[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

It's also pretty easy to do a balanced F5 if you are so inclined.

Well, given that the F5's a single-ended amp, you'd end up with a bridged amp rather than a balanced amp (sorry, but I prefer to distinguish between the two).
 
Quote:

On this first prototype that is how we did it.  This box was fabbed for just as a prototype with no intention of ever becoming a working amp.

 
Ah, ok.
 
Quote:

Once I'm happy with the correct size, right finish and all the parts fit perfectly then we'll make the production boxes.

 
Production? So this will be a commercial offering?
 
se
 
 

 

[complin]

Quote:

For the record, I asked that the people who I did send the preliminary internal pictures to via e-mail (which was primarily other members and manufacturers) not to disclose them to anyone until I took better quality pictures of the final product, so that just goes to show you the respect of some members and manufacturers around here and I've narrowed it down to the ones who obviously did just that.  Obviously I'll never make that mistake again.
 
And what is the purpose of you designing a board to fit my chassis, other than being deliberately rude and immature?  Who else is going to be personally making an identical chassis (which they couldn't do anyway without the CAD files)?
 
I think a list should be posted of all the manufacturers you continually trash talk.  It's really sad that a man of your age and skill gets pleasure out of such things, when instead you could be humble and maybe earn some shred of respect from the many manufactures and countless members that despise you.

Well as usual like some other manufacturers selling their high priced equipment to this community you have not really answerd the original comments and questions raised.
 
So is your amp basically a Beta 22 design or not?
How do you justify charging such a price for the amplifier? 
If its based on a readily available design there are little or no R&D or development costs to recoupe?
 
I for one welcome and value Kevins comments in pointing out the often pretentious and misleading information put out by manufacturers about their products. This is especially important when we are talking about items costing many thousand of hard earned dollars

Had people been brave enough to speak up in the past, we would never have had the whole SinglePower debacle with may loosing thousands of dollars
 
Also when you look at what Kevin has given to our headphone community over the years, for no personal gain or exploitation, in my view its a voice we should listen to, but dont have to always agree with if you are that way inclined.
 
If you dont like the message, thats no reason for shooting the messenger
 

 

[complin]

 
Quote:

Out of topic...can someone point me out what is a T2? It looks vigorous, very interesting.

 
This is Stax T2 - Its a beast of an amp - the power supply alone huge and heavy.  This really does justice to any of the Stax headphones as they scale so well.  Really brings the Stax Omega alive.
 
I had thought of building Kevins vesrion of the T2, but having never built an amplifier its a bit daunting to embark on such a project!
 
I understand he has another Stat Amp design under development that should be "easier" to build for those of us who have little experience of DIY 
 
 

 

[moodyrn]

Quote:

Well as usual like some other manufacturers selling their high priced equipment to this community you have not really answerd the original comments and questions raised.
 
So is your amp basically a Beta 22 design or not?
How do you justify charging such a price for the amplifier? 
If its based on a readily available design there are little of no R&D or development costs to recoupe?
 
I for one welcome and value Kevins comments in pointing out the often pretentious and misleading information put out by manufacturers about their products. This is especially important when we are talking about items costing many thousand of hard earned dollars

Had people been brave enough to speak up in the past, we would never have had the whole SinglePower debacle with may loosing thousands of dollars
 
Also when you look at what Kevin has given to our headphone community over the years, for no personal gain or exploitation, in my view its a voice we should listen to, but dont have to always agree with if you are that way inclined.
 
If you dont like the message, thats no reason for shooting the messenger
 

I agree. I asked similar questions a couple of pages back. I even said if the bellatone sounds as good as a 10-15,000.00 amp, then charging that amount of money is fine. I'm fine with charging 10-15,000.00 for an amp if it sounds like a 10-15,000.00 amp. I asked if it would still basically sound like a beta 22 or will it be a huge upgrade from the beta in sound quality. There was 0 responses to my questions. But on the other hand, he has no problems jumping in defending himself when kevin or spritzer chime in with their opinions on this amp.
 

