[DRCope]

Has anyone listened to the AKG K-1000's with any of the following?

Melos SHA-1
Berning Micro ZOTL
Audio Electronic Supply SE-1

Impressions?

 

[DRCope]

Anybody?

 

[evilcthul]

DRCope,

The AKG K 1000 is terminated in a 4 PIN XLR. Although some people claim it works fine with those headphone amps you mentioned above it does require a soldering job to get a 1/4 inch plug on.

You're much better off looking into integrated amps like the range offered by Cambridge, ASL or the Cary 300SEI.

 

[Neruda]

heh, you're not soldering an adapter to make it fit a 1/4" plug, you're making an adapter to get it to fit the speakers' binding posts! Those phones need several watts for power. And I think you might be able to get an adapter from headroom, but I'm not sure.

 

[DanG]

The AKG K1000, actually, only needs about 1 Watt (I believe), and some headphone amps/pre-amps can actually provide this much power.

 

[kwkarth]

Quote:

Originally posted by DanG The AKG K1000, actually, only needs about 1 Watt (I believe), and some headphone amps/pre-amps can actually provide this much power.

Yes, 1 watt that can be properly delivered into 120 a ohm load. You'll be wanting some headroom if you listen to music rather than sine waves.

I'm driving mine with a 15wpc class A amp that was designed to work into 8 ohm loads. Theoretically it should be able to deliver JUST 1 watt into 120 ohms and it sounds just about right, BUT I have heard it clip on creshendos so I know I could use mo power.

I can listen comfortably with the volume level setting between 10 and 60 (with a range of 0-80). At "10" it is very quiet but with the incredible resolving ability of these cans, I can actuallly hear comfortably. With the volume at 60, the sound is very loud (about concert levels) and I wouldn't listen to anything very long at that level. You should see the excursion of the drivers on heavy bass passages at that level! The clip I heard was actually about 1 minute into track 7 on Bela Fleck, Tales from the Acoustic Planet.

 

[DanG]

Using the Cary 300SEI with 15-wpc KR tubes (perhaps it was the 20-wpc tubes, but I think it was 15-wpc...) there was no clipping and the sound was heavenly. Then again, I don't know for what load this amp was intended.

 

[DRCope]

I've owned the Cary 300sei. I prefer the ZOTL to it for headphone listening with my Senn 600s. (I prefer Bottlehead Paramours for speaker listening.)

I do still have the AES SE-1 with a pair of 300Bs on board which I plan to try, and a ZOTL on the way. I have heard from the guy who bought my first ZOTL; he thought the 1000's sounded good with it.

Soldering a plug adaptor is a non-issue for me, and only the SHA would need it. The others would be driven off the speaker taps. I'm thinking of building a tube amp designed for the AKG's load once I get a handle on it with other amps.

 

[DanG]

Perhaps you should have tried the WE tubes instead of the Chinese tubes? Many say that the difference is amazing (and the price difference is large too -- about $700/pair).

But if you have a speaker amplifier, why not just use that with the K1000?

 

[evilcthul]

DRCope,

How'd you get your hands on a Cary 300SEI? Did you buy it new/used and how much did you pay?

 

[DRCope]

DanG -

I was using the Valve Art Nickel Plate 300Bs from Angela.com, and they are quite good. Kevin Deal opined that they don't quite have the magic of the WE's, but agreedthey're quite good. At a hundred and change per PAIR that was fine for me. it wasn't the individual tube that was lacking, the 300B is just too far gone in the romantic direction for my taste, especially with the Senn 600s. I also tried the Valve Arts in the AES SE-1, which will accept 300B's or 2A3's, and preferred the 2A3's. They offer more extended bass and treble and somehow sound "faster" than the 300B's (in that amp, in my system.) The preference lead me to sell my Meadowlark Kestrels for Soliloquy SM 2A3's, and swap the 300sei for a pair of Cary 2A3 monoblocks, which are now for sale. If you've swooned over the 300sei, you should hear the mono 2A3's!

The ZOTL will allow me to try both the headphone output and the speaker output, which should be interesting. My main ams are monoblocks which sit behind their respective speakers, with 3 feet of unterminated solid core silver speaker cable between them and the speakers. They're 7 feet apart, which doesn't lend itself to headphone use, and I wouldn't want to break off bits of the spkr cable disconnecting and reconnecting them all the time.

I will hook up the AES SE-1 as a dedicated headphone amp for the AKGs off the 2nd pre output on my Audio Note M-2. Then I'll fire up either the AES or the Bottlehead amps depending on which I'm going to listen to. I'll also use the tape out to feed the Melos SHA so that I can run the ZOTL, AES and SHA all at the same time (disconnecting the Bottleheads for those sessions.) This is going to be fun! I'll have to try the Cary 2A3's with the AKGs before I let them go, and I'll try the Bottleheads as well. I'm incorrigible!!!

Evilcthul - I bought the 300sei used on Audiogon without tubes. The seller wanted $2000 with WE's. I already had a couple dozen 6SN7s and some 300Bs, so I bought it empty.

 

[DRCope]

Last night I started with the AES SE-1 Signature with the adaptor/extension cable using Valve Art 300Bs. Nice, but not much bass extension. Kinda dry.

Swapped the 300B's for Valve Art 2A3's. Much better bass extension, as is usually the case. If you haven't heard a 2A3 amp, you owe it to yourself . . . Still kinda dry, though.

Today I realized I was running the signal through 2 connectors and about 8-9 feet of undoubtedly at least partly oxidized 10+ yr old copper wire. I removed the connector, dropped the extension, tinned the bare wire leads and listened again. Less dry, but still not there.

Then I made a big mistake. I hooked up the Cary SET 2A3 mono block amps - tube rectifiers, KR 2A3's putting out close to 5 watts per channel. Holy crap. Rich, resonant, powerful bass, much more liquid midrange, more natural highs and a soundscape you could drown in. Damn. I was supposed to sell these things. I guess I can hope my Paramours beat 'em when I get done swapping iron around.

Took a few pics of the amps/phones. I'll post 'em when I get to serious listening notes. Even the guys who heard 'em with the Cary 300sei haven't really heard these phones at their best. They are one hot musical ticket