[vvanrij]

Thats very odd, mine has plenty of power on the K1000 (I play almost allways not past 50% of the volume). Also compared it with other amps, and the phonitor delivers much more detail on the K1000, and most surprising was the fact that the phonitor shows that the K1000 has indeed plenty of bass. The fact that it was underpowered in your setup probably means there was something wrong.

 

[AppleheadMay]

Odd indeed. And I can't imagine anything wrong since the Phonitor has plenty of power to drive any other phones I have. The K1000 lacks volume, detail and bass on any of my headphone amps (Pro-Ject, LD3, GCHA, Luxman P1-u and Phonitor) while they do fine on all my other cans. I just tried it again with the K1000 and Phonitor with the same result.
 
I'd love to see some other people here that have both the Phonitor or Auditor and a K1000 try it and let us know the results.
 
Did you by any chance try it on a speaker amp to hear the difference?

 

[feifan]

vvanrij, thanks for checking in! I added your Phonitor to the OP.
 
Cool that you and AppleheadMay are able to test it with the K1000! Across the board, it seems the Phonitor/Auditor syncs nicely with quality 'phones. With good cans, these SPL amps seem to open up the music, separating and highlighting all the different instruments and voices. The dynamics are awesome, crystal clear in the softest passages yet balanced across the spectrum. With the Phonitor, the ability to futz with the direction/position of the sound source challenges the notion that good cans ought to mirror the stage-in-front presentation.
 
Re the handles -- I haven't tried it, but, on each side, there are a couple of screws about an inch from the face, top and bottom, that seem to line up with the handles. You could try loosening these to see if the handles will jiggle.

 

[suikodenii]

Regardig Phonitor and K1000 here's what "fcklo" said about it in post #101 in the following thread:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/329765/spl-phonitor-new-reference-amp/90
 
looked promising to me at the time but so far I didn't come across a decently prized K1K to try for myself yet....
 
 
Quote:

K1000 through Phonitor

Quote:

Originally Posted by djork does it drive the k1000? if it does, how well can it do?

I finally get the time to try the Phonitor with a pair of AKG K1000. My AKG 1000 was serial #11111 (yes, 5 aces) and recabled in 18g Jena Labs Ultrawire. I used a 4 pin XLR to TRS adaptor made for me by Alex from Apuresound, using of course the V3 cable.

With my new rig configuration, the Phonitor is now being fed from my Chord QBD76 DAC through a pair of Kimber Select KS-1121 balanced interconnect. The Nagra CDP serves as transport. The Phonitor receives the balanced output from the Chord DAC.

I played two CDs so far.

First is CD on Nino Rota's piano music. (V10003, Naive, France). For those who are not familiar with Nino Rota, think GodFather - he was the one who create the music for a number of classical movies. ( Nino Rota - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

It is indeed a challenging test to the Phonitor - first it is piano - which is not easy to be reproduced in its full glory and complexity through a solid state amp. Second, is the recording itself - this French CD is remarkably well recorded - and the music passages are complex enough to challenge most hardware and human ears.

I have the volume set to around 12:30 o'clock on the Phonitor to give a good volume out of the K1000, and the rest of the time I was submerged into the music. The Phonitor just let the K1000 sing - beautifully. I can hear all the details, and harmonics characteristic of piano, the depth of the sound stage and the precise spatial positioning of the instruments on stage. The timing is perfect - so good that I can easily relate the key press on the piano to the sound I hear - giving a very true feeling of a virtual live performance.

While everything is near perfect with the Phonitor, I missed some of the weight ( very slightly so ) that I get from my Woo Audio 5. But the difference is every so little that once I switched off the analytical part of my brain the music takes over and I was just happy.

The 2nd CD I tried was one of my favorite - "Ten Tenors, Ten Colors" which is a great collection of great tenor sax players performance by venus. (TKCV-35404). This CD was made in Japan and is a real audiophile CD.

Under the Phonitor-K1000 combo, the recordings come to live and it is a real joy to listen. The recording level of this CD ( mixed and mastered using Venus 24 bit Hyper Magnum Sound) is higher than average so I get very good volume on the K1000 with the knob just less than 11 o'clock. What I hear is full bodied sound, a lot of micro details, and important for jazz, textured and layered bass that is simply impressive. Again, the Phonitor "disappeared' in the audio chain, and I was just listening to the CD so accurately reproduced through the K1000.

I was pleasantly surprised at what the Phonitor has done with my K1000. I was not expecting much at the beginning knowing how hard it is to drive the K1000 well. As it turned out this is so far the best I have heard from the K1000 out of a solid state amp.

F. Lo

 

[AppleheadMay]

Thanks for the info suikodenii. All I can say is that this is not my experience at all, 12:30 o'clock is way below an acceptable listening volume on the Phonitor with the K1000 for me. I just plugged in some different sources to see if it would make a difference. While the volume does change a little with different sources it doesn't change enough to make it acceptable. It is fine with all my other cans though, on any cans I have 12 o'clockon the Phonitor is more than loud enough, sometimes even too loud.
 
