[KoshNaranek]

Consider it done, I know they will be in good hands and since they are going to such a prestigious company, I am going to upgrade a couple tubes as well.

Oh Boy!

This just gets better and better!

 

[Paladin79]

Oh Boy!

This just gets better and better!

Jason will have the ability to set up several headphone amps and do plenty of A/B testing. I just have to remember to build some more tube extensions cause the encased tubes sure do not fit down inside a Lyr.

 

[jseymour]

Here's where I read about the Lansdale tall (Frankie) 7N7 being made by Sylvania:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/schiit-lyr-3-tube-rolling-thread.876016/page-226
But it is the internet.

 

[Paladin79]

Here's where I read about the Lansdale tall (Frankie) 7N7 being made by Sylvania:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/schiit-lyr-3-tube-rolling-thread.876016/page-226
But it is the internet.

I see @bcowen is here, he coined the Frankie term and I believe only a couple companies have built the 7n7's but he knows more about them than anyone I know.

I just know before I send the tubes on to Jason, I will sub the tall 7n7 I used and put the better version inside. I own several but some had slightly lower emission so I did not use them in the other challenge.

 

[ashirin]

I have a couple CBS 5692 tubes in front of me, and could certainly encase one of those.

Certainly don't part with any tubes that you don't want to, but I would enjoy having those in the mix if they make their way to the Schiitr for a shootout. Glad to hear you like the 5691/5692 tubes. I wasn't planning on purchasing anything expensive until I tried the cheaper ones I purchased and got a sense of what the differences are like. But assuming I do, 5691/5692 tubes would probably be high on my list of options.

 

[Paladin79]

Certainly don't part with any tubes that you don't want to, but I would enjoy having those in the mix if they make their way to the Schiitr for a shootout. Glad to hear you like the 5691/5692 tubes. I wasn't planning on purchasing anything expensive until I tried the cheaper ones I purchased and got a sense of what the differences are like. But assuming I do, 5691/5692 tubes would probably be high on my list of options.

I will see, I do want to get a real nice variety to send and like I said, i was using some tubes because bcowen knows and likes them.

If you want some quality tubes for very little money, the Russian Foton tube can be very nice, especially if burned in for 100 hours according to mr cowen lol. Before you buy anything PM me and I will check some of my sources, there are sellers you can trust and plenty you cannot. Lowtechelec on Etsy is a good honest seller IMHO, ships quickly and his tube readings are accurate.

 

[ashirin]

@Paladin79

You are a gentleman and a scholar. Thank you sir.

 

[Paladin79]

@Paladin79

You are a gentleman and a scholar. Thank you sir.

You are too kind. Jason has treated me well so I will see what I can do to give the folks some interesting tubes to hear. In doing this challenge a couple vendors were very helpful, one even gave me 6sn7 tubes with broken socket locator keys, for my purposes that did not matter as long I was careful testing and plugging them into the extension sockets.

 

[ashirin]

Jason has treated me well so I will see what I can do to give the folks some interesting tubes to hear. In doing this challenge a couple vendors were very helpful, one even gave me 6sn7 tubes with broken socket locator keys, for my purposes that did not matter as long I was careful testing and plugging them into the extension sockets.

I am not surprised to hear any of this. Kindness tends to bread more of the same. I'm not trying to make you blush, but I appreciate when people put in work to help strangers.

And of course it's not just you. Plenty of people on this forum have been generous with their time and advice. I try to do the same, though as a younger member of the community, I tend to have less knowledge to offer.

 

[bcowen]

...especially if burned in for 100 hours according to mr cowen lol.

This should not be taken as gospel. Just close.

 

[Paladin79]

This should not be taken as gospel. Just close.

Be careful what this guy says, he gets fanatical about such things. I have known of zombies to be raised from the dead in less time than it takes him to clean the pins and test a tube. The man has to follow certain rituals or his universe gets way out of kilter. Other than that he is perfectly normal, at times.

 

[bcowen]

Be careful what this guy says...

This is good advice.

Other than that he is perfectly normal, at times.

Normal is a fairly subjective term.....this is not usual for you.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

Hey guys,

I know I promised you a chapter, but it was gonna be a bit of a snoozer. You know, Amazon sucks to work with, giant corporation selling you anything and listening in on your crib, blah blah woof woof.

