Quote:     Quote:     I had a friend do an informal comparison to his Q701s & my K501s. He thought the HE400s were superior over the AKGs in all aspects except for the soundstage. This was done using an O2 amp.   Regarding amping, I think the O2 amp does a pretty...

To figure out what is causing your channel imbalance / cut channel - test the wire first. Unscrew the SMA headphone connectors, and swap them. If the good side is now bad, then its a wire issue. If the bad side is still bad, then it might be a loose connection inside. To test this, try pinching...

Mine worked perfectly for the first day or so. Then the left channel cut out (or rather the volume out was only about 10% of the right output). I fixed it by taking the whole thing apart and tightening the screws. There are actually two layers of screws. The outer black screws fix a plastic ring...

  Quote: I built my own O2, with gain set at 1x and 2.5x. With standard DAC inputs (grubDAC and NFB-3), the sound using 2.5x gain is noticeably harsher than with 1x. It also gets exceedingly loud very quickly, so I just use 1x gain all the time (and I've never had to turn it up to...

Yeah, I keep refreshing hoping to find some more impressions... Anyway, I found a few tidbits & photos over at techpowerup's CES live coverage page:           Not sure why the first quote is cut off, but hopefully their resident headphone guy will provide some more detailed...

Hi Tom, thanks for the advice! On closer inspection of the Wolfson chip, I noticed that there wasn't any solder at the LINEVOUTR pin you mentioned. Now that its been on soldered properly, everything seems to be working! Thanks again! :)

Built the grubDAC last night. I was pretty happy with the results for my first time doing SMD soldering. Anyway, initial power on seemed to work properly - all the voltages were correct, and the LED turned on. When wired up though, I'm getting sound, but only out of the left side. I tried on Mac...

Quote: Then you probably won't be getting a telefunken, unless you're lucky (or you can source one off a friend for cheaper). Mine cost about $50 plus shipping from ebay, and that's reasonably cheap... The 12BH7's are probably the way to go then. You can probably get 2 for $30...

I have a Bottlehead Crack with Speedball and some other mods, and I use it with a HD600 (also AKG K501). I don't find it excessively warm at all. Re your first question about a suitable amp for the HD600, it really depends on the sound you're looking for. Personally, I find the HD600 have a...

There should be a short (~1m) coax spdif cable included with your NFB3, as well as optical & USB cables. Before spending money on cables, I'd try and compare the sound you get from coax/optical/USB inputs, choose your preferred input and then buy a cable if you still feel the need for it.  ...

To OP: Congrats on getting your first pair of awesome headphones. They are definitely a great buy! I also recently bought a pair of K501's off ebay. I drive them off my Bottlehead Crack, and there's a fantastic synergy between them. I find that there's a larger soundstage and a naturalness that...

Quote: Given that the last few NFB2/3's that have been shown/unboxed in this thread have had the new gold ACSS sockets, I'm guessing its now standard. I think what Kingwa means, is that if you have an older Audio-GD model with the old sockets, you can have old sockets put on your new order...