[ScottFW]

   
@ScottFW - did you use Canare L-4E6S or L-4E5C for the cable? If so, did you leave the shield unconnected? Also - how easy was it to solder the wire into the HD 600 / 650 connectors? Looks like it's a tight fit...

I used L-4E6S (24 AWG wires) and it did turn out a hair stiffer than I might have preferred. L-4E5C has 26 AWG wires and an O.D. of 4.8mm vs 6.0mm, so that would work fine if one wanted a more limp cable. I might pick up a length of that someday and give it a try. The Techflex jacketing probably adds another little bit of stiffness.
 
I also have some Mogami W2534 which is basically their equivalent of L-4ES6. Haven't made any cables with it yet, but one difference (on paper) is that the Mogami's shielding is supposedly easier to unravel when stripping the ends. On the Canare the shield is woven all around and takes a minute or three to straighten out it before it can be twisted & soldered. Looks like W2893 is Mogami's equivalent to L-4E5C.
 
The shield is not connected to anything at the headphones. It's simply cut off at the Y where it splits for the L and R drivers, with only the two wires going to each side of the headphones. At the 4-pin XLR end, the shield is soldered to the connector's body tab, to act as a theoretical interference drain, though I don't have any real interference issues in my home office. On the pigtails that convert to standard 1/4" tip-ring-sleeve, I have the shield connected at both ends. So at the 1/4" TRS end, the L-, R-, and shield are all soldered to the sleeve. I don't know if it would make any difference to float the shield on the unbalanced connectors. The way I have it, I guess it could be adding some small amount of capacitance.
 
On the little Senn connectors it definitely helps to have a fine tip iron. The standard issue 30W Radio Shack iron with 1/8" tip is a bit large and unwieldy for this task, but could work if you have a steady hand and like playing Operation. The connectors I used look like these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/181162830155
After soldering them up, I filled the space with 2-part epoxy (masking/painter's tape the little grooves on the sides so it doesn't leak out). I also worked a little epoxy into the "strain relief" (and I use that term very loosely here). After the epoxy cured I used a bit of heat shrink to give them a little extra support. I would consider that mandatory with these particular connectors as they are somewhat flimsy by themselves. There's also epoxy inside the heat shrink at the Y point on the cable. The whole thing is pretty sturdy.

 

[Billheiser]

The time did go by fast.  I only sampled 1 headphone (EL-8) that wasn't mine, but enjoyed trying out my low impedance X2 and TH-X00 on other gear.  I was pleasantly surprised that the Philips ran very well on the Crack/Speedball, though the X00 was less well suited (don't know why - the more efficient X2 should have had a problem, but no...).
Not surprised that the EL-8C was very fine with the Codex.  The Grace M9xx drove the X00 perfectly, a good combo.
@Sheldaze, I think you mentioned planning on the new Vali2.  I'll look forward to hearing that in the future.  My current Vali plays so well with my HD600 that I don't need the new version, but it's brilliant that Schiit is addressing the microphonic tubes and other side issues.

 

[sheldaze]

  @Sheldaze, I think you mentioned planning on the new Vali2.  I'll look forward to hearing that in the future.  My current Vali plays so well with my HD600 that I don't need the new version, but it's brilliant that Schiit is addressing the microphonic tubes and other side issues.

I had (at the time) what I thought to be an excessive number of headphone amplifiers, with specific usage purpose. Hmm...poorly said...start over.
 
I had an AKG Q701 that I simply could not listen to for more than 30 minutes, so I planned to sell it. The problems were two-fold, in that I like to listen at low volume but the character of that headphone made me want to crank it. Also the bumps on the headband just make no sense, forcing me to frequently move it around on my scalp to keep the bumps from digging into my skin. That detail-oriented headphone sounded great on the Schiit Vali, but my very dark, original release HD650 sounded better on everything else, such as the Schiit Valhalla and Schiit Magni 2. I was seeking a balance between details (on those two) and harshness (lack of it on the Vali) that made me keep The Element as my go-to all-around amplifier and to sell everything else. The Element could also work well with my low impedance headphones, such as the Denon. So I got rid of the Vali as I simultaneously got rid of all my specialized headphone amplifiers.
 
But I now have nothing with tubes - the Vali 2 seems to be an easy way to scratch that itch (you can do actual tube rolling, which the original Vali could not and the original Valhalla was not truly meant to do either). The Vali 2 also has low impedance, so I'm hoping to use it with some of my other cans like the Audeze EL-8C. Last I'm also hoping for just a hair more clarity through the amplifier, versus what sounded a little warm, to my ears, on my original Vali - it's a tough balance when truthfully I would be just fine with a low impedance version of the original Vali. The option to roll and lack microphonics are just icing, because those two issues never bothered me.
 
TL;DR - low impedance Vali, I'm sold! Tube rolling and no microphonics, and still a low price:

Would like to hear the Vali versus Vali 2 at the February meet 

 
Reading the Vali 2 thread and seems the original was a good match for HD800, so would like to hear that pairing too. So is the Feb meet going to be like 5 hours. I've collected about 5 setups to try to tame the HD800 

 

 

[yage]

  The time did go by fast.

 
Sorry I was late. Two hours really isn't enough - though I guess there's always February. On the other hand, thanks to all for giving me yet another excuse to borrow the Codex. Maybe one day I'll even buy it.
 

