pre-amps are junk too.

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Their pre-amps don't share this design.  Maybe the BHA-2 will and I won't have anything obvious to point at

 
 
But I love it! (for clarifications sake).

Catching up on this thread, I have found a lot of posts pondering over whether the Mjolnir is bright, shrill, harsh, treble-tilted or the like. Of course, as soon as anyone says something that can be interpreted like it might sound that way, we are all worried about harsh sibilants. I have used the Mjolnir for a couple months now, and I'd say it's not a problem.
 
I'm quite sensitive to such sounds. I often put my fingers in my ears when someone empties the dishwasher, for example. And I use Denon 2000, which is known to be somewhat prone to these problems, and as a source I use the Devilsound Audio Cable - the DAC - which is neutral in it's frequency response.
 
The Denon 2000 are also known for a somewhat sloppy bass, that quality is gone with the wind with the now. There is not less bass, but now it sounds like it was intended to be a lot, it is controlled. There is nothing warm or cozy about it anymore, but there is still a lot of bass. You feel it, somehow, you really can't but you're brain is completely certain that you felt it in your stomach too.
 
However, I see where the comments come from. This system is the most in-your-face sound I have ever heard. It is forward, it is fast, it is clear as day still completely filled out. It is great fun, but it can indeed become a little too much.
 
Indeed. If you look back in this thread, when the early adopters would give nothing but praise for the Mjolnir, at long last one of them was more or less forced to come up with some criticism. And what was written is now known as the finest reviewer-speak in the universe, I'm citing no one less than the respectable Sir Denis-Eton Hogg: Dogmatically vigilant.
 

 
That may have been written in a tone so that it was taken lightly, but it is, indeed, great truth. It hits the nail on the head. Look up those two words, and you will see that it means that the Mjolnir demands the listener to listen to everything there is in the music. All the details. Full scale, full attack, and you have to listen to all of it.
 
Add to this, at least in mys system, that it keeps wanting you turn the volume up. Louder, louder, louder. The result is that I can get listening fatigue in ten minutes with this freaky thing. I do have a wide smile at that point, though. So, I do get listening fatigue, but it's not due to harshness, it's due to vigilancy. And fun.
 
( But it certainly doesn't smooth things out if they already are harsh. )
 
Cheers  / O8h7w

paradoxper said:

But I love it! (for clarifications sake).

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With a bit of hindsight........it is rather amusing.
No matter, The World Ends Tomorrow!

solude said:

Their pre-amps don't share this design.  Maybe the BHA-2 will and I won't have anything obvious to point at

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The Bryston BP26 has exactly the same topology:
for balanced signals, the input stage is a differential amp followed by the volume and balance pot, followed by two inverting amps in series to create your choice of either SE output or balanced output.

Analog bypass in the Bryston SP1.7 surround sound processor uses a similar topology:
SE analog inputs go thru a SE amp, followed by volume and balance pots, which is then followed by two inverting amps in series to create your choice of either balanced or SE outputs.

All the amplification stages in the BP26, SP1.7 and BHA-1 use a similar discrete Op Amp in these amp stages.

You can download these schematics on the Bryston website.

Two SE amps in parallel do not create a truly balanced (i.e. differential) input stage, it won't reject common mode noise.

If you are running 3 foot cables in a simple system, you may not need balanced analog lines anyway.
But if you have a preamp 12 feet away from your power amps, and those vables run in close proximity to power cables, RF cables, digital cables and speaker cables then maybe balanced lines between the pre-amp and power amp may not be a bad idea. Especially when your pre-amp outputs are actually approx. 50 - 100 mV. And now I'm way off topic!

argo duck said:

^ the internet seems to be the great reverser. Those expert in a particular topic or field can be treated as if they know nothing, and those who know a little as though they know everything.

I have been following Chris J's posts for some time. He is never less than generous responding to questions and - speaking as someone with just a little lecturing experience - I find he has an ability for clear explanation.

The irony is I also follow and value Solude, equipment impressions in particular. Solude is equally generous, and obviously has been contributing to head-fi for a good long time!

So here we have two valuable contributors at odds...:eek:

Welcome to head-fi :wink_face:

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Hey, thanks man!
WRT your first statement: Is this state of affairs reversed in NZ because you guys are upside down?

Cheers,
Chris

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chris j said:

The Bryston BP26 has exactly the same topology:

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It would be the one I couldn't find that is similar.  Granted I didn't try their own site /facepalm

Hi Chris, Yes of course 
 
In NZ the two clauses in the statement you refer to are the other way round 
 
Andre
Quote:

chris j said:

Hey, thanks man!
WRT your first statement: Is this state of affairs reversed in NZ because you guys are upside down?

Cheers,
Chris

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