So here’s a compilation of what’s going on, between me writing way too many owner’s manuals:

Amazon: The long and short of it is that we’re back on Amazon, because we have the stock to be there, and we’re rediscovering all the wonderful and amazing things about it, like losing the buy button to some idjit on eBay who was selling “New, Unopened” Magnis for less than we do on Amazon (despite the fact that eBay is stated NOT to be a valid sales channel, and despite the fact we’re in Amazon’s brand registry), or to another scammer who was selling “New, Unopened” Magnis for $90 (they turned out to be a power adapter, a real scammer at work here.) Yeah. Wonderful. But better than having your entire brand hijacked on Amazon, so it’s a net positive, but what a PITA. I'll be happy to do a chapter on the finer points of Amazon if anyone is interested--it might be good for other businesses eyeing the channel. Let me know.

Google Analytics/Adwords: we’re back on top of this and generating insanely good results. There is a wealth of data available to those who dig through these products. Not the easiest thing in the world to use, but it’s very interesting and effective. A few stats: 60% of our audience under 35, cost per sale under $2.50, $201 average sale, over 4 minutes time on site average, 5 pageviews average. Remember, we’re just an ecommerce site. We have no content like this thread. We’re going to be playing with this a lot more going forward, because these numbers are completely bonkers from the POV of our old agency days.

USPS: They woke up! Someone must have inserted a foot in their ass, because we’re now getting picked up. A hearty thank you to everyone who responded, especially to those who suggested we contact our congressperson. I believe that, in conjunction with links to the chapter, turned the tide. So there’s no immediate threat of us losing USPS.

Too Many Manuals: I recently bought a $2000 Wacom Cintiq Pro which has like 6 pictograms and a link to download the manual on their site. I wonder if we should be doing the same thing. Doing like 6 product manuals has broken my brain.

Sol: Finally really getting ready for end of August. I still need to do some kind of manual for this. Argh.

Weldenheim: when I heard the Raal ribbon headphones, I said, “Holy schiit, these things are friggin bonkers!” The problem is you gotta lug around a speaker amp to drive their resistor box, plus something to run the speaker amp. Which could mean hauling around a DAC, preamp, speaker amp, and a resistor box. Not super great for something meant for pros on the go. So I told Danny, “I bet I can make a direct drive amp for these.” He gave me a sad grin and nod that I think is usually reserved for very dull co-workers that you don’t want to piss off. The punchline was I had a prototype up and running on a lab supply that same afternoon. Now, the difference between a prototype running on a lab power supply and something you could actually just plug in and listen to is pretty broad, and there were lots of challenges getting to something that was even stable, but I spent a couple of hours yesterday listening to something that was getting there. “Weldenheim” was was made out of a Jotunheim, with the internal DAC card, so it’s a one-box solution. Or it can be used with another DAC, of course. Right now, I need to do one more hack job to attack the remaining limitations of the prototype (lots of mods, mainly to get more current output, the current one clips at 7.1A--yes, Amps). The path to production is still pretty long even if we get higher output, because I need to do this on an actual prototype board, and we need to make a few, and we need to make sure they don’t have any surprises for us. So I’m not going to speculate on when--or if--we might have something for sale. In the meantime, the Raal guys seems to like Vidar as a speaker amp, so if you're not needing to lug stuff around, there you go..

Anyway, that’s where we are. Hopefully I’ll have a new chapter soon. There are some, ahhhhhh…interesting things coming!

All the best,
Jason

 

[dmckean44]

The Amazon chapter would be interesting. I remember enjoyed the first one you wrote a lot.

 

[wout31]

Raal claims to be the FIRST earfield monitors.
In the seventies there was this weird looking thing called the Jecklin float from Switzerland. Distributed by Mark Levison in the US..Designed by Jürg Jecklin.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/jecklin-float-electrostatic-headphones



I've listened to these on several occasions and it matches the description uses by Raal
Not ribbon, but electrostatics. Didn't go as low as the SR1a claims. 30 Hz versus 70 Hz.
You can even still buy a contemporary version of the headphone in Germany



And there was the Ergo2