Quote: Originally Posted by breakfastchef Upgrades are $450 and optional and DACT CT2 stepped attenuator will set you back another $200. i have such fond memories of my Woo3 especially as a price/performance leader. the new 6 is tempting but at $1000+ its difficult to justify. i...

i use low gain for headphones but unfortunately when set to preamp i get a low-level hum, i have to swith to mid gain and the hum goes away, i need to send it to Ray for service and the newer opamps, Best Buy was not very helpful.

Meridian G-08 to Headamp GS-X Benchmark DAC1-USB to RSA Apache i listen to both simultaneously with my robot ears.

AFAIK the Lite doesnt have an Alps blue pot. GS-1 also has variable gain.

i have both the AD2000/W5000. they are detailed without noticebale rolloff, but still very well controlled up top as to not be sibilant, for that reason a nicely detailed and transparant SS amp makes a good match. the w5000 is definitely more responsive to quality amping. im a big fan of the...

i had SA5000 for awhile and for me the vocal sibilance was the downfall. the OP mentions that they punish bad recordings which is true, but IMHO they will also take a decent or at least passable recording and ruin it with overboosted highs. the major strength of these headphones is...

congrats, the McIntosh MS750 is top of the line server. my thinking is that one of the main advantages, if not the main advange, of the MS750 would be the high quailty analogue output stage. by sending digital out using optical i think you are defeating the purpose of such a high end unit...

Quote: Originally Posted by pianomav I'm not sure if anyone has tried the DAC1/GS-X combo but the detail on this combo is unbelievable. In my opinion, GS-X is making the dac1 shine to its fullest potential. The soundstage reminds me of my AKG-K701 which I could never get with my hd650...

my system takes about a half hour of music to warm up too. i detect a "hotness" like from a poorly mastered CD which glosses over the transparancy and adds grain and harshness to the highs. after 30 mins its liquid, i think its a combination of everything, the motors of the speaker drivers, temp...

i would think the volume pot has to be over that 9:00-10:00 hump because there are tracking problems below that. you can change internal jumpers to set attenuation of the XLR outputs so you can have enough headroom to use the variable setting on the DAC1. other than that limitation it should be...

Quote: Originally Posted by twsmith I find it interesting that some well-regarded headphones (e.g. AKG 701, Beyerdynamic DT880), just to name a few, are manufactured such that it is not especially easy to switch out SE for balanced cables. Basically you have to take apart the entire...

Quote: Originally Posted by vcoheda what does this mean. the benefit of balanced operation is susposed to be that by driving both the + and - signals any common interference(noise) is canceled out and only the source signal remains. this makes sense when talking about sending...

Quote: Originally Posted by EliasGwinn Euclid, I just noticed this post (sorry, I've been in NYC for the past 5 days). I'm glad to hear that the -10dB worked for you. I know that the HD650's are high-Z, low sensitivity headphones, but what about the W5000? Are they particularly...

the impedance of the headphone determines how much distortion is introduced by balanced drive.

its nice to see that this is finally being discussed. ive done some substantial balanced vs. single ended testing with both the GS-X and Apache, i will say with 100% certainty that while functioning as preamps to my speakers they sound better accross the board in balanced configuration...