Hirsch
Why is there a chaplain standing over his wallet?
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2001
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The Saturday afternoon mini-meets occur pretty regularly these days. This Saturday was a bit different in that we listened to a few new items. I only took a few pictures, and hope that someone else fills in the gaps (there was at least one more camera there). I was there with Stevieo, Thrice, Dave1, CD44hi, and Dusty Chalk.
First is the M3*3. Well, actually it's (M3 x 2) + (2 x M3 ). Thrice (Rockhopper Audio) brought over a balanced M3 along with a single-ended M3, seen here with mine also. Note that the middle amp, although single-ended, uses a 4-pin Neutrik jack, which also appears on the balanced amp in addition to the normal pair of 3-pin jacks. I like the idea here.
Balanced W100's, balanced SA5000's, and the K-1000 were among the headphones used. Note thrice's Wadia source. In the M3, the main effect of balancing first appears in the low end, which has better definition than the single-ended version. Differences between the balanced and single-ended versions are more subtle than I've heard with other amps. I suspect that this is due to the active ground of the M3 design. The active circuitry on both sides of the headphone is a key feature of balanced amps, and there's already active circuitry in the ground on a single-ended M3. So the amp may already be halfway toward "balanced" sound in the stock form.
Firestone Audio's Cute Encore and Cute Beyond were present last week and this week. From the outside, these amps appear almost identical. There's a very attractive milled chassis with colored faceplates. The headphone jack is 1/8" only. The Encore is a Class AB design that is direct-coupled.
The Firestone amps are identical from the rear, with power and gain switches. Most headphones will work fine at low gain. These amps can push a K-1000 at high gain.
The Beyond is a Class A design. Note that the volume pot is user switchable between shunt and series type control. Note also that the op amps are socketed for easy user replacement.
The Encore is a Class AB, and is direct-coupled to the headphone.
Power is provided by 24v wall adapters. In addition, Firestone makes an upgraded power supply that will operate either of the amps. I'm going to have a lot more to say about these amps in the amps forum. These amps are an amazing value at their price point ($170), and are an easy recommendation for a great sounding introductory amp. IMO the Beyond is just a bit smoother than the Encore, but the sound is very close. I really want to hear what the upgraded power supply does for these.
Getting down to business, we also wanted to compare electrostatic headphones on the Wadia/Stax SRM-007t rig.
We also threw in a Stax SRM-313 as a point of comparison. However, the 007t is simply a better amp, and easily distinguishable to me in an informal blind test.
I don't have pictures of all the electrostatic headphones used. We had Sennheiser HE90, HE60 (pictured), Stax Omega II, Stax SR-303, SR-202, and Lambda Pro (pictured). TheLambda Pro is a headphone I've been wanting to get my hands on since hearing Danny's in NY at bozebuttons' mini-meet. It's very obvious in direct comparison with the other electrostatics that the current line of Stax headphones represents a very dramatic revoicing of the sound, and one that is not necessarily for the better. The Lambda Pro had clearly deeper bass than the SR-303, and possibly deeper than the Omega II. Where the Lambda Pro excels is at instrument definition. Listening to a saxophone break, the SR-303 made the sax sound a bit flattened, with no real depth. Switching to Lambda Pro, the sound became fuller and deeper. The image seemed to become better defined. The Omega II brings a very different set of strengths to the table. Where it excels is at "weight", if you will. There's a great deal of impact, and a sense of reality of the instruments that the Lambda Pro simply can't beat. Even so, the Lambda Pro might have been the more detailed headphone. One thing became abundantly clear, though. When the Orpheus came out, all of the other headphones paled. That headphone has the complete package. Image, impact, definition, you name it. Nothing came close. IMO, the bottom line is that electrostatic headphones can be divided into two classes: the Sennheiser Orpheus and everything else. It really is that much better.
