Other than having to rewire your headphones, which is probably the more trivial task compared to what you have to do the amp, anyone with an amp with output transformers can try balanced output by rewiring the output transformers. Just take the lead from the output transformer secondary that...

During my boring lunch break today I picked up the CM5's at the nearby shop for 6000 yen. Just for reference 888's cost 6400 yen. I bought them out of of boredom, curiosity, and the fact that they're the only other earbud in the same price range of the 888's. So being a dumb impulsive consumer I...

I second the opinion that it's not worth going to Akihabara if your looking for something like the A900's. Every Yodobashi, Sakuraya, Bic, etc will have them for roughly the same price. You'll have trouble finding HD-600's, 7506's, R10's, and Beyer's. But no trouble finding Audio Technica's...

So after reading all the praise about them I broke down and got them during my lunch break. I figured that everyone had found a real sleeper in the budget market. So armed with the new cans and my commuting rig, a portable MD player and the 888's and ex-70's I usually use on the train ride to...

I might have posted this somewhere esle, but basically I don't like it. It's noisy, because of a high gain opamp. With low impedence cans, the noise floor is very high and hard to ignore. It's also got a lousy, poorly tracking pot. Avoid it if possible, but actually there isn't much available...

The ex-51 has a hard plastic body while the ex-70/71's have the rubber body. The specs in the sony catalog are all identical for all 3 of them, freq response, sensitivity, and impedence. The 71's are selling at the same price as the 70's and the 51's are less than 1000 yen cheaper.

$100 US is about 12,000 yen. Last time I checked (last week?) that wouldn't buy any current model MD player. And it's actually pretty hard to find last year's model even in Akihabara. If you're firm on your budget, you'll have to look for closeouts in the Targets and K-marts of Japan like Daiei...

Just to let you know I saw this today for 31,000 yen (about $260) in Akihabara. Yamagiwa / Ishimaru to be exact. It's a really pretty unit. Top notch construction. I'm probably going to get one. It's about half the going price for a x-cans 2 and even cheaper than an obh-11. There were only a...

You're first conclusions were basically right, the amp isn't that good. The hiss is not from the power supply, it's regulated by a 7812. And I even quadrupled the power supply capacitance and that didn't do anything. The hiss comes from the high gain which is set at the chips minimum of...

the amps got a 7812 voltage regulator in it, so it won't be affected at all unless you feed it above 35volts dc (I think it's 35V, the max input could be lower). But it's not heat sinked so it could die from a lower voltage. The wall wart could die though, 10-20% more voltage would put it at...

There are already 2 such drives out, but I don't know if they are available outside Japan. They are about 30,000-40,000 yen. It might take awhile for them to be released though, MD is about a generation behind outside of Asia.

I've never seen them under 35,000, so it's not worth the effort to save a couple thousand yen. Yamagiwa, Ishimaru, Dynamic Audio, etc. will all be competetive.

36,000 yen is the basic street price in Japan, almost everyone in Akiba sells it for that. But it's not that great of a discount compared to the list price, only like 10-15% off. I'm glad you found a place to get them, because I couldn't think of anywhwere to tell you. The 2020 should hold you...

I hav e both the 2020 and the HD600. The differences that have been brought up here are absolutely true. As expected the Stax are more transparent but lack bass, I don't know if that's because they just don't have it, or just do it correctly. I would say the HD600 have a lot of bass, even...

That amp is a pro unit, so it was designed with an eye toward indestructability rather than sound. It is better in probably every respect, but for that money your into real headphone amp territory, so I can't really recommend that either unless you need it. I don't know what's insided it but I...