shini44 said:

  do i need to make it Balanced from the X-Sabre to the Ragnarok? or just use RCA cables and for the headphone i go with XLR ? 

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You should choose balanced v. RCA based on the output quality from the X-Sabre. I know in a few DACs I have the XLR outputs sound better.  The ragnarok seems to do equally well regardless of the input used.
 

reddog said:

My balanced cable for my Alpha Prime's has arrived and the AP'S sound great through my Ragnarok. I can not believe how fantastic Zappa's Dumb All Over from his album: You Are What You Is. Layers must sink into audiophile induced stupor.

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Congrats!  And I can't believe I haven't listened to any Zappa on this amp yet.

No forum-er review yet?

Too busy listening to wax poetic about the amp! Santana thundering thru my X leads into Jesse Cook... Wow. Just wow.

commtrd said:

Too busy listening to wax poetic about the amp! Santana thundering thru my X leads into Jesse Cook... Wow. Just wow.

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I bet Santana sounds Devine through your rig.

reddog said:

 

commtrd said:

Too busy listening to wax poetic about the amp! Santana thundering thru my X leads into Jesse Cook... Wow. Just wow.

Click to expand...

I bet Santana sounds Devine through your rig.

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I have yet to find any genre that does not sound really incredible with this setup. Of course if the selection may not be recorded as well as it should be, that comes shining thru as well. I do so wish I had kept my LCD-3c also as I suspect they would have been unbelievable with the rok. May have to someday acquire 3f. Not exactly slummin' with the X though. Just those beautiful creamy seductive mids keep calling out to me softly thru the ether of times past...  

I think my Rag is wired. I used my Alpha Prime on my Rag, I use high gain, with my normal listening volume, it pushes the volume knob to 1 o'clock. But Alpha Prime is only 90db/mw, and it is over 12 o'clock on high gain for HD800. Can anybody share some info here on the position of the volume knob for those 2 headphones?
;

chengka7 said:

  I think my Rag is wired. I used my Alpha Prime on my Rag, I use high gain, with my normal listening volume, it pushes the volume knob to 1 o'clock. But Alpha Prime is only 90db/mw, and it is over 12 o'clock on high gain for HD800. Can anybody share some info here on the position of the volume knob for those 2 headphones?
;

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My HD800 does fine on low gain, about 2 pm.  Not beyond 4 pm ever.

chengka7 said:

  I think my Rag is wired. I used my Alpha Prime on my Rag, I use high gain, with my normal listening volume, it pushes the volume knob to 1 o'clock. But Alpha Prime is only 90db/mw, and it is over 12 o'clock on high gain for HD800. Can anybody share some info here on the position of the volume knob for those 2 headphones?
;

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I think the far more likely scenario than your Rag being weird is that your upstream components are weird. And, by that, I don't mean they're weird. I just mean that they're different than somebody else's. An unbalanced upstream signal has less incoming voltage. If I turn the gain down on my DAC, I'll need to jack it up higher. I'm running my N51 at -5dB via balanced cables at the moment and find that I've got plenty of range and gradation. I could certainly jack it down a ways and need to use high gain and the last inch of dial. If you've got the range you need, I wouldn't be at all concerned about it. If anything, it may be preferrable to get the gain in the Ragnarok depending on how you feel about pushing the upstream gain circuits further.

Hmm, thanks for the reply guys, it helps a lot. My DAC only has SE output, maybe that is the reason. I have my HE-6 coming tomorrow, I will see how it pairs with my Rag. Thanks again for all the help. 

The Rok's gain 'structure' takes some getting used to, well at least for me it does.
 
At first I thought something was 'wrong'.  I needed all the gain from my PWD and all the gain from the player and all the gain in The Rok and even then the moar knob was at 1:00+.
 
Now if I don't pay any attention to the position of the moar knob I can use any gain setting and just twist that big shiny knob until the sound comes up.
 
Because it uses a linear and not a logarithmic 'taper' to the pot, it doesn't 'act' like a 'normal' vol control.
 
Right now I'm listening at low gain & 2:30 on the moar knob, where I was using high gain and 11:30 for ≈ the same volume level.
 
And which gain setting (low or mid or high) is used, seems to not matter.
There may be some SQ differences between the 3 gain settings but that will take much more listening to figure on that.
 
And another bit of observation.
 
My speakers are cheap ($40), and my old speaker amp is even cheaper ($20).
And now driving these Dayton B652 speakers with The Rok I've noticed that the sound 'carries' much better through the house, especially at low volume.
It seems that the speakers 'hook up' and transfer electrical to acoustical energy much better.
 
Anyone else notice this?
 
JJ

I've noticed that the level on the subwoofer needed to be lowered significantly. The Ragnarok has real balls, far beyond what I expected from 60 wpc.
 
And, yes, that's a Good Thing.

So recently I've been thinking about getting a dynamic rig again with these as the amp and either the HE6 or HD800 as the headphone. I've had them in the past so I do know how the headphone sounds. It does seem like it matches well with the HD800 and should have enough for the HE6 although I haven't read as much about the HE6 (there are like 3 threads on this so hard to separate the impressions and the waiting). I do love my SR007 but I do miss the sound of the HD800 and HE6.
 
I do have two questions however. My dac only has 1 XLR output so would either of these work
 
1) If there isn't much difference in my dac outputs would there be a difference between XLR in and RCA in or should they sound pretty much the same?
2) If XLR is preferred would I be able to do the following: Dac > Ragnarok > Stax Amp > headphone. I would use the Ragnarok as a "preamp" but more as a workaround where I only have 1 XLR output and I would prefer not to get a separate DAC for this. However if I do I would get the PWD2 but if it can be avoided then it saves a step.

I went from a cheap standard RCA cable to a more expensive Nordost XLR Cable and have not noticed any sound difference as far as inputs go

Nordost is really bad IMO, it is ridiculously overpriced.

.