The Man Who Would Be King 7 out of 10, they really don't make these any more.

  My original 801 stopped working on battery power just after the arrival of the balanced amplifier module, so I have been in the doldrums a bit while the unit was replaced. I did however spend sufficient time with the HM-801 and my Sennheiser HD650’s before it went down to realise that ‘I was...

  I have had a pair of SR5s since I bought them new a long time ago. They aren’t the gold version so I can only assume that your pair should be better than mine - and I don’t have any of your existing phones apart from a set of Grado Sr125s. But my vintage Stax phones do sound obviously much...

  Well I would eat most things considered as food except tripe and insects. (I would not consider raw chicken as a food, just a quick way of becoming very ill.)

  I have the EW9s, well I think that’s what they are - they are made by AT, have a wood cover and clip over the ears. They are beautifully made, have a low microphonic cable and I find them quite comfortable once you have learnt to put them on. Unfortunately though they have very little bass...

  I think the worst headphones I ever heard were a pair of Telephonics TDH49’s. These were quite common as a reference phone in the world of audiology, and I think they were also used by the American military. Terrible out of a (pro) walkman.   The other very disappointing phone I borrowed...

  I know ‘They Shoot Horses Don’t They?’, I saw it at the cinema when it was first released. It is a seriously hard hitting film, Gig Young was memorable as the ringmaster: ‘yowsa, yowsa, yowsa’!   

  Hickey and Boggs - an unknown 1972 minor masterpiece.   Directed by Bob Culp (Boggs) with probably Bill Cosby’s best acting performance, this early 70’s bleak tale easily out does films such as Dirty Harry for hard realism. The shootouts are good and the machine gun in the helicopter...

  Interesting point this termination problem, is there a balanced portable standard headphone connector?    When Fang mooted a balanced amp option for the HM801 I suspect many of us wondered how he would do the connections, as on the face of it looks pretty difficult. The de facto...

The Yakuza, a 1970's Bob Mitchum film noir - excellent. 

Never mind the specs and all that as I trust Fang still knows what he's doing, so have ordered mine. I intend to use it with a pair of 650s, and will modify the cable to balanced myself.   I just hope it works properly with my early edition 801...

I never bothered much with cassettes as I hated them. I hated them because they held back sound quality for probably two decades. I hated them because they were a poor compromise from the start and needed years of development. Years of new models with new ‘improvements’, new and exotic tape...

  If you are just talking about SQ IMHO the 650’s are much better than the IE8’s. Yup, say out of an Ipod the 650’s will not go as loud as you might want in comparison to the IEM’s and an amp might be worthwhile - if you like to bang your head. But un-amped 650’s will still have a very obvious...

  I know this is an old thread, but Mr Gilmore mentioned the Crown / Amcron IC150 pre-amp at the beginning, and as this device has received a lot of negative press over the years on various forums I thought I would contribute some personal experience of this preamp.   Firstly I suppose I...

  I have the CX300’s and find that the IE8 is a very significant improvement. In fact the longer I have owned the IE8’s the more impressed I am with them, they are expensive though. I have not heard the others, so can’t comment.   It seems to me that (and this I suppose depends on audio...

I enjoyed the read and have similar musical tastes to the OP so found it useful. I have a pair of 650's and am seriously thinking about the LCD-2 myself, but am in no hurry. I had no problems with the text or style, this is after all a public forum and not a professional journal. 

  Just noticed this thread.   I used to use a SRM-T1S and Lambda Nova Signature system with a Marantz CD12/DA12 CD player. The Marantz DAC has both balanced and unbalanced outputs, and as the SRM could switch between either type of input it was simple to A/B the two.    The balanced...

Well Well, by chance I was having a careful listen to my 801 today and then stumbled upon this thread...   I suppose as an owner of ‘this sad, expensive joke of an antiquated, unusable player’ I would only naturally feel somewhat defensive and be a little taken aback with the comments and...

Some years ago when I visited the Decca Recording Centre in London they were using HD600s in their classical music editing suites. While they used B&W 800’s for monitoring during the editing process (a surprising amount of editing is done to classical recordings) for absolute quality checking of...

Hi and welcome to the madhouse, I think many of us wonder at times what internet forums are for. For the 801 you just wait and if Fang has them in stock it should only be a few days, if not be prepared for a longer wait. I suppose we all learn that while not the most communicative of people...

Yup I agree with uncle and the others, nothing very strange here. Of course the guy could have been photoshoped, but why show him holding a cheap and simple folding bellows camera of the period? Not an expensive Leica but something that a college student might afford. Shadows look ok as...

Yes, over the years we’ve been to many orchestral concerts at places such as the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Albert Hall, Barbican etc, and enjoyed anything from small ensembles playing Steve Reich to the LSO playing Beethoven. Lately though we have been going after a few...

We did it for fun, and enjoyed the candle light.

Rather concurring with K3oxkjo, I can’t remember the name of these phones, something like Parmeko I think. I believe they are WW2 vintage, American and were the sort of thing that B17 aircrews used for communications. They have no microphone as this would have been most likely a pair of...

The metal back plate is thermally coupled to the DACs on the pcb inside and acts as a heat sink for them. Much of the time I keep my unit in a Canon ’Power Shot’ padded case though the back plate temperature doesn’t seem to rise much above 95 deg F.