[mikoss]

I am an electrician myself and always trust my ears. There is a bunch of wiring and equipment before the outlet and fancy power cord connected to your gear. Yet people say replacing the 1 inch of power going through the fuse in the gear makes a difference. Who are we to argue. Electrically wise, practically any cord will work just fine. Cable capacitance/inductance will change how something sounds, but this would be specifically your headphone cables/interconnects. The 5' power cord, I have my doubts, but also can't be bothered to buy anything expensive. There are much more cost effective changes that can be made to the system and gear before cables. Capacitors for example will drastically change the sound, and are much cheaper than boutique power cables.

 

[slambanna]

   
Actually, I know for a fact that there's one person that comes before all of us, and that's the guy (or gal as there were women there) who won a Liquid Carbon in the CanJam SoCal 2015 SHaG.  And I suspect that Alex may want to keep #001 for himself.  So if he's #1, and the lucky SHaG winner is #2, and there is in fact none before me, then #3 is the earliest one that I'd get.
 
 
Hey, what else is early ordering good for?  

 

C'mon guys... I clearly called dibs on serial #001 here.
 
Alex you can can PM me for my order number whenever.
 
With all due respect to the SoCal winner and Warren, you should have called dibs.
 
 

 

[jjacq]

So has anyone heard the LC with the HE1000 yet :O

 

[Dannek]

lol I am still really not quite sure what a "musical-sounding" piece of gear means. or "musical monitor" or "musical but neutral." I kinda think everything that plays music wld be musical ya? lol.

those terms were thrown around recently quite a lot... specifically for the liquid cavalli and mr speaker ether. So I ordered both to see what people really mean by that phrase hahah.

I hear you..lol.
 
I'm relatively new to this game and perhaps there is a better term to use.  I was quoting the term as I had seen it used recently as well.
 
I consider musical to be something (amp, source, headphones) or combination of things, that makes you just forget yourself in the music.  Where you can suddenly look up and say, damn it's been a half an hour since I started listening and it seems like five minutes have gone by.  From what I've read, the LC and the Ether seem to have that synergy.  I love listening to live concerts, and if I can close my eyes and think that I'm actually there, that's what matters to me more than if the sound is perfectly accurate and analytical, from a recording standpoint.

 

[Evshrug]

I have generally experienced concerts to be acoustically bad or unfocused for directing at the masses, and concert recordings are usually worse... Though sometimes, they take the audio from the performer's mics, and sometimes the artists give an inspired performance. Usually a muddy concert recording comes on and after a few seconds I skip tracks in annoyance.

I totally do get the swept away by music thing though... First time I got my Q701 and listened to it with my iPod + FiiO E5, the first two times I heard Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs" album, almost every time I put on "In Rainbows," and recently I got to borrow a PM-3 and got into a "rut" listening to a bunch of slow, quiet, atmospheric songs for two hours. Generally, it takes me a few minutes or a song or two to release the stress of the day, unless I have a new toy and am already focused on the experience.

 

[doctorjazz]

A TALE OF TWO CONCERTS

Live sound varies, depending on the performer, venue, and genre. Recently went to two shows not far apart. First, took my daughter to see her favorite band, All Time Low, who headlined a 4 band tour and were playing in a college gym. The first 3 bands could only be described as assault...painful volume, total lack of clarity, definition...couldn't even tell you anything about their music, absolutely no clue what they sounded like, aside from painful. All Time Low were a bit better...slightly lower volume, could make out some detail, but still buried some in the volume, enough to be able to enjoy it, but listening to the albums WAY better. Contrast that with a show at The Jazz Standard, Gil Evans Project. This was a big band in a small room, and THIS is what we want our gear to sound like. Bass that drives without overwhelming the rest of the music, instruments that sound like they are where they are BECAUSE they are where they are, no need to listen for it, sparking, subtle cymbal sounds, good sax (ouch), you get the idea. Makes for a good reference point when I put on the cans.

 

[Serenitty]

I hear you..lol.

I'm relatively new to this game and perhaps there is a better term to use.  I was quoting the term as I had seen it used recently as well.

I consider musical to be something (amp, source, headphones) or combination of things, that makes you just forget yourself in the music.  Where you can suddenly look up and say, damn it's been a half an hour since I started listening and it seems like five minutes have gone by.  From what I've read, the LC and the Ether seem to have that synergy.  I love listening to live concerts, and if I can close my eyes and think that I'm actually there, that's what matters to me more than if the sound is perfectly accurate and analytical, from a recording standpoint.

