[nickchen]

Undo that avatar!!!!!!

 

[rhythmdevils]

 

[gurubhai]

Congrats Nick. I suppose the question I have been waiting to ask is 'how is the treble extension on these kapton NADs' ?
 
@rhythmdevils : The brochure pics are all available on wikiphonia & more. In case you missed out here is the link
 

 

[nickchen]

You all seem to have the avatar swap disease...

Quote:

Congrats Nick. I suppose the question I have been waiting to ask is 'how is the treble extension on these kapton NADs' ?
 

Quite weak, to be honest. Everything is nice until, say, the lower mids, then things start dropping severely. And the systems have so much ooomph and move so much air that damping does next to nothing compared to the Jack-and-Joe Ortho.
 
Guess I am bound to EQ'ing them brutally until I have organized better pads. The 40$ W11 pads cost at audiocubes would be allright principally, but I have an option of (maybe) getting O2 pads 2nd hand from a german buddy, so I first wait with the final pad decision.
 
However, although they have great defiancies, I was nevertheless literally floored on 1st time listening. The sheer acoustical authority of those monstrous 9 cm systems is something that is hard to be described. It's a bit like the warmth you get from a huuuge coal oven vs the warmth of a small electro radiator...

 
 

 

[sachu]

I don't know what NAD did to bugger up their kapton driver, but i vastly prefer the presentation and voicing of a kapton driver over a mylar one. Those who have heard the Wharfedale will know what i am talking about.
 

 

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

Some pieces of the ID1 has arrived. It really does look cheaply made. The headband metal isn't of the best quality, and the way it's attached to the plastic cups isn't too encouraging. Also, the sliding mechanism of the headband is awful. There are no positions, it just slides. The headband cover has a temporary repair to it, since all the stock pleater is long gone.
 
The actual drivers (which aren't here) should be placed in the black holders below. Those have a protective mesh, with tiny holes. I wonder what that does to the sound.... Anyway, they go into the weak white holders in the cups, and then flip up and down. This means that the baffle of the black things and the pads need to do all of the isolation from backwave, since the cups do nothing about the back wave at all.
 
Despite all this, it's supposed to sound good. (when there are also drivers inside...)
 
Anyway, it really looks and feels like it was NOT made to last 40 years.... Although, I hope it will last countless more years....
 
 

 

 

 

[Kabeer]

Quote:

I don't know what NAD did to bugger up their kapton driver, but i vastly prefer the presentation and voicing of a kapton driver over a mylar one. Those who have heard the Wharfedale will know what i am talking about.
 

I disagree. The issue has nothing to do with mylar or kapton, and much more to do with driver tuning/implementation..
The Wharfedale sounds very different to all the fostex style drivers.
The Fostex (and i have heard a lot of them) T50/30 sized drivers sound good in mylar or kapton, it is much more about the tuning.
Eg: my aiwa is mylar and i prefer it by far to many kapton implemented fostex drivers.
 
Even if there was a advantage, the wharfie sound and fostex implementation are too different to compare.

 

[nickchen]

 
Owing to suboptimal pad circumstances, I switched the EQ on to dig more presence out of the RP18. The preset turned out not to be as brutal as I had expected (by far), and so I sat down and just shuffled through my collection, Squarepusher, Bach, Monolake, Keith Jarrett, Monteverdi, Mogwai, Yello, David Sylvian, Amon Tobin....
 
I must say, the most enjoyable session I've had for years

. I wouldn't say this thing can compete technically with all those 1K $ cans that get raved so much nowadays, but that manic sound weight and musicality is just outstanding. In respect of the latter, it even beats the DT531, which has been my (sadly dull) all time favorite in that respect. What is really special about it is its laidback and mellow character, even the most annoying stuff becomes much more listenable than with any other of my HPs, no fatigue at all. Musical bandwidth is okay, but not worldclass, it definetely suits better to fat and rhythmic stuff than to single violin partitas or kitten music IMO. And returning to the technical view, the gap between that NAD and my other orthos is really frightening, I'd locate it at least 2 classes above every other ortho I've tried or owned until now...

 

[rhythmdevils]

Quote:

 
@rhythmdevils : The brochure pics are all available on wikiphonia & more. In case you missed out here is the link
 

Yeah thanks I didn't see those on the Yamaha main page.  I love the 70's look of these pictures it's amazing to think that this is what sold products at that time. 

 

 

[wualta]

 
Quote:

However, although they have great deficiencies, I was nevertheless literally floored on 1st time listening. The sheer acoustical authority of those monstrous 9 cm systems is something that is hard to be described. 

I'm glad to hear you were literally floored! I just hope it was a clean floor. You appear to have reached the point where you can detect quality hiding under deficiencies, and this is where the fun starts. You'll notice that even with the crazy response curve you can happily listen to music.. for awhile, at least. Coherence and smoothness make this possible, and the bad side of this is, it can be deceiving. You may think you've got the curve flattened out, because it sounds even better, but you find later that you still have a way to go. All part of the ear-brain education that happens when you own and play with orthodynamics.
 
Big diaphragms are fun, aren't they!
 
Quote:

Some pieces of the ID1 has arrived. It really does look cheaply made. Anyway, it really looks and feels like it was NOT made to last 40 years.... 

Yes, they couldn't have sold it for that ridiculous price if they hadn't figured out a way to make it cheaply. The only precision part, the only one made from high-quality materials, is the diaphragm. Thanks for the photos-- I always wondered how the ID1 went together. Now that you know how cheaply it was made, you'll be even more shocked when you hear it.


Quote:

Originally Posted by Kabeer /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
 The issue has nothing to do with mylar or kapton, and much more to do with driver tuning/implementation..

Kabeer is quite correct. If this were a dynamic driver or a speaker cone we were discussing, then yes, the different mechanical properties would come into play and we could speak of the different materials having different sound signatures (although I think the difference would still be pretty small). In this application the difference is so slight as to be negligible. It's just a goofy puzzle the prankster Fostex of 30 years ago is throwing at us. I'm guessing they offered the Mylar option to their clients as a cost-saving measure.
 
Quote:

I love the 70's look of these [Yamaha brochure] pictures it's amazing to think that this is what sold products at that time. 

Yeah! As my oldest son would say (that's him in the avatar): Where, fergodsake, are the strippers? You think the Yamaha ad is nuts-- have you watched the old Certs commercial I linked to earlier? No wonder the Boomer generation is insane.
 
 

 

[rhythmdevils]

I need bigger diaphragms

 

[wualta]

You do, you do. Just like a photographer one day feels the need for a bigger film size. Not because he suddenly thinks he's Ansel reincarnate but because there's just no substitute for that look, try as you might (and I did try).
Not that there's anything wrong with SFI and YHD-size drivers. But a big diaphragm has a certain almost indefinable something. Effortlessness. Well, it doesn't have to move as far so things stay more linear. Maybe that's it.

 

[rhythmdevils]

haha yes I am very much in favor of film analogies.  There is no comparison between large format film and 35mm.  Although there are things you can do with 35mm like run around Afghanistan dodging bombs and shooting handheld that you can't ever do with bigger film and which make the loss of image quality less of an issue.  I don't know about the RP18, but the HE6 is too power hungry for a portable amp and the LCD-2 require neck support so you can't run around the kitchen with either of those.  Which sometimes makes music sound better than the SQ. 

 

[gurubhai]

The NADs are slightly more difficult  to drive than LCD-2 which is odd since the published sensitivity specs would suggest the reverse.
 
Is it possible that the old magnets have been loosing some of their 'oomph' over time ?
 
 

 

[rhythmdevils]

Grubhai is that a picture of Drew Barrymore wearing T20's?