[scootermafia]

Anyone have pictures?

If you do post a good interior pic, provide your paypal email and $3 is yours.

Also, anyone know a good 3rd place to buy it? It's $225 shipped factory direct but they're being slow in answering my emails over the holidays, and TTVJ wants $290 + shipping (ugh).

 

[peanuthead]

I've been corresponding with Jan about some questions, and he said he'd be off 12/27 - 12/30 for the holidays.

 

[MASantos]

If you don't mind me asking, why do you want an internal pic and why are you willing to pay for it?

 

[hdampf]

any1 compared corda arietta to darkvoice 336se using hd650 headphones?

 

[scootermafia]

I'm just very curious. For me, it's hard to plunk money down if I can't see the wizard behind the curtain. I want to know that I'm not getting ripped off with crappy parts. A part of me thinks that there is hardly much more hardware inside the Arietta than my CMOY and that the Shanling PH100 is a better value.

And I have a 336SE. Still haven't gotten the tube situation figured out but there is a pile of new tubes in my mail that's being held, when I get back from vacation I will have a roll-a-thon. I'm probably getting a solid state amp to round out my setup, unless the 336SE sounds so retardedly good with one of the new tubes that I change my mind.
So I may indeed soon be comparing them.
However, Skylab has heard both and I'm sure he can pass judgement.
*invokes Skylab*

 

[hdampf]

an answer from skylab would be great!

so with the built in standard tube you dont like the 336SE that much?(i would have to use standard for some time, no time for that rolling etc)

im thinking about getting a darkvoice amp because i red much here that they play very good with the hd650 and are a good deal for the money, but not really shure whitch one and dont like the fact that it is only available from china. i live in germany and therefore shipping and tax is high and i dont even know if its allowed to import to eu/germany caus of security norms etc(okay all here seem to do it without trouble). caus the arietta is sold in germany it would be a nice alternative without any trouble like if it comes broken/ i need repair and i could also return it by german law within 14days if i would not like it.

a comparision would be nice as it is also the same price range. arietta vs 336se without any mods used with hd650.

 

[nuclearpoweredpenguin]

I know it's not exactly what you are looking for, but Jan Meier posted a picture of the internals of the Corda Symphony that currently resides on one of the last pages of the last pages of the "Symphony Impressions" thread.

 

[jirams]

Quote:

Originally Posted by scootermafia /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm just very curious. For me, it's hard to plunk money down if I can't see the wizard behind the curtain. I want to know that I'm not getting ripped off with crappy parts. A part of me thinks that there is hardly much more hardware inside the Arietta than my CMOY and that the Shanling PH100 is a better value. And I have a 336SE. Still haven't gotten the tube situation figured out but there is a pile of new tubes in my mail that's being held, when I get back from vacation I will have a roll-a-thon. I'm probably getting a solid state amp to round out my setup, unless the 336SE sounds so retardedly good with one of the new tubes that I change my mind. So I may indeed soon be comparing them. However, Skylab has heard both and I'm sure he can pass judgement. *invokes Skylab*

All of Jan's products use the best quality components commensurate with cost.

How would you tell "crappy" parts from a photo?

 

[scootermafia]

I can somewhat gauge an amp's output from a look at its circuitry. It's reassuring to at least see a few name brand parts in there. Say I crack open my darkvoice, and see all the 3rd-world looking parts in there, makes me a little nervous that they're going to die an early death (although a blurb in the manual claims these parts outperform foreign parts). That, and I'm just curious how it is designed. The Arietta does use op-amps, but so does the entire Meier product line, as well as all the designs from Headroom up to the $4000+ max series.

The 336SE, now that I've suffered with this CMOY all of Christmas break, is pretty kickass. Sure, I had to repair its power switch when it came broken (it's flimsy as a popsicle stick) by simply hard wiring it to be always-on and it's full of shady Chinese parts, but it's still built with love and sounds cool. Sure, it hums with all the tubes besides stock tubes (3 new-production preamp tubes hum, and counting), which is why I spent more than 1/3 its value on tubes coming in the mail from ebay to try to fix the problem. Tubes and HD650 are meant to go together, everyone says it, because of the high current demands of the HD650. It's not even a matter of pairing "bright" with "dark" components and so on...solid state works fine for K701s but there aren't too many affordable solid state amps that are a good match for the HD650 according to my research.

I'd like to know if Skylab has tried the Arietta with high impedance cans like the HD650 and had good results.

