[lmilhan]

Interesting indeed. I would love to take such a test.

I can say with confidence that the Tomahawk is a mini-marvel. I think it is the best sounding solid state amp I have owned to date. The bonus is that when I use it portably, it gets hundreds and hundreds of hours on a sinlge pair of batteries, not to mention that it is so darn small. Sounds spectacular driving all of my Grado phones with flat pads.

 

[GreatDane]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lmilhan The bonus is that when I use it portably, it gets hundreds and hundreds of hours on a sinlge pair of batteries...

I've read about the huge battery life, is that with alkaline ? It seems that Li would last a ridiculously long time, is there any reports of using Li batteries in the Tomahawk?

I've began using Energizer Li in my SuperMini but I have no clue as to how much longer they'll last compared to NiMH that I used to use.


I must have Tomahawk

 

[cotdt]

i think if you had used a more power-hungry headphone, the difference will be greater.

 

[Skylab]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cotdt /img/forum/go_quote.gif i think if you had used a more power-hungry headphone, the difference will be greater.

Well, the HD600's are 300 ohm...

I did bring my 600 ohm DT880's over to Ray's, but I only played them through the B52. Seemed a bit unfair to ask the TH to drive 600 ohm cans.

 

[NightWoundsTime]

Quote:

Originally Posted by omendelovitz /img/forum/go_quote.gif even if it was a bottleneck, I can't be sure how much of one it would be, but considering the relative simplicity and 'purity' of an RCA-RCA switch... all I guess I'm saying is that there is more chance for error given the necessarily more complex setup of a headphone output switch box relative to an RCA IC relay. RAY, WHERE ARE YOU? I'M SO CURIOUS!!!

The switchbox I've used of Ray's had two 1/4" inputs and one 1/4" output. You hook the output of each amp to a single headphone and the switch changes amps. He had his own custom 1/4 to 1/4 cables made up so that variable was taken out, and he also used identical interconnects from his Meridian to the amps. The first time I met Ray several years ago he brought this one out and we hooked up a lot of amps, to compare to the shiny new SR-71. I guess I "failed" the test but I was too interested in talking to Ray to spend much time with it. Really this type of test is well known to most audiophiles and some would claim it's a form of snake-oil, especially when you're dealing with new and unfamiliar variables in the system. In your own system that you are intimate with you stand a better chance of judging overall differences. Either way it's still a useful tool, and I have no problem with Ray using it to show off just how great his portables are (and the rest of his lineup for that matter).

 

[NightWoundsTime]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cotdt /img/forum/go_quote.gif i think if you had used a more power-hungry headphone, the difference will be greater.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skylab /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well, the HD600's are 300 ohm...

Well the lower Z cans can be called power hungry in a way also. I think we all know synergy when we hear it, some amps just hit a totally different stride with certain headphones.

 

[krmathis]

Thanks for the informative comparison.

Ray Samuels sure produce great sounding, well designed and solid built amplifiers. Reminds me on how much I wait for an electrostatic amplifier from Ray Samuels, comparable to the beautiful B-52.

 

[alfie]

Just want to recall that these kind of tests just prove the amplifiers involved can be recognized if they succeed, but they don't prove anything if they fail. And this is true when the tests are done in a controlled way with many people taking part. I mean: if a test fails, it doesn't mean the amplifiers sound the same, simple as that. This seems so obvious but it is also tricky and ignoring that is the cause of never ending flames in the audiophile world.

 

[seacard]

Quote:

Originally Posted by alfie /img/forum/go_quote.gif Just want to recall that these kind of tests just prove the amplifiers involved can be recognized if they succeed, but they don't prove anything if they fail. And this is true when the tests are done in a controlled way with many people taking part. I mean: if a test fails, it doesn't mean the amplifiers sound the same, simple as that. This seems so obvious but it is also tricky and ignoring that is the cause of never ending flames in the audiophile world.

