Grado RA1 AC

Jan 22, 2003 at 3:58 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 22
lextek

lextek

Headphoneus Supremus
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Has anyone heard the AC version of this amp? Headroom mentioned it was coming out and that was about it.
 
Jan 22, 2003 at 7:30 PM Post #2 of 22
i've seen a few popup on ebay. i haven't seen anybody mention that they've heard them though. somehow, i think i'll find it amusing when somebody goes out and spends ~$330 on an ac ra-1 when i think of the meta42 that could be built for that much.. oh well.
 
Jan 22, 2003 at 8:39 PM Post #3 of 22
I listened to it at the new york meet at Grados,it was in the room with his speaker system. I really can't compare to either a meta or a battery powered ra 1 since I never heard either. I thought it was a good sounding little amp.Headphones where the rs1s.If you look at the new york meet pictures John Grado was pictured listening to it with rs1s.
 
Jan 22, 2003 at 8:56 PM Post #5 of 22
Quote:

Originally posted by grinch
i've seen a few popup on ebay. i haven't seen anybody mention that they've heard them though. somehow, i think i'll find it amusing when somebody goes out and spends ~$330 on an ac ra-1 when i think of the meta42 that could be built for that much.. oh well.


Maybe the META is a piece of ****. Don't know, haven't heard 'it'. It's all in the way 'it's' built anyway, it's just a starter board. If you build one it might sound good.

I might be able to build a BMW for $20,000 so anyone who pays $50,000 is stupid.
 
Jan 23, 2003 at 12:59 AM Post #6 of 22
Quote:

Originally posted by Beagle
Maybe the META is a piece of ****. Don't know, haven't heard 'it'. It's all in the way 'it's' built anyway, it's just a starter board. If you build one it might sound good.

I might be able to build a BMW for $20,000 so anyone who pays $50,000 is stupid.


if a whole is worth more than the sum of its parts, one could build a really nice meta42 for $350. the capacitors, resistors, jacks, opamps and buffers could all be vastly superior to the ra-1.

your analogy is painfully ignorant. a bmw is a bmw. a meta42 and an ra-1 are not the same thing. i think it would be possible to build an exact replica of an ra-1 for under $330, however, who would want to when they could build an amp with detail instead?
 
Jan 23, 2003 at 7:29 AM Post #7 of 22
I think the meta42 amps sound quite bad with Grados... Both have lots of "impact", and together its too much of a good thing. my ears hurt after prolonged listening....

Its not just the quality of the parts or the design of the amp that counts, what's more important is how the amp matches with the headphones. The meta42 was based around the amplifier called "Apheared's Sennheiser HD-600 amp", and it works wonders with Senns. But it just doesn't work with Grados in my opinion.

Comparing DIY and commercal products is totally irrelevant. This has been discused way too many times over the years.
 
Jan 23, 2003 at 9:20 AM Post #8 of 22
The META42 works great with Grados as long as the buffers are stacked.

The Grado RA-1 is an amazingly overpriced basic Cmoy entombed in wax to hide the fact that there is nothing inside.
 
Jan 23, 2003 at 3:12 PM Post #10 of 22
Quote:

Originally posted by grinch
if a whole is worth more than the sum of its parts, one could build a really nice meta42 for $350. the capacitors, resistors, jacks, opamps and buffers could all be vastly superior to the ra-1


And if you were a company, how much would you retail something that cost $350 to build? Maybe $1000? Certainly, if it sounded equivalent to other $1000 amps. I'm sure some cheap DIY amps blow away all the expensive Headroom amps but nobody would dare say so here.

For commercial manufacturers/companies, time is money. You could buy a 10 pound bag of potatoes for $3 and make $100 worth of potato chips, assuming you had a lot of free time on your hands. It's easy to slag a product for being too expensive when you just look at parts cost and you don't factor in the overhead.
 
Jan 23, 2003 at 4:42 PM Post #11 of 22
Quote:

The META42 works great with Grados as long as the buffers are stacked.

The Grado RA-1 is an amazingly overpriced basic Cmoy entombed in wax to hide the fact that there is nothing inside.