Yes, the stock tubes are weak. You'll probably still like how it sounds...the Sovtek preamp tube I bought sounded worse than stock. The electro-harmonix sounded pretty boss, even with hum. The tung-sol sounded in-between, with plentiful hum. Skylab says the hum can be fixed with the addition of a few parts and a fair bit of soldering, but I'm not cool enough to attempt that mod. Instead I'm going to keep trying tubes, because the stock tube doesn't hum, and it's possible that the NOS tubes from the 60s that I ordered, according to a recommendation, will not hum as well.

 

[jirams]

Here is image of Meier HeadFive on which the Arietta is based AFAIK.

All the Meier amps sound superb on HD650 - this is the can Jan uses when designing matching.

 

[hdampf]

thank you for your usefull reply scootermafia.

i can at this time only afford 1 amp and i think it is better if i choose a tube amp for the hd650 instead of a ss in the same price range. i like the warm sound i get with the hd650 conneted to my audigy2 (i will upgrade this now too with the esi juli@ or asus xonar essence stx) or my sony sacd player (both without headphone amp, i didnt have any amp yet) very much.

i see that problem with the stock tubes (not so good) and hum with different tubes in the 336se. what do you exactly mean with hum? does the sound hum (i mean the musik in the headphone when playing) or does only the machine itself hum when running? the later would not be a problem, but if the musik would have a humming sound that would obvious annoy me a lot.
i would not be able for soldering etc, but order some more tubes would not be that bad/annoying, at least if i find a seller who sells the amp + extra tubes in one order.


do you know if the stock tubes in the 337 or 337se are much better or would i have the same problem there? maybe i could also buy one of them if i have to pay taxes and shipping anyway.

but in generall i dont feel that save buying that high prices from china like the 337se (900$+shipping+ arround 20%german tax) from non professional firms. i mean thats not a trademark like "stax" from japan e.g. where you know those tings are high priced but will work long time. i have much expierence with building computers together myself etc and that parts from china / taiwan etc normally die after a few years caus bad electrolytic capacitor / fans etc. (some soon, some not, you just dont know) i mean like you wrote the china mass consumer things are normally not that good quality in parts and in building together but therefore totaly cheap and interesting for short time use and buying the next thing after a few years. that makes totaly sense in pc and display stuff, but i dont know if headphone amps change that much too.

 

[Towert7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by scootermafia /img/forum/go_quote.gif Tubes and HD650 are meant to go together, everyone says it.

'Everyone says it' my butt.

 

[scootermafia]

Well, we can't all have a GS-1, and most people like the 336SE paired with the HD650.
Here's another quote:
"Really expensive solid state amps and HD650 are meant to go together, everyone says it."
A Corda Symphony or a nice Headamp would be cool with the HD650, it's just out of my price range. It takes some serious go balls to power the HD650, so either tubes or a really powerful solid state machine is what is required.

I'd probably bypass that sound card with a USB DAC or at least use an optical out. I hated my Audigy because it screwed around with the sound too much. Have you thought about the new Compass DAC/Amp? It's probably going to be a good value, $250 (not sure if that is a shipped price) and made by Audio-GD, which is well respected, it was sort of encouraged into production based on the shortcomings of the Zero DAC, a popular Chinese machine with a drastic need for modding in order to sound good.

About the hum - with certain preamp tubes (the small front tube) the 336SE will hum at all times through the headphone jack. It will hum when it is on, whether or not a source is plugged into it. It is a pretty significant hum that is mostly drowned out by music but on quiet passages you can hear it, and it is unacceptable. It can be fixed with modding supposedly, but some tubes set it off. The stock preamp tube doesn't hum, and I don't know why. The stock tubes are going to sound better than nothing, they don't sound horrific or anything, it's just that with a bit of money spent on tubes you can greatly improve the sound and reach the amp's potential. The problem is that you never know which tubes will hum - the 336SE is a flawed design, you can only really buy it directly from Chinese sellers, and its power switch is destined to break (mine arrived broken as I said). It is a calculated risk to buy one, but if you have $300 that you don't mind not seeing again, it's a great amp nonetheless.

 

[scootermafia]

Edit for double post.

 

[Towert7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by scootermafia /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'd probably bypass that sound card with a USB DAC or at least use an optical out. I hated my Audigy because it screwed around with the sound too much. Have you thought about the new Compass DAC/Amp?

I do bypass the sound card. All it does it output SPDIF over a coaxial cable to my DAC.