[Slackaveli]

How much out-of-pocket was your order (inclusive of PayPal & bank fees, for currency conversion), if you don't mind sharing?

$1299 (included mono conn for future stacking)+ $100 power cable upgrade + $120 shipping (thats where driving by car to POLAND comes in lol) + $63 PayPal fee (this I cant explain other than they dont like foreign orders at Paypal) ~ $1580 out the door.
Don't skimp on the power cord- it's really good.

 

[Slackaveli]

Based on what I just learned, this is not true. You can have dual mono balanced OR unbalanced.. and also main purpose of balanced is not so much power but lower noise.

but anyway, does not really matter at all in the end.. It was nice to learn again something new .

Fact is balanced doesnt sound better unless it's eliminating noise- which Mentor doesnt have.
If neuroticism won't allow for anything but muh balanced just grab 2

 

[Ceora]

I agree you should not worry about if the headphone amp is true balanced. Here is an article from Benchmark where they claim balanced for a headphone amp is not a good idea:

https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/audio-myth-balanced-headphone-outputs-are-better

 

[nighthink]

If neuroticism won't allow for anything but muh balanced just grab 2

I would love to! But tell it to my wife.. without bad consequences for me, of course.

That paypal charge is frustrating. After you finally decide on Mentor, you need to accept the fact additional 15% goes to services that bring it to your door. And it goes only up if you order two. But those are the consequences of the aggressors from the east..

 

[Slackaveli]

Dual-mono is the PREFFERED design.

I said it.

Why? Because I bought it. This is the way of Head-fi

 

[ThanatosVI]

Dual-mono is the PREFFERED design.

I said it.

Why? Because I bought it. This is the way of Head-fi

The student has become the Master!

 

[Slackaveli]

I would love to! But tell it to my wife.. without bad consequences for me, of course.

That paypal charge is frustrating. After you finally decide on Mentor, you need to accept the fact additional 15% goes to services that bring it to your door. And it goes only up if you order two. But those are the consequences of the aggressors from the east..

Yeah, it really is but I guess now we are getting a taste of what the Euro guys were always complaining about with VAT on usa products.
In the end i dont care about the shipping bc I know what all it entails.
And I'd rather just pay the $120 and have my Mentor by next weeks instead of waiting until April/May for Schiit (and still paying $40 shipping then).

 

[nighthink]

Yeah, it really is but I guess now we are getting a taste of what the Euro guys were always complaining about with VAT on usa products.

Right, I forgot you guys in the US have to pay additional taxes and duties. At least that is not the case for EU, as it goes from Poland warehouse. But I bet you don't have 30% extra on those taxes and duties as we do have here when importing from the US..

 

[Slackaveli]

I agree you should not worry about if the headphone amp is true balanced. Here is an article from Benchmark where they claim balanced for a headphone amp is not a good idea:

https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/audio-myth-balanced-headphone-outputs-are-better

this is very informative

 

[Slackaveli]

Right, I forgot you guys in the US have to pay additional taxes and duties. At least that is not the case for EU, as it goes from Poland warehouse. But I bet you don't have 30% extra on those taxes and duties as we do have here when importing from the US..

no, but there is almost always 10-11% 'sales tax' and sometimes duties but usually not.

For many years here Amazon didnt have sales tax- one of the reasons they took off.

 

[Slackaveli]

The student has become the Master!

 

[Lvivske]

They drive it or they have a courier get to a UPS hub in Poland? That's way too far for anyone to drive, and the current Polish blockade would make any driver go insane from the traffic pileup

Would make more sense if they had them in a distribution center in PL that could be shipped when orders go through

 

[artist777]

I agree you should not worry about if the headphone amp is true balanced. Here is an article from Benchmark where they claim balanced for a headphone amp is not a good idea:

https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/audio-myth-balanced-headphone-outputs-are-better

Very interesting article. It states that
"For performance reasons, this connector is not driven with a voltage-balanced signal. Instead, it provides isolated left and right ground returns that are individually connected to the ground reference points in the left and right amplifiers."

It looks like Flux does the same thing. It uses two separate independent grounds to connect the headphones output. This explains why the output have four wires instead of three, because the ground for each channel is different.

 

[Slackaveli]

They drive it or they have a courier get to a UPS hub in Poland? That's way too far for anyone to drive, and the current Polish blockade would make any driver go insane from the traffic pileup

Would make more sense if they had them in a distribution center in PL that could be shipped when orders go through

Probably with some sort of courier- doubt they have engineers making that journey; but they said it has to be driven to the nearest UPS hub in Poland .

 

[Slackaveli]

Very interesting article. It states that
"For performance reasons, this connector is not driven with a voltage-balanced signal. Instead, it provides isolated left and right ground returns that are individually connected to the ground reference points in the left and right amplifiers."

It looks like Flux does the same thing. It uses two separate independent grounds to connect the headphones output. This explains why the output have four wires instead of three, because the ground for each channel is different.

And it runs cooler. I think dual-mono is the superior topology tbh.
Class A without crazy heat, lots of power, beautiful sound... black background. And can be stacked.