But the Lambda Pro also came with the SRD-7 adapter to drive the headphones from a power amp. To give it a try, I hooked up the Sonic T-amp with iRiver iHP-140 as the source. I really only wanted to do this to see if the adapter worked. However, the surprise to me is that this sounded good. Not "good for the price" just plain good. I did not feel a sense of "I need to plug this back into the 007t" at any point. The music just kept coming at me. It worked with any headphone, including Lambda Pro, HE60, and the HE90 pictured. Yeah, that's a $30 amp playing mp3's pushing a $5000 headphone (sorry, I couldn't help myself). There is no way that should have sounded that good. But it did. Luckily, I had witnesses to confirm this.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it
First is the M3*3. Well, actually it's (M3 x 2) + (2 x M3 ). Thrice (Rockhopper Audio) brought over a balanced M3 along with a single-ended M3, seen here with mine also. Note that the middle amp, although single-ended, uses a 4-pin Neutrik jack, which also appears on the balanced amp in addition to the normal pair of 3-pin jacks. I like the idea here.
Balanced W100's, balanced SA5000's, and the K-1000 were among the headphones used. Note thrice's Wadia source. In the M3, the main effect of balancing first appears in the low end, which has better definition than the single-ended version. Differences between the balanced and single-ended versions are more subtle than I've heard with other amps. I suspect that this is due to the active ground of the M3 design. The active circuitry on both sides of the headphone is a key feature of balanced amps, and there's already active circuitry in the ground on a single-ended M3. So the amp may already be halfway toward "balanced" sound in the stock form.
Firestone Audio's Cute Encore and Cute Beyond were present last week and this week. From the outside, these amps appear almost identical. There's a very attractive milled chassis with colored faceplates. The headphone jack is 1/8" only. The Encore is a Class AB design that is direct-coupled.
The Firestone amps are identical from the rear, with power and gain switches. Most headphones will work fine at low gain. These amps can push a K-1000 at high gain.
The Beyond is a Class A design. Note that the volume pot is user switchable between shunt and series type control. Note also that the op amps are socketed for easy user replacement.
The Encore is a Class AB, and is direct-coupled to the headphone.
Power is provided by 24v wall adapters. In addition, Firestone makes an upgraded power supply that will operate either of the amps. I'm going to have a lot more to say about these amps in the amps forum. These amps are an amazing value at their price point ($170), and are an easy recommendation for a great sounding introductory amp. IMO the Beyond is just a bit smoother than the Encore, but the sound is very close. I really want to hear what the upgraded power supply does for these.
Getting down to business, we also wanted to compare electrostatic headphones on the Wadia/Stax SRM-007t rig.
We also threw in a Stax SRM-313 as a point of comparison. However, the 007t is simply a better amp, and easily distinguishable to me in an informal blind test.
I don't have pictures of all the electrostatic headphones used. We had Sennheiser HE90, HE60 (pictured), Stax Omega II, Stax SR-303, SR-202, and Lambda Pro (pictured). TheLambda Pro is a headphone I've been wanting to get my hands on since hearing Danny's in NY at bozebuttons' mini-meet. It's very obvious in direct comparison with the other electrostatics that the current line of Stax headphones represents a very dramatic revoicing of the sound, and one that is not necessarily for the better. The Lambda Pro had clearly deeper bass than the SR-303, and possibly deeper than the Omega II. Where the Lambda Pro excels is at instrument definition. Listening to a saxophone break, the SR-303 made the sax sound a bit flattened, with no real depth. Switching to Lambda Pro, the sound became fuller and deeper. The image seemed to become better defined. The Omega II brings a very different set of strengths to the table. Where it excels is at "weight", if you will. There's a great deal of impact, and a sense of reality of the instruments that the Lambda Pro simply can't beat. Even so, the Lambda Pro might have been the more detailed headphone. One thing became abundantly clear, though. When the Orpheus came out, all of the other headphones paled. That headphone has the complete package. Image, impact, definition, you name it. Nothing came close. IMO, the bottom line is that electrostatic headphones can be divided into two classes: the Sennheiser Orpheus and everything else. It really is that much better.
But the Lambda Pro also came with the SRD-7 adapter to drive the headphones from a power amp. To give it a try, I hooked up the Sonic T-amp with iRiver iHP-140 as the source. I really only wanted to do this to see if the adapter worked. However, the surprise to me is that this sounded good. Not "good for the price" just plain good. I did not feel a sense of "I need to plug this back into the 007t" at any point. The music just kept coming at me. It worked with any headphone, including Lambda Pro, HE60, and the HE90 pictured. Yeah, that's a $30 amp playing mp3's pushing a $5000 headphone (sorry, I couldn't help myself). There is no way that should have sounded that good. But it did. Luckily, I had witnesses to confirm this.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it
