[trose49]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Romanee You've got a great amp and you're getting excellent IEMs. On great recordings, at least, you will hear more musical information with Lossless format -- and even with 320AAC. There are very few recordings that I have which really benefit from Lossless. I can hear the different between 320 and Lossless on some, but on many recordings the engineering and production are less than ideal, as well as poor quality CD burns, etc., etc. The good ones are worth it. Your amp and phones are certainly resolving enough, and a good interconnect will also help, ala one of the better ALO Lineout Dock cables. I love my ALO Jumbo Silk Dock, but their Cryo Dock is supposed to sound very good and it's much more durable/safer for carrying around a lot. The Silk Dock, Cotton Dock, Jumbo Silk & Cotton Docks are sturdy and sound glorious, but they have solid silver conductors and it's best to know that they are more vulnerable to breakage than the multi-strand Cryo Dock. Anyway, at least re-rip your best quality/favorite tunes in Lossless or 320AAC depending on the quality of the recordings and how important they are to you, or how often you listen. Lossless takes up and awful lot of space. I still have a goodly number of less sensitive tunes at 192, where the poorer recording quality doesn't warrant higher bit rate/quality.

Thanks for the Info I do have a CRYO Cable it's great I ocassionally switch between the headphone jack and my CRYO/Hornet to make sure I not hearing things but it is sooooo much cleaner. Even eith crappy headphones. I wish UE would give us a ship date

 

[artears]

Quote:

Originally Posted by warrior05 congrats on the amp. i'm an original hornet owner and just love it. the thing is compact, elegant in its simplicity and just plain works. i'm real curious about the "M" version and might just have to purchase me a new one since i can't imagine ever parting with my current unit. quite a story there, receiving your hornet before ray got the check. quite the generous man whose reputation is reaching legendary status. definitely someone who has the right philosophy in regards to outstanding customer service. major league kudos to you, mr. samuels!

I am a member for some time, but I wasn't posting much as you can see

. However, I could not help myself of adding some comments about Ray. I bought a Hornet from him, I think it was in March or so. Being a local was advantageous, so I called him to arrange a listening session at his place. I was looking for a portable amp and was curious about SR-71 and Hornet. When I went there, I saw that he already prepared the setup for A/B listening. There was also a Corda Aria to make a comparison.

Ok, here it comes: Back then, Hornet was indistinguishable to my ears from Corda Aria with Senn 600s at the same listening level and Sr-71 had a bigger soundstage than Hornet, while Hornet was putting singer voices more to the front. I decided to buy a Hornet back then, because of its size, other nice features like adjustable gain and recharging capability.

I did not check this site for some time, but after I started again, I realized that there is an M version to Hornet, which is claimed to have a bigger soundstage than the original one. Ok, that was good news, since I did like that on Sr-71 a lot. My choice of Hornet was because of its other feautures as I said before. I called Ray after deciding to "M" my Hornet. He was very helpful again and I went to his place yesterday. He said that my Hornet was one of the last ones before "M" and he did not need to change a lot, M'ing took 10-15min at most. But I spent there a little bit more than 2 hours, we had a long chat, listened to different amps he has (and I must add that B-52 is a serious bomb

) and he answered my silly questions with a great patience. Thanks a lot Ray...

By the way, I listened to Raptor and Hr-2 more seriously, while comparing them to their cheaper sibling Xp-7, knowing that B-52 will be out of my range

. They both sounded better than Xp-7 (each one of them was stock), they were very close with a very nice sound stage and very good lows, mids and highs. Overall, I liked Raptor more than Hr-2 with Senn 600s, since it had a bit smoother and fuller sound, which captured me more than Hr-2. But I highly doubt that anyone will regret choosing one amp over the other one.

Now for the M version of Hornet: Let me say this, what has been claimed is true, M has a bigger sound stage, singer voices are not to the front as the original, the sound overall is very similar to the Sr-71. If you do not like the forward character of Hornet, M is the way to go. I liked the forwardness, however I chose a bigger sound stage, since, as I said before, I liked that on Sr-71 more during my very first visit to Ray.

As a last word, I am sorry if I did not make myself clear at any point of this post or did not use some terminology related to hi-fi/head-fi. English is not my first language and I am not familiar with the terminology a lot. I just wanted to put what I felt at that long listening session we had with Ray yesterday.

Back to the topic: He is a great guy to deal with, provides an amazing product support and stands behind his products, which are very high quality by the way. Do not hesitate to talking to him, he is very patient and helpfull as well...

 

[trose49]

I spoke with Ray tonight because I had a suggestion for him wish I cant discuss at this time (Just in case he actually likes it)

Anyway he proceeded to ask me how I was enjoying my amp. I explained I am still waiting for my triple.fis which he knew because im constantly complaining on-line about it. I have tried to pick up some decent full sized on the For Sale thread but havent been able to put together the deal I want.

I really would like to get some HD600 at a good price.

Anyway Ray is either sick of talking to me or he figures that if I have something different to listen to i will leave him alone or he truly wants me to enjoy my new amp (probably a little of both) but [size=x-small]Ray offers to send me a pair of E5c to use while I am waiting for UE to ship.[/size] Yep thats right! I told him by no means is that necessary and he did not have to do that but he insisted (must really be sick of me for sure).

So again going waaaaaay! beyond the call of duty Mr. Samuels steps it another notch in my book.

[size=small]Ray I am so appreciative! Thanks so much![/size]

I can't wait to hear my new Hornet with some good headphones!!!

Ps: Think about my idea!

 

[ken_loo]

Ray, the Raptor is humming along beautifully with the all out ps upgrade

 

[trose49]

Awesome!!!!!!

 

[trose49]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ken_loo Ray, the Raptor is humming along beautifully with the all out ps upgrade

I want one!!!!!! Ray put one on my Tab will Ya LOL!

 

[909]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ken_loo Ray, the Raptor is humming along beautifully with the all out ps upgrade

The "humming" is just a figure of speech, right?

 

[mika]

I cannot send any mail to ray since 2 weaks ago. Can't all of you send him a mail?

 

[trose49]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mika I cannot send any mail to ray since 2 weaks ago. Can't all of you send him a mail?

What do you need me to telll him?

 

[909]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mika I cannot send any mail to ray since 2 weaks ago. Can't all of you send him a mail?

email or PM?

 

[milkpowder]

ken_loo, that's a beautiful picture of a stunning amp.

 

[trose49]

Quote:

Originally Posted by milkpowder ken_loo, that's a beautiful picture of a stunning amp.

I would love to hear one of those. Ray Im coming for a visit tell your wife you got company Im moving in. LOL

 

[AC1]

Alright, here is my Raptor that I picked up a few days ago. Since I was getting the triple-fis, thought I needed at least something good to power them with. Actually, they made all my other headphoned more listenable as well. I really like the sound of this amp, lots of SS qualities but with tube amp smoothness and a touch of warnth.

I just sent it off to Ray for a full update with the PS upgrade.

 

[AC1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 909 The "humming" is just a figure of speech, right?

The hum in mine was irritating me hence the PS upgrade. It also depends on your electricity, since it louder or quieter sometimes. This was even with using the Excactpower ep15a which is a partial renerator.

 

[ken_loo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 909 The "humming" is just a figure of speech, right?

acutally it was poking fun at the old power supply that actually hummed.. this one is dead silent