[lingdaowen]

He has some health problem due to the wood dust according to him back In march. I hope he's better now

 

[wje]

Quote:

Okay, I'll check them out, thanks.
Just seems that so many small audio start ups are hard to reach; Smeggy never returned any emails, Lawton Audio won't complete my order, and Martin Custom has been silent for days. It's a little frustrating, to be honest.

 
That's why I, personally, never try to make money off of my hobby.  To me, my hobby is my "get away" from it all and serves as a form of relaxation as well as having something to really look forward too.  I have turned previous hobbies into money making side jobs.  However, that's when I'd realize all the life was sucked out of my hobby and it was no longer fun.

 

[jinteddy7]

Quote:

He has some health problem due to the wood dust according to him back In march. I hope he's better now

Yea i heard that too, hope he gets the better workplace he wanted. Ohrenholz, get better buddy! =)
 
 

 
That's why I, personally, never try to make money off of my hobby.  To me, my hobby is my "get away" from it all and serves as a form of relaxation as well as having something to really look forward too.  I have turned previous hobbies into money making side jobs.  However, that's when I'd realize all the life was sucked out of my hobby and it was no longer fun.
 

Yup i agree, sometimes its worth it and sometimes its not. I work from 9am to 9pm (or later, not uncommon to stay back until 2am at least twice a week) as a graphic designer at Ogilvy and Mathers. Then on weekends its headband production all the way through. Work can take its toll on the body but im hoping to get the stocks up in a few weeks time so that i can take a short break. But I actually enjoy what i do as a graphic designer so i guess that makes up for it =) To all other MOT's, take vitamins and stay strong guys ...=)

 

[Chris_Himself]

Quote:

 
That's why I, personally, never try to make money off of my hobby.  To me, my hobby is my "get away" from it all and serves as a form of relaxation as well as having something to really look forward too.  I have turned previous hobbies into money making side jobs.  However, that's when I'd realize all the life was sucked out of my hobby and it was no longer fun.

 
Ugh tell me about it. It was cool when I was doing cables independently for some of my friends on head-fi, but once it bloomed into a small business with a small minority cranky, demanding customers who want the most product for the least amount of money (from me of all people?) it starts to take it's toll on you. But hey they always come around to being nice to me at the end of the day
 
It's still fun but sometimes I just feel like a machine doing this.
 
Apparently there is a $3500-5000 machine that does all the work for me. Although if you wanna talk about not fun, imagine running that in my room while I'm trying to study LOL.

 

[thelostMIDrange]

sorry to hear orens affected by the dust. hopefully just a short allergic reaction and not more serious. Another reason to stay away from some of those exotics. wenge, bocote, cocobolo, limba etc are extreme woods and seem to be more dangerous to one's health. I would encourage him to use dye-tinted tiger maple. It sounds great with mags, easy to work with, the dust is much less toxic and it's grown domestically. It's a very friendly wood in many ways but still has the exotic look when dark tinted.
 

 
btw, that pic is of an all maple box/ The body of the piece is tinted with dyes but the maple end pieces are tinted with a couple drops of black india ink. One could also use that for the cups to make an ebony type look.  For those who don't know what raw maple looks like, you can see it sitting on either side of the box.

 

[Magick Man]

Very nice, I wouldn't mind cups made from that.

 

[t-crisis]

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Very nice, I wouldn't mind cups made from that.

+1

 

[thelostMIDrange]

anyone using nwavguy's designs with magnums in wood? I have not heard his stuff but have the dac on order. I have a suspicion the mags blend well with neutral (accurate) amps and dac's because I feel the drivers (at least in wood) tend to have plenty of body, colour, 'fun factor', etc and really do not benefit from either a colored source or amp. Any amen's to that idea?

 

[sluker]

I have the JDS labs build of the O2 and I don't really find that it pairs all that well with Magnums.
I prefer my Mags with a warmer signature source. I like the O2 with warm phones like the LCD2 and it even sounds good with the T50rp's but the sound with the Magnums tends to be kind of "cold" and analytical. Plus the Mag's don't really need the kind of power that the O2 puts out. I have mostly been using mine with the HM 603 player/DAC and really enjoying that combo right now.
I will be interested to see what you think of the DAC as I am in the market for a new one but was going to wait for the new Shiit.
 
Quote:

anyone using nwavguy's designs with magnums in wood? I have not heard his stuff but have the dac on order. I have a suspicion the mags blend well with neutral (accurate) amps and dac's because I feel the drivers (at least in wood) tend to have plenty of body, colour, 'fun factor', etc and really do not benefit from either a colored source or amp. Any amen's to that idea?

 

[thelostMIDrange]

.............I think one of the reasons my impressions don't jive with the majority is that most of my listening is through a turntable with original press vinyl on which i've spent years dialing in to my liking with a rich natural slightly warm sound so I really don't need amps and headphones which 'help'. whereas modern cds need help imo to sound more enjoyable and when I listen to cd's I tend to prefer the magnums which help mellow out some of the digital wash and stridency imo. And I suspect most people who are buying magnums, are listening to pure digital music whether it be flac or cd's etc. Turntables and vinyl really are a whole different thing imo.

 

[scootsit]

I plan on using mine with a grubDAC feeding into a Millet Mosfet Max, I will report back. I have high hopes.
 
That's very true, regarding the difference between digital and analog sources. I have always had a hunch it had to do with variations with how different amps fall within the RIAA correction, but have 0 evidence or proof to back it up, I know that I find listening to my records much less fatiguing and enjoyable than my CDs on my set-up, that could be psychoacoustic, or the fact that my deck/cart are way nicer than my CD player.

 

[scoopbb]

i use the o2 amp with the magnums and i think it sounds great. i dont have much experience with other amps but i cant imagine wasting my money getting something else when this already sounds great.

 

[dimensiid]

Finally!!! 
 

 

[bookaboo]

If the o2 sounds like the benchmark dac1 headphone out as nwavguy says then it will be a great match for the magnums. I have tried my magnums with many head amps namely the ra1, violectric v100 and the schiit Valhalla and I feel that the dac 1 does such a good job that I have decided to keep only the Valhalla and dac1 for a solid state and tube contrast. I haven't tried an o2 yet though.

 

[wje]

Quote:

If the o2 sounds like the benchmark dac1 headphone out as nwavguy says then it will be a great match for the magnums. I have tried my magnums with many head amps namely the ra1, violectric v100 and the schiit Valhalla and I feel that the dac 1 does such a good job that I have decided to keep only the Valhalla and dac1 for a solid state and tube contrast. I haven't tried an o2 yet though.

 
Actually, if one wants a "less" portable system, with a slightly lesser cost, the Squeezebox players with their Burr-Brown DACs plugged into a vintage piece of gear does really, really well with the Magnums.  The cost may even be slightly less than the DAC1 and that Schiit you mentioned. 

 
I must admit, though, I did divest a bit in my vintage gear several months' back due to the demands and upkeep that can be required of the gear (bulbs, Deoxit, new CAPs, etc.).  However, I've spotted a pristine Harmon Kardon integrated amp that I'm going to make a leap for today and utilize the device itself along with speaker taps to drive my HifiMAN headphones.  However, vintage gear can also capably drive headphones through the headphone connector because much of the vintage gear just had the speaker wires with some resistors attached running to the headphone jack.  Newer receivers and amps though, have their own headphone outputs now with separate op-amps that tend to be junk.  Sure, it can be listed as a feature for the receiver, but that means very little to someone who desires quality music and the headphone stage of such device just crushes the sound.