[applevalleyjoe]

There is a guy on ebay,  fred_fred_2004, selling very impressive looking diy altoid tin can-based cmoy's. Pictures of the internals show very clean and well-laid components. He uses a variety of opamps. His Audiophile 3-Channel and Ultimate model are especially impressive.  Has anyone bought one of these and if so, how do they sound? I'd like to compare to a JDS Labs and biosciencegeek. Thanks.

 

[tamu]

Ive never heard his amps but hes a forum member. Really helpful guy too.
 
If you use the search you might come up with some threads.

 

[Optimus Praim]

Do you mean his Ultimate Cmoy?
The one that i have listed at my signature?

 

[applevalleyjoe]

Quote:

Do you mean his Ultimate Cmoy?
The one that i have listed at my signature?

YES! I see that you also have a JDS labs v.2.03 ... can you please tell me how the Ultimate compares with the JDS? While I have a TTVJ Slim, I was looking to buy one of Fred's products as well as the JDS labs.  Allegedly, all cmoys sound more or less the same but the JDS labs is the ONE that is recommended by headfonia and many other folks. The innards of Fred's "Audiophile" model in particular "look" especially impressive as do its specs. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
 

 

[wakibaki]

Hmm. It certainly looks well made, with high quality components, but I don't like virtual ground designs (for performance reasons) and the price at $79 Au (UKP53+) is quite high, it's at least 100% markup. Just using quality components doesn't guarantee performance either, the PCB layout counts ultimately.
 
It's only got 9V pk-pk which will not produce a lot of volume in difficult or inefficient phones, again I'd prefer dual battery, even if there's no headphone protection circuit,.
 
If you don't have the skills to construct one yourself I guess it's not a bad deal, but I would never pay that much for an amp that didn't come in a proper enclosure.
 
Google nwavguy and look at his blog, reviews and coming O2 amplifier. It will probably equal or exceed the performance of any amp you can buy (at any price) at a reasonable cost.
 
w

 

[Optimus Praim]

First of all both of them can go loud,really loud...
They can drive all of my cans with ease..
That means that you won't have to turn the potensiometer more than half..
John's cmoy is more professionaly build compared to Fred's.
Also it has more functions than Fred's like the automatic on/of when you unplug your headphones or the input cable..
Also it can be powered by a dc adapter if you don't like draining the 9V battery..
Another thing that i don't like about Fred's cmoy is that the 3.5mm jacks are very loose when you connect your headphone jack or the input jack.
The cables don't stay firmy inside the cmoy's jacks and sometimes if i shake the cmoy the sound may stop beacuse the connection is lost.
As for the sound Fred's cmoy with stock op amp is a very neutral/cold sounded amp..
To me it doesn't make any change to sound,it only amplifies the signal which by the way comes out clean without distortion at high volumes..
As for John's cmoy with stock op amp and with bass boost off you get a flat clean signal but when you turn the switch on it adds a great deal in dynamics with a bit on the warm side..
Overall i think John's amp is better than Fred's who by the way i appreciate a lot..

 

[applevalleyjoe]

optimus...thanks for the input...well appreciated.

 
wakibaki...read EVERYTHING on nwavguy's blog and then more.  This guy is pretty controversial though I liked some of the things that he was saying...they clarified some things for me. Hopefully, his O2 will be coming out soon and he will be selling it. The shoe will then be on the other foot...aware of this, his product should then be top-notch! I asked him if he could produce a cmoy for me following his own precepts...he seems to imply that this would not be a major task! 

 

[Armaegis]

Quote:

wakibaki...read EVERYTHING on nwavguy's blog and then more.  This guy is pretty controversial though I liked some of the things that he was saying...they clarified some things for me. Hopefully, his O2 will be coming out soon and he will be selling it. The shoe will then be on the other foot...aware of this, his product should then be top-notch! I asked him if he could produce a cmoy for me following his own precepts...he seems to imply that this would not be a major task! 

The guy makes a lot of valid points and I do follow his blog, but he also comes off as a bully at times (he really doesn't hide his contempt at all, and it's quite childish and tiring to read about it). He obviously has a few bones to pick and a chip to prove as well. As always, take things with a grain of salt. After all, the guy just spent a couple months making a name for himself criticizing gear with a lot of technospeak, and surreptitiously now comes out with an amp...
 

 

[Naim.F.C]

Go for Johns cMoy. Believe me you won't regret it. Currently I've been testing the SR-71A, Pico Slim and the JDS cMoyBB 2.03. The JDS can roll with the best of them and at only a fraction of the cost. I'll be doing a full review in a few days time but till then you can tak my word for it. I would advise that you buy some 280mAh+ Ni-Mi rechargeable batteries along with a wall charger for the cMoy though. You get more power and longevity for hardly any money. 
 
But yea, I can't speak highly enough of the JDS cMoy. I personally think it's astonishing value for money, and add to that, it has a creative allure about it with the Mint Tin casing. It's amusing watching people gawk at the amp in public trying to figure out what it is.

 

[wakibaki]

Quote:

...the guy just spent a couple months making a name for himself criticizing gear with a lot of technospeak, and surreptitiously now comes out with an amp...
 

...which he's releasing into the public domain and won't make a profit from. I don't see anything surreptitious there. Which kind of shoots your fox...
 
Technospeak? That's good isn't it? Amp design is all about technothink, so you'd kind of expect a designer to technospeak. In fact the better the technospeak, the better you'd expect the amp to be. Anyway, we'll see, he said he'd post the design today..
 
w

 

[qusp]

yeah well i question the ethics of publicly inspecting, debunking, criticizing and derailing multiple products on the net and then releasing his own similar product......I agree with some of what he has to say wrt design issues and if his design follows 'the wire' or similar design it will be a good amp, but i think making your profile by standing on the shoulders of hard working people, while you make sometimes juvenile and mean-spirited attempts to embarrass and discredit them, is pretty uncool.
 
it'd better be good and it'd better be original, if its just a well performing glorified app note then whats the point? nothing wrong with following principals outlined in app notes, nothing at all; but i think he has set the bar for himself higher than that.
 
and i mean come-on...O2? lets hope the amp s more original than the name

 

[qusp]

Quote:

...which he's releasing into the public domain and won't make a profit from. I don't see anything surreptitious there. Which kind of shoots your fox...
 
 

not really, just means he values other things more than the money gained from a pretty niche product, its pretty obvious hes not short of a dime with that test gear.
 

 

[wakibaki]

Quote:

Originally Posted by qusp /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
 
its pretty obvious hes not short of a dime with that test gear.
 

Jealousy will get you nowhere.
 
If some of the current producers of audio equipment had chosen to re-invest their profits in similar equipment instead of depending on an unsophisticated and credulous clientele they wouldn't have found themselves holding both the technological and moral short ends of the sticks. Just because 99.99% of the real engineers got jobs doing CDMA 3G phones and suchlike it doesn't mean that audio can expect to escape expert attention in perpetuity.
 
w

 

[Armaegis]

Yikes, ok no need to get the claws out.
 
Nwav makes a lot of good points, but he is rather harsh in his criticisms and tends to rehash them needlessly which can come across as spiteful. He also basically built his name upon such criticisms, and riding that wave then came out with an amp which is supposedly better than all those he criticized and has found flaws with.