[Loquah]

Yes and you'll be fine with the Primes or similar too. The S.E.X. has enough grunt to drive any of the Audeze cans or Fostex-based cans with no troubles at all.

 

[adamaley]

Thanks for the responses, guys. I failed to specify that I have the LCD-3 Classics which I believe are less sensitive and have a lower impedance.

 

[Loquah]

You'll still be fine I believe. The LCD 3s were released after original LCD 2s so all LCD 3 models should be at least as sensitive as early LCD 2s I believe and they're fine with the S.E.X.

 

[flying baboon]

According to DocB, the SEX can drive a HE6 so the LCD3 isn't really a problem

 

[jbarnhardt]

Loquah - 
 
Thank you so much for the incredibly comprehensive reviews/comparisons of these amps. Do you think the Mainline would be a reasonably good pairing with the Alpha Primes? I saw your comment on the S.E.X. being a capable amp with various planars and am trying to determine whether the Mainline has the juice to drive these effectively as well. The Bottlehead site indicates that it will work well with headphones with "normal power requirements". Alpha Primes claim 90dB efficiency and I believe are about 50ohm impedance so it seems likely they'd be fine, but I'd hate to be underwhelmed if the Mainline doesn't have enough power for these cans. Thanks for any opinions you can offer. And my apologies if this question has been asked/answered before - I've not made it through the entire thread yet.
 
-John

 

[olegausany]

I had no chance to hear Prime with either Mainline or SEX but I heard Alpha Dogs with SEX and Prime with high end amps such Crimson and upcoming LIO and they sounded really great so I would skip SEX to get best results

 

[Loquah]

  Loquah - 
 
Thank you so much for the incredibly comprehensive reviews/comparisons of these amps. Do you think the Mainline would be a reasonably good pairing with the Alpha Primes? I saw your comment on the S.E.X. being a capable amp with various planars and am trying to determine whether the Mainline has the juice to drive these effectively as well. The Bottlehead site indicates that it will work well with headphones with "normal power requirements". Alpha Primes claim 90dB efficiency and I believe are about 50ohm impedance so it seems likely they'd be fine, but I'd hate to be underwhelmed if the Mainline doesn't have enough power for these cans. Thanks for any opinions you can offer. And my apologies if this question has been asked/answered before - I've not made it through the entire thread yet.
 
-John

 
Thanks, Jon. I'm glad they are helpful! I can happily run my LCD-2s from the Mainline (close to full volume, but still about 9 steps of headroom left) so you should be fine with the Alphas, and like olegausany said, the Mainline will bring that last little bit of refinement and quality to the sound so I'd go that way if I had the choice of either.
 

I had no chance to hear Prime with either Mainline or SEX but I heard Alpha Dogs with SEX and Prime with high end amps such Crimson and upcoming LIO and they sounded really great so I would skip SEX to get best results

 

[adamaley]

While there is some traffic here on this thread, I have a question to pose to those familiar with the Bottlehead S.E.X amp. I just received a pre-built one in the mail, and I had some questions regarding the impedance switch. Looking at the picture below:
 

 
Can someone tell me whether the switch in the foreground to the right needs to match the corresponding one to the left. The one on the left is on "UNBAL" while the one to the right is on "BAL". 
 
Also, how does one set the switches to correspond to the various impedance levels of of 8 - 16 -32 etc?
 
I haven't played any music yet through the amp because I wanted to clarify these things first. Also, what is the recommended impedance for LCD-3Cs?
 
Thanks in advance.

 

[Loquah]

Hi adamaley. The switches should be matched - both UNBAL if you're using the HP socket. The BAL (balanced) mode works for the speaker taps only so you can use speaker taps via a fly lead / adapter (e.g. banana plugs to 4-pin XLR) for balanced headphone use, but this will only work if there's nothing plugged into the 6.5mm socket.
 
As for the other switches, the settings are as follows (always reading from left to right if you're looking at the switches with the writing right-side-up):
 
Low + Low = 4 ohm = lowest noise / lowest power
Low + High = 8 ohm
High + Low = 16 ohm
High + High = 32 ohm = highest noise / highest power
 
I can't remember exactly, but from memory the balanced switches will only work in certain impedance settings - 8 ohm and 32 ohm I think, but it might be best to check that because I have mine hard-wired which might be different to using the switches for balanced operation. I am 100% certain on everything else here though - definitely the positioning of the BAL / UNBAL switches should be both the same and both UNBAL for headphone socket use and the impedance settings above come straight from the manual.

 

[adamaley]

Hi Locquah, thanks for the response. Someone was kind enough to help me out on the Bottlehead forum, but his advice transposed the two middle settings to
 
High + Low = 8 ohm
Low + High = 16 ohm
 
Can you, or anyone for that matter, confirm this.
 
Thanks in advance.

 

[adamaley]

I just had the following settings confirmed by Caucasian Blackplate, which differ from Locquah's above. I just didn't want any potential misinformation to remain. CB, I believe, is one of the designers at Bottlehead.
 
            ML       MH
4ohm:    lo         lo
8ohm:    hi         lo
16ohm:  lo         hi
32ohm:  hi         hi
 
Hope this helps anyone in need.

 

[Loquah]

  Hi Locquah, thanks for the response. Someone was kind enough to help me out on the Bottlehead forum, but his advice transposed the two middle settings to
 
High + Low = 8 ohm
Low + High = 16 ohm
 
Can you, or anyone for that matter, confirm this.
 
Thanks in advance.

 
My apologies - that's correct.
 
Here's the page from the manual:
 

 

[flying baboon]

Oh, I almost forgot :
 

 
I've ordered Silver/Oil Mundurf Supreme for my father's S.E.X.
Now, time to find capacitors for my Mainline ! (and vanish the wood base...) I really like the sound of the Mainline so I will probably follow you advice Loquah and buy the Auricaps. Someone has tested other options ? 

 

[A2029]

  Oh, I almost forgot :
 

 
I've ordered Silver/Oil Mundurf Supreme for my father's S.E.X.
Now, time to find capacitors for my Mainline ! (and vanish the wood base...) I really like the sound of the Mainline so I will probably follow you advice Loquah and buy the Auricaps. Someone has tested other options ? 

 
I currently have 10uF Mundorf Supremes bypassed by 1uF Mundorf Silver-in-oil in my Mainline. I really like the increased smooth character that the silver-in-oil bypass brings to the sound. The 10uF supremes were a bit more extended in the lows and highs than the stock caps, add a slight amount of added emphasis on the middle/upper mids, and the combo (supremes + silver-in-oil bypass) adds a very slight "bloom" sound that is hard to describe to the mid/upper bass regions.

 

[Loquah]

If I had the budget I'd get some oil caps, but they're huge and expensive for 10uF. The Auricaps are an excellent option - very neutral sound, but I'm tempted at the moment to maybe try some obbligatos (waiting on a shipping quote from parts connexion). I'm not doing this because there's anything wrong with the Auricaps - I'm just curious to experiment.