I'm not talking about the amp's ability to drive grado's from a technical standpoint, i'm talking about the sound the results. This is a personal opinion, i think the dynamics become exagerated and sounds bright/fatiguing when a Meta drives a Grado.

I know what is inside the RA-1, i drew the schematic that everyone now uses to attack it. I did it to help DIYselvers who wanted to build a clone of the RA-1, not use it insult members who already own the RA-1 or crap on threads like this. This debate has gone on for years and years since the first days of headwize and it has never lead to anything.

This thread is about the newly introduced AC powered RA-1, so why not let the people intersted in it discuss it? No one posting in this thread is a n00b,they've heard of the META42 by now.


Look at any commercial product, and you'll see that factors like supply and demand is way more important than cost of parts in a design... Look at all those expensive interconnects or those aftermarket HD-600 cables that everyone on here seems to own. Does the copper wire actually cost several hundred dollars to produce? or is it sold for that price because people think the sound is woth that much?
 
Jan 23, 2003 at 4:54 PM Post #12 of 22
Quote:

Originally posted by Beagle
And if you were a company, how much would you retail something that cost $350 to build? Maybe $1000? Certainly, if it sounded equivalent to other $1000 amps. I'm sure some cheap DIY amps blow away all the expensive Headroom amps but nobody would dare say so here.

For commercial manufacturers/companies, time is money. You could buy a 10 pound bag of potatoes for $3 and make $100 worth of potato chips, assuming you had a lot of free time on your hands. It's easy to slag a product for being too expensive when you just look at parts cost and you don't factor in the overhead.


i never said the ra-1 was overpriced. i never said the ra-1 isn't correctly valued. i simply stated that for how much you could spend on an ra-1, you could easily build a really really nice meta42.

and as far as headroom amps are concerned, i know at least kelly much prefers the gilmore AND the prehead to the max. i wouldn't be too suprised that if i had all three of them side-to-side, the max would not be my favorite.

I still have no idea what you are talking about analogy-wise.
 
Jan 23, 2003 at 4:56 PM Post #13 of 22
Quote:

Originally posted by Beagle
And if you were a company, how much would you retail something that cost $350 to build? Maybe $1000? Certainly, if it sounded equivalent to other $1000 amps. I'm sure some cheap DIY amps blow away all the expensive Headroom amps but nobody would dare say so here.

For commercial manufacturers/companies, time is money. You could buy a 10 pound bag of potatoes for $3 and make $100 worth of potato chips, assuming you had a lot of free time on your hands. It's easy to slag a product for being too expensive when you just look at parts cost and you don't factor in the overhead.


I don't know the exact cost of the Gilmore amp that HeadAmp.com sells but since the kit is less than $350 one would have to assume the parts total is less than $350. I do like the sound of this amp more than HeadRoom's line and would dare to say so here.
 
Jan 23, 2003 at 9:59 PM Post #14 of 22
Lex,

I still have not heard the AC version, but on another thread you posted that Grado may convert the battery version to the AC version. I just talked to someone at Grado and they said they do this for $75- the difference between the new ac version and the battery version. To get the upgrade, you'll need to send your RA-1 to Grado Labs, and this price includes return shipping as well. Also, the person I talked to said that if the RA-1 was upgraded to the AC version, you can no longer use with batteries. He said there was absolutely no added noise with the AC version.

I've decided I like the flexibility/portability that the battery version gives me, so I've decided to leave well enough alone.

Anyways, just though I'd pass on the information.

Drew
 
Jan 24, 2003 at 12:02 AM Post #15 of 22
Thomas, I respond to rash generalizations. I'm guessing you don't know and don't care about the configuration of the META42 you listened to, which makes your statement meaningless. I would not have said a word had you not spoken as you did.

RA-1 fans can talk all they like, but it is naive to assume they won't attract ridicule due to the nature of the RA-1. Likewise, many expensive cables attract ridicule. It is the nature of open forums, there is not much you can do about it. Sorry for the disturbance.

-m

"People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty.
They drink the sand because they don't know the difference."
 
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