  @Sheldaze, I think you mentioned planning on the new Vali2.

 
Yes, looking forward to hearing this at the next meet. Can't quite bring myself to buy a tube amp without some sort of cage / case as the kids would probably want to play with it - especially if it looks like a tiny little silver spaceship.
 
Speaking of which, I think I might take a day off in January and head over to Urban HiFi to listen to the microZOTL 2.0 - I'm thinking Monday, January 25 or Tuesday, January 26. While there I'll probably ask if Mark Schneider would like to attend the February meet with amp in tow. You're more than welcome to join me.

 

[willsw]

y.  Speaking of which, I think I might take a day off in January and head over to Urban HiFi to listen to the microZOTL 2.0 - I'm thinking Monday, January 25 or Tuesday, January 26. While there I'll probably ask if Mark Schneider would like to attend the February meet with amp in tow. You're more than welcome to join me.

 
I had hoped to make it to this mini-meet with the microZOTL2.0 but Mark and I had to attend a family get-together. One, if not both, of us will definitely be at the meet in February, with at least a microZOTL2.0.
 
The Urban HiFi/Linear Tube Audio (same people, same place) hours are not at all strictly 9-5, Mark is working all the time and I am happy to meet anyone there anytime I'm not occupied by other employment. Unless the day off would be for driving  time, feel free to come by during the evening or weekend. Mark will be going out of town on Monday, and then coming back for a week in a few weeks (I need to confirm when exactly), and then going out of town again, but I'll be here. Feel free to PM me with any questions.  

 

[willsw]

 
Reading the Vali 2 thread and seems the original was a good match for HD800, so would like to hear that pairing too. So is the Feb meet going to be like 5 hours. I've collected about 5 setups to try to tame the HD800 

 

 
Reading the Nashua meet impressions thread (I wasn't there), it seems that many were happily surprised with an unmodified HD800's sound paired with a microZOTL2.0. I'll try to sit close to a Vali 2 in February for easy A-Bing. 

 

[yage]

I had hoped to make it to this mini-meet with the microZOTL2.0 but Mark and I had to attend a family get-together. One, if not both, of us will definitely be at the meet in February, with at least a microZOTL2.0..  

Sweet!

Now if only we could convince Sennheiser to send the new Orpheus....

 

[Billheiser]

Sweet!

Now if only we could convince Sennheiser to send the new Orpheus....

Oh, I've got a couple of those in my garage. I'll blow off the dust and bring 'em along.

 

[yage]

Oh, I've got a couple of those in my garage. I'll blow off the dust and bring 'em along.

 
I knew you were holding out on us...

 

[gandhisfist]

Can't quite bring myself to buy a tube amp without some sort of cage / case as the kids would probably want to play with it - especially if it looks like a tiny little silver spaceship.

Sounds like the children need to be caged, not the tubes XD

 

[yage]

Sounds like the children need to be caged, not the tubes XD

Nah. I don't want them to associate their cages with playtime... that's where they sleep at night.

 

[sheldaze]

@yage do you think it is likely you'll have the Ayre Codex at the next meet? It is a Saturday, so I thought you might not. I'm asking anyways because I'd like to at least have a sprinkling of the same music, which you had on your computer. I'd like to load it onto all three medium (laptop, and my two DAPs) so we do not run into similar issues as last time.

 

[yage]

  @yage do you think it is likely you'll have the Ayre Codex at the next meet? It is a Saturday, so I thought you might not. I'm asking anyways because I'd like to at least have a sprinkling of the same music, which you had on your computer. I'd like to load it onto all three medium (laptop, and my two DAPs) so we do not run into similar issues as last time.

 
Unfortunately, most likely no since it's on a Saturday. I will, however, say that Tom at Gifted Listener Audio let me listen to it for about two hours at the store (though this was on a weekday). You can bring your own gear / music for a decent A/B. I imagine there must be an Ayre dealer with a Codex that's closer to you. Or you could drive down to Centreville on the day of the meet, spend some time at his store (opens at 10 a.m. on Saturday) and drive back up to the library.

 

[sheldaze]

I am starting to think that a little more research in DAP features may be fruitful in the next purchase. Two issues have arisen since I started to truly try to utilize my FiiO X3, and I'm getting a lot of non-support from the Head-Fi and other online threads:
 

1. I have yet to figure out how to make a playlist. There are solutions online for Windows and Foobar2000, but I'm a Mac user. I thought I'd figured out how to bypass this by putting my 5 test tracks into a favorites list, but the list was reordered when I rebooted. Apparently my preferred order is not alphabetical. Still, not a really big deal.
2. But...now that I have my 5 tracks, each at different audio rate, it is quite noticeable that there is a huge delay between the start of the track (when the playback begins) and when the DAC begins to output music. This was never an issue with playback from my laptop.

 
I guess these may or may not be issues for you, @gandhisfist, but I would appreciate if you have tried these two features with your DAP and could comment. The ordering of the playlist is less important than having the playlist. I would just like to have the 5 songs handy so I could, at a meet, go from track to track to quickly hear what a particular setup sounds like. So playlist is definitely a must! But I am finding it exceedingly distracting when I must ignore that the first few notes are just gone when the DAP starts to play each track. It kind of takes away from keeping my mind in the zone of focussed listening. I would sure love to find a DAP without that issue.

 

[gandhisfist]

sheldaze, follow up question, are you on the latest firmware?