I will be driving in for the day. It sounds like no Stax owners will be bringing any gear. I have the SRM-007tII that Spritzer modified to run 6S4A tubes and might schlep it up there if someone will be bringing an 009 or 007 earspeaker, but that sounds unlikely.

While an extremely versatile piece, the PHI-26 was voiced for Grados when it was designed. That doesn't stop it from succeeding almost everywhere, but a target was needed. As a preamp it is nearly transparent.

Spritzer is being modest here. He has developed a nice mod for the tubes in the SRM007t series amps. It doesn't become a giant killer like the T2 or the BHSE, but it sounds a LOT nicer and does have a more authoritative output. I have the amp right here and I can say it is a very worthwhile mod...

Happy Camper is talking about headroom, an amp having (or not having) enough power to handle peaks and louder bits generally in the music. But this has little to do with where the volume control is set. The volume control is an input attenuator. It limits the strength of the source signal coming...

Quote: Since I mentioned Jerry Moro, to give him his due here is a pic and reference to some of his designs.   http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?9967-Northridge-Visit-Day-4&p=102103&viewfull=1#post102103   Besides low distortion woofers, he designed the most...

With the amp on or off. Do turn it off when you are not using it. Keeping the phones plugged in is about keeping the diaphrams charged. Not with the bias charge, but with a space charge more or less that they need to fullfill their function. There are no magnets present and a recepticle needs to...

A universal rule in audio. Turn on from the source to the power amp. Turn off in reverse. It is mostly about startup and turnoff thumps, etc. They go forward in the path to the headphone/speakers, so it is logical and makes sense in every way. A separate issue with electrostatic headphones, try...

Are you thinking of getting one? If so, what do you want to drive with it? New or used? Your profile states you already own a similar amp, so I am not sure what you are getting at.

Profile Pic. Make sure you are logged in to the site. Click on "My Profile" near the top of the page in the task bar under the Head-Fi logo. Under your current photo click "Replace Avatar" and follow the instructions.  

That is called power compression. Another reason to build systems around efficient transducers. When a big woofer will blow you out of the room with a watt or two, the heat that the voice coil needs to dissipate is small and the coil is large. Today's smaller speakers in smaller cabinets have a...

Speakers and headphones can sometimes loosen up with use at first. Most models don't to any audible degree; if they do, the result is slight, not "night and day." Our hearing and our perception do have large, noticeable and unpredictable vaiations. These are usually confused with changes in the...

It is not so much about experience here in the Sound Science forum. Some of us like to think that backing up our impressions with evidence more scientific than opinions is the ticket here. The High End forum is wide open and opinions and listening impressions are the coin of the realm there...

Off topic, the music joke I most wish I could forget but can't. From an old contest in the pre internet Musician's Friend catalog, the winner no less: What do you get when you push a piano down a mineshaft? A flat miner.

A bluesman I used to know in Chicago often joked that fifty words and a few phrases would cover all blues lyrics. As examples, he would site mojo, baby, hurt so bad, woke up this morning, and so on. An old music joke: What did it say on the bluesman's headstone? Didn't wake up this morning.

Either the WES has had a major sonic alteration since CanJam 2010 - I think it might have - or the reviewers are tone deaf. This is way beyond opinion. The BHSE was powerful, precise and neutral; the WES was the most lush tube amp we had heard in years.

Asr, it is always supposed to be about the music. I imagine you never lost sight of that. Which makes you unusual on a big audio forum. For every fifty audiophiles who claim they listen to their music, not their equipment, perhaps one or two do. Reading the posts on audio sites, an alien would...

The noisy imperfections you couldn't see were bad enough, but every few disks had those dimples.

Pretty much, but my understanding is that the quick is the essential part, not the how much part. Here is a link to some audio guys like us discussing what it is re: speakers. http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=78198.0 A sterling example would be a compression driver/horn system. Also...

Dynamics are the loud and soft of things. How far and how fast the response to changes in volume is the measuring stick.

Pretty well answered by now, but here it goes. You do own a DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) unless all you play is vinyl or analog tapes. Any computer file, stream or CD (or DVD or Blu-ray disc) presents digital data. To make a speaker or headphone move and create sound, this information needs...

One exception I am aware of. Amps to power electrostatic headphones. There are few offerings and the loads can be very, very difficult to drive. It is not about slew or delivered power in the usual sense. The capacatance of the phones varies wildly with frequency, for instance. Getting both...

Short answers, chasing inaudible differences, seeking synergy instead of buying better headphones/speakers, and there is a lot of money to be made. It's all right up there with cable elevators. And you forgot to mention soundcards.

I am sure DAC chips differ in quality, though the audibility of the differences is debatable. This is a pretty mature technology and the really nasty examples are in the distant past. DAC chips are mostly not at all expensive. A Wolfson or a Burr-Brown (from Texas Instruments) costs more than...

A DAC should be as accurate as possible, and that is not difficult to to do and should not cost much money. It should never impart any audio quality of its own and cannot alter things like soundstage (that is up to recording and transducers almost exclusively). Transparency is the goal, just...

The topic was most likely very easily answered in relation to practicality - no - but the inevitable theoretical discusions amused some contributors. As a self examination tool, it could have its uses. If all the digression from no or yes was fun, one has to admit that the hobby is personally as...