[Nomax]

Love the shirt, Nomax!!

Yes, that's what the stock market is all about.....otherwise I could not afford my hobby to this extent at all

NOMAX

 

[XERO1]

Yes, that's what the stock market is all about.....otherwise I could not afford my hobby to this extent at all

NOMAX

Hey, at least you're spending it wisely.

 

[Nomax]

However, only in things that convince me and my ears

NOMAX

PS.lol

 

[FritzS]

What the Full Score one really lacks is an input selector switch. There are enough Hi-Fi fans who have several sources at their disposal. The minimum is 2 inputs, one for the DAC, the second for the phono preamp - a third wouldn't be bad either, for FM / DAB+ receivers. Always having to reconnect is semi-optimal.

 

[Trance_Gott]

I think the Fried Reims amplifiers with their very dry and technical performance also suit the composer quite well
I know him personally and it is always fun to meet him




And concerning me, I have not yet been able to decide whether I will buy a Score One because it is really difficult to compete with the simple plug and play that my RME PRO/SE
offers me since it also does a very good job of its performance
Now it's time to start the HE1 again, because it has gotten too little playing time in the last weeks


NOMAX

PS.lol

Worlds best transistor headphone amp the Niimbus US4/US5 !!!
Fried is a genius. I'm waiting for his Niimbus DAC.

 

[bizkid]

I remember having a very short conversation in a public German Forum with Mr. Reim a long time ago. He might be nice as long you spend the money on and promote his stuff. He made fun of the gearspace crowd (back then under it's old name) calling most users and some other companies clueless over there. He seems to see himself as an electrical Engineering god while 'his' designs are very simple and way overpriced for what they are in my opinion. Just look at the 2nd hand market where you suffer alot when trying to sell his amps. Anyway soon after that he signed up himself on gearspace to promote his amps. That left a very bad taste in my mouth until today. They might sound fantastic but I'll never know.

Back to the Composer, I love that it's not having velour pads. I strongly dislike those because of their dust collecting capabilities. I'll be waiting for a closed version which might be far away but I'm sure will arrive someday

 

[FritzS]

@bizkid
As far as I know, most of Violectric, Lake People circuits (at least from the cheaper line) are hybrid. OPA in the input followed by a discrete driver output stage made of transistors. I don't know how Niimbus build. And why 50V DC, presumably +-25V DC is meant anyway, with full control every headphone smokes.

Fried Reim - The Headphone Amplifier Cookbook

It doesn't look any different with Lehmann.

Funk builds everything with ICs! https://funk-tonstudiotechnik.de/
Funk recommends +-19V (+-18V) - this is the limit of the ICs used. And that is sufficient for pretty much ALL headphones.

For completeness, I also mention SPL - SPL use 120 V DC (+-60V)

As far as Full Score one is concerned, it is fully discreet! No IC in signal path!

 

[DarginMahkum]

I don't want to derail the thread here, but building an amplifier is not "rocket science", that is we are still bound to the same semiconductor technology and electronic components, and the mankind has educated enough electrical engineers and/or electronics enthusiasts to experiment with enough topologies to a perfection that is beyond the limits of hearing. That is the objective part. Then some amp developers might add some flavour to their designs to make it sound different, but that is a subjective thing and it is debatable which one is better than the other.

That said, I was only into analog electronics during my studies and first year or two after graduation, and definitely cannot design an amplifier in one sitting after so many years of being away from it, but that is pretty much my approach to it with my now faint memories from days of exposure to analog electronics. Anyone that claims to be the god of headphone amplifier design should just raise his/her had and look around - to find so many other gods.

 

[plakat]

I remember having a very short conversation in a public German Forum with Mr. Reim a long time ago. He might be nice as long you spend the money on and promote his stuff. He made fun of the gearspace crowd (back then under it's old name) calling most users and some other companies clueless over there. He seems to see himself as an electrical Engineering god while 'his' designs are very simple and way overpriced for what they are in my opinion. Just look at the 2nd hand market where you suffer alot when trying to sell his amps. Anyway soon after that he signed up himself on gearspace to promote his amps. That left a very bad taste in my mouth until today. They might sound fantastic but I'll never know.

Back to the Composer, I love that it's not having velour pads. I strongly dislike those because of their dust collecting capabilities. I'll be waiting for a closed version which might be far away but I'm sure will arrive someday

I‘m also not too much into Violectric amps, though the Lake People models were quite ok. The newer even more expensive models I’ll not even investigate, I simply don’t want any desktop amps anymore.

I’d also love a closed back version of the composer… early feedback on that was „impossible“. Yet that’s not something I like to hear given that we can throw a satellite 500mio km and actually hit the rock it was targeting
I sure hope they’ll try.

 

[plakat]

I don’t see IC as inherently problematic since it also has at least one advantage: having all parts involved at about the same temperature… but I understand that using ICs makes a design more component based and therefore more replaceable. But in the end my expectation of an amp is not to color music (which I prefer to leave to headphones where compromises are inevitable anyway) but to behave predictably in as many circumstances as possible (load, heat, input etc)

 

[FritzS]

As far as small headphone amplifiers are concerned, Chu Moi and Jan Meier, among others, were the pioneers - it all started in the DIY sector!

I still have a box of components, printed circuit boards of a discrete headphone amplifier lying around (I won't build it again) - the circuitry of which is similar to that of the Full Score one. After the end of the tube era, there were a number of circuit pioneers whose foundations can be found in discrete as well as OPAs! And you only have to read all the older AES papers (AES Convention Preprints - I have a few of them).

Walt Jung, Nelson Pass (PASS DIY, Stasis Amp), J. L. Linsley Hood and many others too, these were the pioneers!

Now back to the topic

 

[Rob80b]

As far as small headphone amplifiers are concerned, Chu Moi and Jan Meier, among others, were the pioneers - it all started in the DIY sector!

Jan Meirer, there's a name I haven't followed in awhile, had his little Corda Headfive made for the community back in 2006, no Drop at the time so he shipped directly to us.

 

[ThanatosVI]

Jan Meirer, there's a name I haven't followed in awhile, had his little Corda Headfive made for the community back in 2006, no Drop at the time so he shipped directly to us.

I used to have his Corda Classic. An excellent amplifier for the money.

Sort of my entry into the Hobby 10 years ago

 

[FritzS]

I use his DAC Corda Daccord ff

 

[DarginMahkum]

As we are talking about sources, this is currently the only one that tickles my attention, and I am wondering how it would be with Composer which is a fairly sensitive HP.

https://www.qudelix.com/blogs/t71/qudelix-t71