 

[Skylab]

I agree, in that as long as Bellatone is being honest about what they are selling, then who cares?  It's up to the buyer how to spend their money.  I have zero interest in a $10,000 headphone amp, no matter how it sounds, or looks.  Zero.  But some folks might.  If a manufacturer is in anyway mis-representing what they are selling, that's a HUGE issue.  But as long as they are not, then I think the price of the thing doesn't matter at all.  Might not find many buyers, but you never know, and unless products are brought to market, how are we to know what the demand for them is?

 

[Jian]

Well, I'll certainly not buy a 10000++ beta 22.

 

[winzzz]

i'd rather buy 10.000 beta than spent 5000 for a rudistor...

 

[complin]

Quote:

i'd rather buy 10.000 beta than spent 5000 for a rudistor...

 Well how about one of these? http://www.zazenn-audio.com/Gallery_Beta22.html

 

[IPodPJ]

Quote:

I agree. I asked similar questions a couple of pages back. I even said if the bellatone sounds as good as a 10-15,000.00 amp, then charging that amount of money is fine. I'm fine with charging 10-15,000.00 for an amp if it sounds like a 10-15,000.00 amp. I asked if it would still basically sound like a beta 22 or will it be a huge upgrade from the beta in sound quality. There was 0 responses to my questions. But on the other hand, he has no problems jumping in defending himself when kevin or spritzer chime in with their opinions on this amp.

As an MOT who is not a paying sponsor, I am not allowed to provide my own personal opinions of my amplifier (or anyone else's amplifier) on this forum.  I was not ignoring you, I just cannot answer you here.  It is up to you to decide what the sound quality and cosmetics of a piece of gear is worth.  I have heard $20,000 products that I felt weren't even worth $1,000.  It's all relative and if you've heard a balanced Beta22, you'd have to decide for yourself if the additional features and cosmetics that come along with the Bellatone design are worth it to you.
 
It is a balanced Beta22 (with dual Sigma22) in every way, with additional custom circuitry to give it some features but none that enhance or detract from the SQ of the design in any way.  It has absolutely zero audible noise and certainly no hum which is an issue people have had with this amp in the past if you look in the DIY forum.

 

[moodyrn]

Ok, I understand the limitations you have, and agree with you on one thing. I've too have listened to gear in the 5 figure range that I thought was decent at best. So I guess you're right. It's up to the consumer to decide if they want to spend that kind of money on a piece of gear.

 

 

[scottiebabie]

 
i read a thread on the DNA Sonett where the builder/designer Donald North was grill'd drill'd & perhaps deep fried too for good measure on his amp & the questions certainly wasnt builder friendly IMO. instead of hum'in haa'in fluster'in & indignant'in, Donald plainly calmly factually & i mite add politely provided answers on all queries excepting a few refusals citing trade secret. 

 

not knowing bubkas about Donald North or his amps, the impression i gathered was of professionalism & transparency (within reason ofcos). & the amp in question is "only" $1200, not the multi$kilo discussed in this thread. DNA would def be on my list of amps if i ever were to contemplate such a purchase.

 

granted, certain questions could be better posed & certainly more tactfull but that does not detract from the issues. &IMO it isnt of how much can a builder/mfgr charge, free enterprise and all one can charge whatever, but how transparent & professional the responses. certainly Kevin Gilmore, Spritzer or whoever else for that matter have the right to question & potential buyers have the right to expect answers.

 

if its unforthcoming or unprofessional, then i do question the builder/mfgr instead of just the product. IMHO ofcos.

 

[spritzer]

The extra circuitry PJ is talking about is the input selector which is just attached to the back panel with a pair of transformers to do the phase splitting.  Nothing that a 20$ kit off ebay plus the transformers couldn't do. 
 
The real issue here is what do almost 20K$ buys you in terms of amplification.  Well 4 BHSE's to start with or 2-3 Stax SRM-T2's but let's stick to the inferior dynamics...  You could get a Pass XA-30.5 and a kick ass preamp or an Accuphase A-60+ preamp and throw enough money at somebody to build you cables so you could use them with regular headphones.  Hell 20K$ could probably land you a set of Krell MRA's which use a silly amount of Black Gate caps...
 
Quote:

Production? So this will be a commercial offering?

 

Nope, only 3-4 amps will be built as a way for me to repay people for helping me in the past, especially WRT to how we got the T2 project off the ground. 
 