Sorry, I don't understand your post. Are you saying that if you have a controlled study with a large enough sample size, and find that statistically speaking people cannot consistently identify which amp is which, that doens't prove anything? If so, why? Obviously you have to have a large enough sample size, but this is how every single scientific experiment is done. Or do you not believe in science in general? For example, if I were trying to see whether a certain drug had an impact on reaction time, and ran a controlled study, and found that there is no difference between the reaction time of somebody taking the medicine and somebody that is, with p=.01 (meaning 1% chance that this happened by chance), you think that doesn't prove anything?

 

[alfie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by seacard /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sorry, I don't understand your post.

I am just saying that: what is the question in such an experiment? "The amplifiers sound different", isn't it? If so, what does the failure of the experiment show us? Can we comment "The amplifiers sound the same"? I think we can't derive just anything from that. It is the very old dispute "Can a DBT say amplifiers all sound the same?". I am sure the results of such a test are really interesting from a commercial and industrial point of view, but I would stay on that.

 

[Skylab]

Ray was certainly not trying to show that ALL amps sound the same - far from it. Just that with HIS amps, and the TH in specific, that he has worked hard to make them sound like his reference amps. And while I agree that tests like this are imperfect, the point was still well taken that the TH does sound very close to the more expensive home amps.

 

[seacard]

I think the question is more accurately phramed as "Can a human being tell a difference between amplifier X and amplifier Y?" If you run a controlled, properly designed study, and show that statistically significant number of people (with p < .05) cannot, I think it shows that we cannot tell the difference. Sure, there will be some people who can guess it correctly. Again, this requires a controlled study, with a large enough random sample, must be double-blind, etc., and this is not easily done. (Of course, this doesn't have anything to do with which amp is better, and I'm not suggesting that all amps are the same.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by alfie /img/forum/go_quote.gif I am just saying that: what is the question in such an experiment? "The amplifiers sound different", isn't it? If so, what does the failure of the experiment show us? Can we comment "The amplifiers sound the same"? I think we can't derive just anything from that. It is the very old dispute "Can a DBT say amplifiers all sound the same?". I am sure the results of such a test are really interesting from a commercial and industrial point of view, but I would stay on that.

 

[Rumz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by seacard /img/forum/go_quote.gif I think the question is more accurately phramed as "Can a human being tell a difference between amplifier X and amplifier Y?" If you run a controlled, properly designed study, and show that statistically significant number of people (with p < .05) cannot, I think it shows that we cannot tell the difference. Sure, there will be some people who can guess it correctly. Again, this requires a controlled study, with a large enough random sample, must be double-blind, etc., and this is not easily done. (Of course, this doesn't have anything to do with which amp is better, and I'm not suggesting that all amps are the same.)

Depends on your test group. If you rounded up a large group of people who all had some basis in distinguishing characteristics of sound in music, headphones, amps, etc, then such a test would be interesting to me. A bunch of average Joes can't even tell the difference between 128kbps AAC from the iTunes store and a lossless CD-- I really don't care if they can tell the difference between amps in a blind test. While I don't believe my listening is anywhere near up to par with any of the more seasoned members here, most people I know are "deaf", so to speak, to anything but a glaring difference in sound quality (like AM radio compared to CD or something).

The reason why Skylab's report is valuable to me is that he's not an audio kindergartner, so to speak. He's learned, progressed, and done plenty of experimenting on his own. The value or accuracy of a test doesn't necessarily depend solely on the test-- it depends on the subjects.

 

[john_jcb]

Please do not take this thread off topic with discussions of testing methodologies. In the past these have degraded into name calling and flaming which we do not tolerate. For further discussion please read the sticky in the cables forum.

 

[jhendri2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skylab /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yep, as of right now, no Hornets until July. There is a key part that is unavailable anywhere in the world right now while the manufacturer converts to the EU's "ROHS" no-lead requirements. And as per the above, Ray doesn't just go substituting parts. To use his words to me yesterday, "then it isn't a Hornet".

I must've got one of the last ones. I ordered it on 27 Feb 07 and received on 2 Mar 07. Now the wait is July

.

It's an awesome amp.

Jim