To reproduce a big live concert I'd have to put earplugs in and turn the headphone volume way up... Well for a typical large concert anyway... The small venue performance of the Bacon Brothers was really nice... No earplugs needed.

 

[A2029]

  Hey gents, time for me to answer some of the questions.
 
First, all of my larger amps have offset detectors and delay circuits. These circuits are my own design and do a great job of protecting headphones from DC. Since most of the amps are DC coupled, any DC at the input goes right to the output only amplifier. But there is no room for these circuits in the Carbon so it doesn't have one.
 
One good side, however, is that the startup and shutdown transients are fairly low. I measured them on the pre-production board (which is not the proto board that has been in the amps at shows).
 
Start up transient less less than +500mV on the upswing and basically zero on the negative swing. This is both on and off.
 
Also, you can hot switch the gain (like in the larger amps). The blip when you go from 1x to 3x is no more than 400mV and from 3x to 1x it's about 200mV. For most conditions, you won't hear this much. Although sensitive IEMs are indeed a different game.
 
I wanted to talk about power output too. I've been holding back on you guys on the power output of the amp. Only a little though.
 
I've spec'd the amp a 1.5W continuous into 50R. In fact, it will do about 2.8W continuous into 50R.
 
Now, keep in mind that 1.5W and especially 2,8W is a lot of power. I don't know any headphones where this won't ring your bell and in most headphones it would be damaging.
 
However, what you really need the power for is, as you all know, the transients. Most of the time you're listening at fairly low power levels, but when the music creates a strong transient you need the amp to be able to respond.
 
The Carbon can respond with much more power than 1.5W. Also, we measured about .04% THD with 1kHz in driving 47.5R at 2.8W.
 
Now, you may be wondering can you use all of that 2.8W. And the answer is, if we were talking about sine waves, no. This is because the Carbon is so small that is has limited power dissipation capacity. This is really why I originally said 1.5W. Because this safe.
 
However, if the 2.8W only comes into play when you need it, the PD capacity is good enough.
 
So, you're getting a bigger amp than you thought.

 
Is there a transient when plugging in headphones? I.e. if I plug in my sensitive IEMs when the amp is on, and unplug them before I turn off the amp, will there be any transient applied to the IEM?

Thanks!

 

[runeight]

   
Is there a transient when plugging in headphones? I.e. if I plug in my sensitive IEMs when the amp is on, and unplug them before I turn off the amp, will there be any transient applied to the IEM?

Thanks!

 
Sorry. Deleted first reply. Didn't read your question correctly. If the music is off and the amp is on, the output DC offset should be less than 10mV, usually less than 5mV. I think all headphones can handle this so far as I know.

 

[hemtmaker]

Sorry. Deleted first reply. Didn't read your question correctly. If the music is off and the amp is on, the output DC offset should be less than 10mV, usually less than 5mV. I think all headphones can handle this so far as I know.

just to clarify, it is safe to plug in iems either when the amp is on or off, but dun change the gain while the iems are plugged in. Am I correct?

 

[runeight]

Well, I honestly don't know about all the possible IEMs and how much DC transient they can each handle.
 
If they are plugged in when the amp is turned on they will see <500mV of transient.
 
If they are plugged in when the amp is on they will see an immediate <10mV.
 
If you switch the gain they'll see <400mV.
 
Perhaps someone who knows about many different IEMs can help us out as to whether or not these transients will affect IEMs. I very sure that the won't hurt any over ear headphone that I know about.

 

[hemtmaker]

Well, I honestly don't know about all the possible IEMs and how much DC transient they can each handle.

If they are plugged in when the amp is turned on they will see <500mV of transient.

If they are plugged in when the amp is on they will see an immediate <10mV.

If you switch the gain they'll see <400mV.

Perhaps someone who knows about many different IEMs can help us out as to whether or not these transients will affect IEMs. I very sure that the won't hurt any over ear headphone that I know about.

Thanks for the info. I dun think a lot of people will be using IEMs with it (except Layla maybe), but it is certainly good to know.
By the way, has the case design been finalised yet? I am curious to know what this baby will look like in it's final form =)

 

[mscott58]

Thanks for the info. I dun think a lot of people will be using IEMs with it (except Layla maybe), but it is certainly good to know.

Will definitely be using with my CIEMs - Noble K-10's.

Cheers

 

[Poimandres]

I have seen the light. The senn hd650's have opened my eyes to another world of audio. I never thought I would say this however it is only cans for me now. Looking forward to the alpha primes.

 

[audiofrk]

I have seen the light. The senn hd650's have opened my eyes to another world of audio. I never thought I would say this however it is only cans for me now. Looking forward to the alpha primes.

thats random.