New toy in the house: The Hornet

[mrarroyo]

Well, I placed my order late Sunday and the amp arrived today. Great service Ray, thanks. My plan was not to listen to it and just set it aside to burn in for 17 days (408 hours).

Of course the plan went to hell once I had installed the battery and plugged the charger

Straight out of the box it sounds very nice, much better than I remember the 1st generation Hornet.

I will continue the burn in over the next 17 days as planned but I will listen to the amp for a couple of hours every night. So far I am very happy.

By the way I will probably send the unit back to have Ray adjust the gain. As some of you know I listen at low volume, currently the amp gain is set to low and The Hornet is driving a 250 ohm Beyer DT990. I have the volume at slightly past the first marker and the volume is already to loud for me. When I plugged my Senn HD600 I noticed the same. As you can imagine it would be painful if I plugged my Ety ER4S or my Grado RS-1 at this gain. But this is very minor.

By the way the bass is HUGE! I hope it setles down a bit because IMO it is overpowering the mids and highs. The only portable amp I currently have in the house is the Go-Vibe 5 which is roughly 20% of The Hornet's price. With The Hornet straight out of the box the Go-Vibe 5 is more than holding its own. Very surprised.

Here are a couple of pics.

 

[Gnus]

Nice, I would like to hear your impressions of them compared to the SR-71.

 

[mrarroyo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gnus Nice, I would like to hear your impressions of them compared to the SR-71.

I do not have an SR71 but Vorlon1 does. We are hoping to set up a mini meet of sorts and hopefuly he will bring the SR71 so we can compare.

 

[GreatDane]

Wow! 3 days. You can't beat that.

The Hornet is on my want list...along with the new AE-1. Will it never end

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrarroyo My plan was not to listen to it and just set it aside to burn in for 17 days (408 hours)

yeah right

 

[vorlon1]

Congrats, it looks great. I can't wait to hear it, I wasn't a big fan of my first gen Hornet and ended up selling it.

 

[penguindude]

Nice! I see you have some expensive interconnect cables there.

 

[mrarroyo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by penguindude Nice! I see you have some expensive interconnect cables there.

About $30 from Blue Jean Cable. It is their RCA to 1/8" three feet long interconnect.

I am feeding my Hornet with a Musical Fidelity X-Dac V3 from my PC using iTunes 7.0.1 and ALAC files, and an optical cable from the PC to the X-Dac V3.

Here is a better picture of the Blue Jean Cable RCA to 1/8" interconnect"

 

[agile_one]

Sweet, Miguel. So much for not listening before burn in, eh?

I have an original Hornet, and I believe tyrion does as well, so it will be fun to do a side by side at next FL meet. My Hornet is a keeper, for sure, for lots of reasons, and I hope your new "M" has found a home as well.

 

[nfusion770]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GreatDane Wow! 3 days. You can't beat that.

Thats nothing- it only took 2 months to get my Xin amp.

Congrats on the new amp.

 

[Romanee]

Congrats, Miguel! I look forward to whatever impressions you post as it develops.

I'm really very surprised that your Hornet has big bass at the start! The unit I have had very lean bass at the outset and very crisp/sparkly top end -- very tight bass but almost anemic. By now the bass is large. I wonder why yours started out with lots of bass!?

I'd like to hear the GoVibe 5 -- especially if it keeps pace with the Hornet.

 

[atx]

those poor headphone jacks... they look like they're being raped by those huge interconnects.

 

[kugino]

enjoy, miguel. i just got my supermini IV back from xin today so i'm doing a little listening with a few portables i have with me before (probably) selling off the supermini. let us know how your little mini-meet goes...i'm interested to see what you think of the hornet M. i actually liked the sr-71 over the original hornet...wonder how the M sounds.

 

[Andrea]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrarroyo ith The Hornet straight out of the box the Go-Vibe 5 is more than holding its own. Very surprised.

[size=xx-small]Hmmmm.....my definitive proof that the Hornet M is not worth 350 dollars...?[/size]

 

[Andrea]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Romanee Congrats, Miguel! I look forward to whatever impressions you post as it develops. I'm really very surprised that your Hornet has big bass at the start! The unit I have had very lean bass at the outset and very crisp/sparkly top end -- very tight bass but almost anemic. By now the bass is large. I wonder why yours started out with lots of bass!? I'd like to hear the GoVibe 5 -- especially if it keeps pace with the Hornet.

And so all your certainties about the hundreds of hours of amp burn in crashed all of a sudden. Pehaps it was just chance?

Btw - if mrarroyo finds that its bass overpowers the mids and highs, when he also has a Go-Vibe v5 there, then it does have a LOT of it.

 

[cerbie]

Andrea: why do thread-crap on the Hornet so regularly? If you don't think it's worth $350, don't buy it. Others do. Not everyone wants to do all the work to make their own, aesthetics are important, and the buyers like dealing Ray Samuels as a person and business. They also realize that he tries to make a living doing this, and that's just not going to happen if he sells them for $100.