NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!   What happened to the HE500s?!  Where did they go?!  Hifiman, what have you done?!     Seriously, with no exclamation points, what happened to them?  I don't see anything in the new hifiman lineup that compares sonically.  The 500s were competitive with...

Quote:   Well, aside from $800, I doubt very seriously there is much difference.  I listen almost exclusively to hip hop and electronic (dubstep, d&b) when I work--which is where I do the bulk of my listening--and the DA150 performs excellently.  There is very little difference between it...

Quote: Yeah, the stock silver cable.  One of the reasons people (Mal included) had for forging a whole new cable was to replace the old-school rubber coated one that hifiman used to ship with the 500.  The new bare braided silver cable is shorter and much more svelte.  If you know anyone...

@zoom: if you're getting the new HE-500 and know anyone who does any electronics work at all, they can put the banana plugs on for you in about 10 minutes for the cost of the plugs.  The new cable from hifiman is really, really nice.  If not, check with Chris_himself.  He works pretty cheap and...

Okay, so the DA does work after all.  Seems like one of the speaker outs wasn't getting a good connection.  I jiggled and pressed and whatnot for about 15 minutes today and got it working in stereo.   Yeah.  You guys were right.  WAY too much power.  It opens up around 7 o'clock and I can't...

Okay, so the posts got here today. Our techs soldered'em up, I plugged'em in, and...well, the APA150 doesn't work in stereo.  Nothing out the right channel.  At all.  Flip the switch to mono, and suddenly: boom!  Sound out both ears.  That means our wiring job is fine; the amp is jacked up.  So...

Quote:   Okay.  I've got an EF2 I can use as a preamp if the speaker amp is outrageous.  I mean, it's 50% or so more power than the Emotiva, but it still calculates out to, like, 9wpc @ 32ohm.  I guess we'll see when my banana plugs get here--I got the amp in today, so they should be here...

Mal, You think I may have overshot with the little DA 75wpc amp I ordered?   On another note, got them in today.  Packaging was really, really damn nice.  I love the new cable Fang is shipping with them.  About 5 feet, silver, no sleeving at all.  Trying to power them out of my EF2A is a...

Quote: hey dude, check with wayne on here.  He makes custom headbands for Grados and this would be right up his alley.  his username is wje--just shoot him a message and tell him I sent you.  If he's willing to do it, I'll probably order one, too.

Ordered today.  Calyx Coffee -> APA150 -> HE500.  Emotiva wanted $50 to ship out here; the DA amp was only 150 shipped.  If it sucks, I'll hand it over to our electronics techs for spare parts and order the Emotiva after the new year.  All the DA's reviews were quite good, though.  ...

Just ordered it from Amazon.  Should be here in the next 5 days or so.  I'll post up some initial impressions when it gets here.

I am thinking of this.  For $128 + $15 shipping to APO, it's almost a throw away if it sounds like crap.  And Emotiva doesn't make shipping out here easy for me--no way to do it through the website.   Thoughts?

Fantastic.  Thanks for both, my friend.

Mal, Do you have Brian's email address?  His website's blocked out here.

Mal, Thanks for this post, man.  I'm finally about to take the leap to the 500's at the end of the year.  I have been looking at amps and was becoming straight jaded at the outrageous price you have to pay for power.  I finally decided on a speaker amp yesterday--$500+ for a headphone amp that...