Years back, I auditioned an SR-60 to see if it is for me. When I heard it, I went eww. It's congested congested and harsh. They are often touted as the rock can, I happen to be not that into rock. Thus since the beginning of this hobby, I thought Grado isn't for me. Fast forward to recently, I...

Today my 4-day-old HE-500 left channel went out. I suppose the wire at the left connector came off. It is pretty well known that this $700 headphone has a cable that is worthy of a $7 headphone.   I happened to have a piece of Canare L-4E6S and a Neutrik plug that I intend for another...

I'd like to connect an iMac, which is 5m/15' away from a DAC. I don't have a cable to do that so I'd need to buy one, but wondering if I should just buy one of the cheap USB to spdif converter instead, like the Teralink X2. I often heard people saying how bad the iMac's optical out are, but are...

Both cost about the same. One is a standard tuned 3 driver custom IEM designed from ground up, another is a 6 driver IEM custom tuned IEM. I have a Westone 3 that I can sacrifice. Frankly, I thought it (and pretty much all other multi drivers top universal) sounded really veiled and not hifi...

Any one has both? How do they compare? I realise one is open and one is closed, but they cost about the same and the only thing that matters for me is sound quality. Specifically, with regards to their scalability to higher end amp and sources in details/texture and transparency.   One has...

I have been away for a while, the landscape seemed to have changed quite a bit and I don't think I know everything that is out there.   I want a closed headphone that is comfortable to wear for long period, so I guess it has to be circumaural. My sound preference:   - I don't like edgy...

I used an Electroswitch 3 pole rotary switch as source selector in an amp I built. The ground is switched along with the L and R channel.   Let's say I have source A connected to position 1, and I have noting connected at position 2. When the switch is at position 2, at very high volume...

Most speaker uses wirewound resistor in crossover. Is there any reason for this apart from their high power rating? Would it be technically superior if I replace them with a bunch parallel metal film or metal oxide resistor? With the later I don't even need to parallel them since they come in...

For me it is a Beta 22 build. I don't really know exactly when I started it. My earliest Mouser order of the project is dated November 19 2008. I wasn't sure if it is my earliest order of the project, but if it isn't it should be close. I remembered I took leave from work end December 2008 or...

I already have a solid state amp. I am looking for a different sound and I think I should now venture into the land of tubes. This will primarily serves as a preamp for speakers, and as a headphone amp secondarily. So "quality" have more priority than "power" here. It also should not sound...

So, TRS plug are designed in a way that the the ground connection is made first and disconnected last.   I'd like add a switch to the ground of TRS jack output. Firstly to incorporate a mean to switch between active/passive/no ground, second to prevent signal shorting to ground while...

I am looking for a tube/hybrid amp. It will be primarily used as a preamp in my speaker setup, so transparency and detail is top priority here. Driving headphone is a bonus so power output  can take a back seat.   I would prefer that the amp provide a sound different from a solid state amp...

First I have to state that I don't believe in fancy cables would make any difference in sound quality, however...   I have one of those generic iPod LOD to mini adapter, I use it with a DIY mini to mini cable. I use Neutrik straight plugs so the whole thing sticks out quite a bit.   So I...

Can you J3 owners enlighten me: - does it recognize "album artist" tag? (Zune does this, iPod doesn't) - in album view, does it sort albums according to artist? (Sony does this, Zune and iPod won't) The reason I ask is I wanted to get an ipod but I hate how it handle compilations, not...

My set up is as follows:   Source: Marantz SA7001 Amp: Carver AV-405 (100W into 8 ohms) Speaker: Jamo 507 floor stander (100W 8 ohms)   I am generally pleased with my setup, details and frequency balance are fine, however I don't get good imaging, I did quite a bit of experiment with...

I have a few stepped attenuator from eBay.   I was thinking of removing the resistor and the wire on the lowest step.   The purpose is so that at the minimum volume setting, the source is actually totally disconnected from the amp.   Is there any downside to this?   I am...

So after more than 2 years, I decided to work on my half built Beta 22. :p One of the L/R channel works fine apparently, but on the other one things aren't so good. When doing the initial setup according to AMB's web page, on step 7 I am not getting any voltage across R34 regardless of...

Does any one have experience on their UI? Their prices are close enough. I prefer the J3 for the screen and capacitative touch screen, however the dimension of C2 appears to be more ideal when velcroed to an amp (at least mine). My concern is how responsive is the UI and if the resistive touch...

Does such thing still exist today? May be 5 years is a bit too much to ask, I just don't want it to fail right after the warranty period (or worse, in the waranty period) I heard people vouching for Fujitsu, Toshiba, and the former IBM. Is Lenovo today still as good as IBM one was? How...

Imagine a man working in as a fashion designer, flamboyant, artistic and more feminine than an average male. What name do you think would fit the character? I imagine that names like "Christian" would suit better than names like "Conrad". And I imagine that names originating from some...

Is it advisable to build a PIMETA with the voltage gain stage bypassed, essentially turning it into a unity gain buffer? With the above configuration, if the volume pot is removed, do I need to put resistors in its place? My intention is to build a portable amp for driving efficient IEMs...

On my Zune 120, I got about 9 hours (or less) play time with WMA lossless, lowest screen brightness with 5 sec time out, minimal waking. I shutdown the unit when not in use (by holding "back" + "down") to conserve battery life, as oppose to let it sleep by holding the "play/pause" button. You...

I am in the process of reripping my music to lossless. In the mean while, I wanted to keep a parallel library of lossy format, but am wondering which one. OGG/Vorbis is out of the question for me since hardware compatibility is not fantastic, that leaves me with MP3 and AAC. At 320 kbps...

A bit of background. My Vista SP1 installation is somewhat screwed up. When logged in as power user, when I tried to do stuffs that needs administrator right it would prompt for administrator password, when I keyed in the password, it would do nothing. This includes changing any setting or...

Is it possible to get CDex to churn out WMA lossless files? I have the Windows Media Encoder 9 installed. Assuming it is possible, what is the external encoder path I should point to? I tried using EAC, it managed to churn out WAV but not the WMA lossless. It looks like I am missing...