While we are on the subject of custom machined chassis, I sometimes can't help myself to mess with the custom made stuff.  While designing the T2DIY, Kevin and I had a lengthy discussion about the inputs needed for the amp.  He wanted just one XLR input but the European reality is that RCA is king and there is no performance difference.  Still the amp was complicated enough without adding relays and the switching circuitry so we ended up with just the XLR input but I could hardly settle for that...


 
Now it can be placed in between the source and the BHSE... 

 

[IPodPJ]

Quote:

The extra circuitry PJ is talking about is the input selector which is just attached to the back panel with a pair of transformers to do the phase splitting.  Nothing that a 20$ kit off ebay plus the transformers couldn't do. 

That is not true.  There is the input selector for a set of RCA inputs (using 1:1 Cinemag balancing transformers), XLR inputs, and optional current input with passive I/V conversion using the best nude resistors available, using jumpers to customize for up to 16 different voltage levels based on your input mA.  There is the motorized volume control with a remote that matches the chassis.  There is a third transformer and regulator to keep the relay power, LED power, and attenuator motor out of the audio signal.  And then of course there are the two approximately 40 lb. and 45 lb. chassis with an elegant design, and laser bleaching for all the text on the panels which unlike silk screening, will never wear off.  Also, all top quality parts used throughout.
 
It's up to the consumer whether or not it's worth the money for them to have these features.
 
Perhaps what you are failing to realize is that these are not being made in quantity.  When they are finally available for sale, they will be made one at a time with all the custom PCBs manufactured one at a time.  The cost do this is not cheap.  But I don't know what the final cost will be yet, since I am still crunching the numbers.  I certainly want to keep it as low as possible, because that means I can sell more.  And my profit margin on this is extremely low, as I've stated numerous times already.  There isn't much more I can say on the matter.

 

[visualguy]

Quote:

 
It is a balanced Beta22 (with dual Sigma22) in every way, with additional custom circuitry to give it some features but none that enhance or detract from the SQ of the design in any way.  It has absolutely zero audible noise and certainly no hum which is an issue people have had with this amp in the past if you look in the DIY forum.

 
This is something that I've been curious about regarding the Beta 22. It seems that hum which is noticeable with very sensitive headphones (such as IEMs) is a common problem even when the PSU is in a different chassis. I wonder why, and what's special about builds that don't have this problem.
 

 

[00940]

Quote:

The real issue here is what do almost 20K$ buys you in terms of amplification.  Well 4 BHSE's to start with or 2-3 Stax SRM-T2's but let's stick to the inferior dynamics...  You could get a Pass XA-30.5 and a kick ass preamp or an Accuphase A-60+ preamp and throw enough money at somebody to build you cables so you could use them with regular headphones.  Hell 20K$ could probably land you a set of Krell MRA's which use a silly amount of Black Gate caps...
 

 
What bothers you in fact ? It seems to me that you're more criticizing the concept of a 20K dynamic headphones amplifier itself. After all, the beta22 topology (or the dynahi if you want) has not much to be ashamed of compared to the Krell or Pass amplifiers you quote and probably could be made to sound just as good (something I wouldn't say about Rudistor's). Maybe even better as we can afford a level of regulation for an headphones amplifier that is unseen in most power amplifiers. There is  virtue in low power and convenience in a "tailored for headphones" device. I could thus understand someone choosing an expensive headphones amplifier over a power amp, as long as this headphones amplifier is truly as good sounding and well-built.
 
A Pass Labs XP20 preamp cost about 10 000$. The gain sections and power supply probably cost in the same ballpark as a beta22, so it's a pretty good reference point. If someone wants to sell a 10k beta22, here's the level of built quality that is expected by the market.
 
 
PS1: I wish we all had the same relaxed attitude towards "audiophile" parts as Nelson Pass. He sees no big deal in using standard vishay resistors and wima, vishay, elna or  panasonic caps rather than boutique stuff. But he knows the electrical properties of all those components inside out and his implementations are perfect. Oh yeah... DS1882 digital pots, even in the most expensive preamps.
PS2: A BHSE from Headamp is about 6K, from memory ?
PS3: A pair of my friends are very happy using power amplifiers and headphones through the good old "Grado adapter" (even with very pedestrian power resistors, go figure).