[adydula]

Ya dont have to spend mega-bucks...well.

Todays setup! With the D8000 Pros the MHDT Orchid and Piety were way too soft here.
So Schiit Modi MB (the latest version) and the Piety with D8000 Pros..the magic on HIGH gain is there!
Sweet...

 

[adydula]

The comment about the not spending part,,,the cans here are north of $4K..but the electronics are well 8x less in price!
Go figure.

 

[stuck limo]

I have at least 10 days off and 5 days with a completely empty house. So now I've moved a lot of gear to the living room. And with the new job starting up, I expect new equipment to start rolling in within the next year.

Gear:
SPL Phonitor XE amp
iFi Zen One Signature DAC (balanced)
SMSL SP200 amp (modded, upgraded caps)
iFi iTube2 preamp/buffer
Schiit Valhalla 2 (Jan tubes)
Schiit Vali 2 (original, stock tube)
Schiit Vali 1
Cables/Power Supply: Furman PST-8D, Audioquest Monsoon power cable, iFi iPower X

I have some other gear I may bring out too but this is good for now.

 

[silversurfer616]

Yep! Even though I personally prefer the susvaras in my setups i 100% agree with with what you said the re hekse.
And sooo easily drivable, and good sounding out of anything.
And some good pricing going on with hifiman at the moment, including open boxes and b-stocks, last time i checked their website.

Did you get a chance to compare it with the he1000 stealth?

are you still getting good use of the utopias, or are they just being rested at the moment with the hekse back in?

Saw the open box, b stock specials but they don’t ship those to AU/NZ unfortunately. Jesse from A2A made me a very good price, so I went with them.
Original idea was to get the new HE1000 Stealth but by all accounts it seems to be brighter than the HEKse.
The Utopias, like the HD800S, is a headphone I truly love and will keep. Sold the Stealth after 4 weeks to a friend in AKL who subsequently sold it on too. Too dull, boring and non engaging.

 

[572217]

The Utopias, like the HD800S, is a headphone I truly love and will keep. Sold the Stealth after 4 weeks to a friend in AKL who subsequently sold it on too. Too dull, boring and non engaging.

I really like my Utopias too. It’s a keeper. Easy to drive and scales with the gear in front of it.

The Stealth can sing with a “monster” amp and summit-fi sources. Mine does that with a Riviera AIC-10 fronted by dCS Vivaldi and Innuos Statement. Stealth replaced the Utopia in this rig as the latter stopped scaling.

 

[Roasty]

I have the Atma-Sphere MP3 on home demo for a couple of days. I'm not sure which variant this is (the latest iteration is MP3.3) but it's an old-ish unit so I'm guessing first version.

had to open the top to troubleshoot a persistent rustling/crackling noise from the R channel. I had a similar issue 2 years ago when I first demoed this same unit; after I returned it, it was supposedly checked out by an engineer who gave it the all-OK but evidently something is/was still wrong.

emailed atma-sphere and Ralph the man himself replied with some troubleshooting tips. turns out it was a bad 12au7 tube; swapping it out was simple enough sans the removal of like 20 tiny screws just to open the top case LOL.

This pre amp sounds amazing. even more full sounding and more meat throughout the FR than my current pre. the low end is glorious and the vocals are lush, sweet, clear. I can't get over what I'm hearing with the Abyss TC right now.

anyone else here tried the Atma-sphere MP3? can't seem to find many reviews online and most of them are from a few years back.

 

[kingoftown1]

Damn, that's a hefty amount of Vcaps.

 

[theeclone]

Picked up a used PS Audio Directstream DAC (mk1), and wow! Only a couple of hours in but listening to DSD files has been quite an experience. From a cold start the bass felt a bit bloated and the upper mids had a bit of a sour timbre. Seems to be slowly improving in both those departments.

I'm actually a little high rn from audio enjoyment. The DSD version of Herbie Hancock "Headhunters" is real fun. Picking up subtle details I never had before. Earlier listened to Brubeck's "Time Out" in DSD and was really impressed with the dynamic contrast at low levels. Something I've never quite experienced to that degree in this system so far.

As you can see I have a Tascam da-3000. Playing back vinyl DSD rips on the DS DAC was also eye opening. I had thought my PCM conversions of those same files were pretty darn good, and I guess they are, but they don't compare to this experience. Much more organic sounding.

Noticing this is turning into a bit of a DAC review. Sorry, couldn't help myself! Looking forward to listening more as it hopefully continues to stabilize from being kept powered on.

 

[normie610]

Just got myself a new custom made teak rack in anticipation of a super CFA3 amp (double the height of my current CFA3 & more depth) and the top rack is reserved for the upcoming Primavera (which would probably still 2-3 months away). And if I decide to commission a Megatron XL/XXL amp for my CRBN in the future, would have to think where to put it (maybe add a smaller rack )

 

[Roasty]

Just got myself a new custom made teak rack in anticipation of a super CFA3 amp (double the height of my current CFA3 & more depth) and the top rack is reserved for the upcoming Primavera (which would probably still 2-3 months away). And if I decide to commission a Megatron XL/XXL amp for my CRBN in the future, would have to think where to put it (maybe add a smaller rack )

beautiful rack and classy looking gear man!

 

[normie610]

beautiful rack and classy looking gear man!

thanks buddy!

 

[kumar402]

Added Freya + to the setup

 

[jonathan c]

I have the Atma-Sphere MP3 on home demo for a couple of days. I'm not sure which variant this is (the latest iteration is MP3.3) but it's an old-ish unit so I'm guessing first version.

had to open the top to troubleshoot a persistent rustling/crackling noise from the R channel. I had a similar issue 2 years ago when I first demoed this same unit; after I returned it, it was supposedly checked out by an engineer who gave it the all-OK but evidently something is/was still wrong.

emailed atma-sphere and Ralph the man himself replied with some troubleshooting tips. turns out it was a bad 12au7 tube; swapping it out was simple enough sans the removal of like 20 tiny screws just to open the top case LOL.

This pre amp sounds amazing. even more full sounding and more meat throughout the FR than my current pre. the low end is glorious and the vocals are lush, sweet, clear. I can't get over what I'm hearing with the Abyss TC right now.

anyone else here tried the Atma-sphere MP3? can't seem to find many reviews online and most of them are from a few years back.

You should be using Telefunken G-73Rs in that Atma-Sphere MP3 !!

 

[Roasty]

You should be using Telefunken G-73Rs in that Atma-Sphere MP3 !!

omg I've just seen the price tag for a pair of these tubes.. haha! anyways, Atma-sphere seems to recommend against using NOS tubes for this pre.. I guess that's a good thing cos if I do buy it, I just need to get the cheaper new production stuff.

 

[jonathan c]

omg I've just seen the price tag for a pair of these tubes.. haha! anyways, Atma-sphere seems to recommend against using NOS tubes for this pre.. I guess that's a good thing cos if I do buy it, I just need to get the cheaper new production stuff.

If you do purchase the Atma-sphere MP3, you might look into the ‘new production’ JJ ECC802S with gold pins. It’s excellent and not outrageous in price.