I wonder why so many people in the K1000 thread use higher powered amps if a normal headphone amp could do just as well.

 

[vvanrij]

What F. Lo wrote is just like my experience, 12 o'clock is well loud enough, and it is for me also the best (SS) amp I have tried with the K1000. Tried some tube amps as well, but haven't found a tube amp that is transparent enough to my liking. I can't write all those crazy things about dynamics and texture and stuff, because I'm really not that good at expressing all those things. All I can say is the Phonitor + K1000 is the best I have heard to date (which includes about anything, except the Orpheus, which might be better haha). @AppleheadMay the power the K1000 requires has not so much to do with the volume, if I plug it in directly into my Konnekt 8, the sound is also loud enough @ 12 o'clock. The k1000 needs alot of power to be able to produce decent bass and have a good dynamic range etc. voltage swing and that kind of guru.

 

[AppleheadMay]

Yeah, but still it's strange. I tested a bit with 3 sources, 3 headphone amps and 3 phones just now, everything works as it should, except the K1000 which isn't loud enough on any on the headphone amps no matter what source. Maybe there is something wrong with the 1/4 jack to 4 pin xlr adaptor cable I have, I can't think of anything else. The K1000 sounds fine out of the speaker amp though.

 

[vvanrij]

Hmm yeah it sounds more like there is indeed something wrong with either the cable or the k1000 itself. Have you compared your k1000 with other k1000's? It would be weird if the cable was the problem, since its such a big difference, but all is possible in audio. If I were you I would take the time to investigate it though, like I said (and Flo discovered as well), its so far the best SS (and for me of any amp) I have tried with the K1000. Since you have em both in your posession, your missing out . The output of the Phonitor is about 1W right (depends on the impedance ofcourse, but I don't know what that is on the K1000)? That is plenty for the K1000 to be well loud.

 

[suikodenii]

Just one thought on this. Is it that you use 12:00 dial or close to it for most of your headphones? I have the PS DLIII as a source, which is known for providing a rather high output level when used in balanced mode. And with this is never get significantly over 08:00 dial (on top of my head I think this is -40dB setting on the Phonitor). That is even with the HD800 (300 Ohms) or the AKG701 which requires a bit more volume than most common cans. At 12:00 dial the volume would be unbearable by far in my set up I'd say, though I never tried it that far.
So it might be that the output level of the source indeed has an impact here...

 

[oqvist]

What a blooper. The XLR adapter I had bought turned out to be utter garbage. Appears to be stainless steel does that actually work? If they wheren´t grounded I would get no audio right?. I got some double shielded cable with the amp and the sonics are just world class from top to bottom now.
 

 

[AppleheadMay]

@suikodenii
 
Yes, I do use most cans around 12 o'clock on the Phonitor. Not the D7000 though.
My source is a PS Audio Perfectwave Dac. I heard it has a higher output than most sources as well, especially on the XLR output.
 
Maybe it's because I feed the dac with an airport express optical out which streams music from my iTunes library? (temporary solution until the Bridge is out) iTunes is on full volume though.
 

 

[oqvist]

My T1 is at -19. All my lower impedance headphones are slightly less then that. DAC19 as source. My Keces have about the same signal strength as well.
 

 

[feifan]

I'm feeding the Phonitor via Foobar2000 (WASAPI 24/96, volume maxed) > USB > Monitor 02 > coaxial > DLIII (stock) > balanced interconnects. These are the approximate volume levels I'm using with various cans:
 
-21.5dB:  K701 and HD800
-24.0dB: GS1K and HD650
-30.0dB: Grado HF2
 
12 o'clock is at -6.0 dB, and 9 o'clock is at -28.0dB so the levels I'm using hover at around 9 o'clock.

 

[AppleheadMay]

Forgot to post back here, I finally found the problem.
I connect my dac via xlr to the Phonitor. From the Phonitor's output I use a xlr to rca cable (wired correctly per the manual) to go to an rca input on my Marantz amp. This halves the Phonitor's input both audibly and on the VU meters. As soon as I pull the cables out, I get full input again.
Now the K1000 plays more than loud enough through the Phonitor. It plays well too, but it can't beat the 10W class A speaker output of my Luxman amp though. The sound is richer and fuller when the K1000 gets more power. As it probably should since these cans were meant to be wired to speaker outputs.

 

[St3ve]

Hi everyone,
 
AppleheadMay's Phonitor has found a new home:
 

 

 

 
Not a bad looking bit of kit.
 
I absolutely love it. It really does make my HD800's shine, and the crossfeed system is fantastic. I have only had it just under a week or so, but I have been totally floored by the sound - everything sounds 'just right' to my ears. The crossfeed settings I am using are CF:4, SA: 75 and CL -1.2, and the imaging is superb.
 
I intend to write some more detailed impressions later, but at this early stage I can honestly say that I love it.
 
Edit: Not sure if the roll call is still active, but my Phonitor (2730B) is SN 9310032, my source is a Lavry DA11 and my cans are Senn HD800s. Oh, and I tend to set my volume at somewhere between -24 and -19 depending on how loud the music is mastered.