[lextek]

Sooo close. Thanks for the effort.

 

[HighwayStar]

Entertaining as that may be, neither the price nor the bid history has changed to reflect that...

 

[lextek]

So we've been had?

 

[indigosax]

Lost on the first bid. For your info .. mr Sneeky headphone amp investigator. There has been 3 times this was up on ebay.... do more research before smiting the good name of citizens of the audio world...

 

[HighwayStar]

Quote:

Originally posted by indigosax Lost on the first bid. For your info .. mr Sneeky headphone amp investigator. There has been 3 times this was up on ebay.... do more research before smiting the good name of citizens of the audio world...

LOL, very well then, more research it is...

Exactly which bidder were you ? (outbid on the first bid that is...)

This one ?

Certainly not this one...

And not the currently running one...

Hmmmmm... [size=xx-small]Mr. Sneeky Headphone Amp Investigator Strikes Again ![/size]

 

[gpalmer]

Heh, I considered it myself, but I'm too cheap to drop a grand on an unknown and too much of a newbie for my taking one for the team to really be useful and informative for head-fi.

 

[indigosax]

No sir .. keep diggin....

Also lost in e-mails teryin to buy early too...

But keep diggin.. to find my username....

Ps.... shouldn't u be tewakin an amp?

 

[indigosax]

would help if i could spell tweak'in

 

[lextek]

There was always the "buy it Now!" Hey it didn't sell. Make an offer. We're behind you.

 

[indigosax]

<- is a wuss....

plus i work for Sprint.... don't know if now is a good time to spend extra money.... although.. i wanna hear it ** wahhhh**

 

[lextek]

Quote:

Originally posted by indigosax <- is a wuss.... plus i work for Sprint.... don't know if now is a good time to spend extra money.... although.. i wanna hear it ** wahhhh**

sorry

 

[HighwayStar]

Quote:

Originally posted by indigosax i work for Sprint...

My condolences... but you ain't getting any sympathy from a Worldcom employee, that's for sure

 

[David Mitchell]

Thanks to Google, I can tell you that Chip Stern reviewed the Mesa Tigris for the August '99 issue of Stereophile (vol. 22, no. 8). Thanks to my habit of keeping magazines, I can quote a bit.

Quote:

... [Mesa Engineering Designer and President Randall] Smith eschewed cheesy op-amps and integrated circuits for a headphone tap that derives its signal from the output of the power amplifier and the output transformers ... for a remarkable level of intimacy, ambience, imaging, and timbral detail that compares favorably with all but the most costly esoteric electrostatic systems. (p. 82) [The Tigris] offers listeners an aural parfait of tonal possibilities, each one vividly musical, dynamically involving, and sonically distinctive. If full pentode operation with progressive increments of negative feedback can be said to represent the vast scale and power of the modern world, the euphonic smoothness of two-thirds-triode/one-third-pentode offers a telling reminder of the High End's lost innocence, suggesting something of the midrange bloom one might associate with single-ended triode. Somewhere in between, bestriding these aural epochs with stunning musicality, the Tigris' two-thirds-pentode/one-third-triode configuration offers the best of both worlds: a lovely balance of dynamics and sweetness, resolution and transparency, clarity and tone. (p. 83) ... For listeners whose primary thrust is music with strong rhythm and pacing, the Tigris is a champion performer that will only deepen your enjoyment of acoustical recordings.... [F]or stone classical listeners and cost-no-object types, the Tigris falls a touch short in terms of the lushness that gives massed strings their elemental glow, and the progressive increments of power so vital to depicting a deep, deep holograpic soundstage. And while I never found the Tigris to be less than satisfying on acoustic sources, it did fall a bit short on some smaller gestures. Still, matching price to performance, it's hard to go wrong with the Mesa Tigris. For headphones freaks alone, its performance level is startling, and it's amazing how nonfatiguing life can be for a couple of hours in two-thirds triode mode with a pair of superb cans like the Grado RS-1s--among the warmest, smoothest, most detailed headphones I've experienced at any price. (p. 85)

He was rather enthusiastic.

Thomas J. Norton performed measurements (unfortunately, on a different sample; Mesa mentioned in their comments that Stern's Tigris "had the advantage of two updates") and concluded:

Quote:

The Mesa Tigris' technical performance is poor. If you fall in love with its sound, you must do so despite its measurements, because they will provide you with no reassurance. Given the right loudspeakers, the Tigris' low power is not necessarily a negative, but its frequency-response deviations into a real-world load and its high distortion do not, in my opinion, qualify it as a true high-fidelity device.... (p. 83)

Perhaps it would measure better into headphones?

 

[gpalmer]

D'Oh Mispost!