[Howlin Fester]

I just had my Grado RS1i re-terminated by Moon Audio to a male 4 pin mini-xlr.  And picked up two adapter cables for it.  A Blue Dragon RSA to mini-xlr female, Blue Dragon 1/8" TRS to mini-xlr female.
 
Initial reaction to the balanced setup with the Intruder is just plain "WOW".  I could immediately hear a difference.  I haven't done much a/b comparison between balanced and SE, but I am extremely happy at the moment.  I will post more impressions as I experience them.  Thanks to Drew and the fine folks at Moon Audio for the quality work and products.  Thanks to Ray for an awesome amp.

 

[Howlin Fester]

So this has been an extremely interesting week for me sound-wise.  As I mentioned above, I had my RS1i re-terminated with balanced connectors and that was an immediate shocker in how good it sounded coming out of the Intruder.
 
I believe that bass impact is even better now with the Grados than they were single ended.  I feel like the soundstage has improved as well.  The RS1i presentation is still very close, but it seems to have a bit more width to it than previously.  Here is one example.  I was listening to the Time Life Singers and Songwriters collection from 1980-1982.  (Don't judge.  Brings back fond memories of my childhood.)  On Fleetwood Mac's Hold me, John McVie's bass line was entrancing, while Lindsey Buckingham was doing some crazy muted high fretboard work first in the right ear, then later in the left.  Had to listen to it twice before calling it an evening last night.  Also, Buddy Guy's new CD Rhythm and Blues sounds fantastic.  Great disc(s).  Great sound.  Great fun.
 
Second thing I did this weekend was pick up FLAC Player for my ipod Touch.  I was hoping that I wouldn't have to venture into the world of FLAC. I was hoping that 320 was good enough for my ears.  I really wanted that to be true true true.  Guess not.
 
I started the day by listening to the MP3 320 conversion of the Black Crowe's July 23 show in Raleigh.  I went to that concert, so as soon as I saw it was available for download, I got it.  I listened to the whole thing.  Then I started FLAC player listened to the first encore song - Don't Know Why.  During the Encore, the Black Crowes had supporting band Tedeschi Trucks come up and play.  During Derek Truck's slide solo, I can hear more "air" in the FLAC than I could in the MP3.
 
That is the best way that I can explain it.  More airiness.  I can hear better reverb and space around the slide guitar and around the cymbals.  It is a more accurate representation of what it felt like to be in the audience that night.  I also experience the same thing with Porcupine Tree's Stupid Dream CD.  During the first three minutes of Even Less, I hear more space and air around the instruments.  I'm listening to the entire album again while writing this...
 
Looks like I have to go start ripping more discs to FLAC.  
 
I know that I'm covering many different topics in the Intruder thread, but I am looking at this as an entire system, and I think the Intruder is probably the most important and most impressive part of my system.  That is why I chose to post these impressions here.  I hope this is not too OT.
 
Going Balanced on the Intruder and feeding it high quality FLAC files is a five star winner for me.

 

[jamato8]

Quote:

So this has been an extremely interesting week for me sound-wise.  As I mentioned above, I had my RS1i re-terminated with balanced connectors and that was an immediate shocker in how good it sounded coming out of the Intruder.
 
I believe that bass impact is even better now with the Grados than they were single ended.  I feel like the soundstage has improved as well.  The RS1i presentation is still very close, but it seems to have a bit more width to it than previously.  Here is one example.  I was listening to the Time Life Singers and Songwriters collection from 1980-1982.  (Don't judge.  Brings back fond memories of my childhood.)  On Fleetwood Mac's Hold me, John McVie's bass line was entrancing, while Lindsey Buckingham was doing some crazy muted high fretboard work first in the right ear, then later in the left.  Had to listen to it twice before calling it an evening last night.  Also, Buddy Guy's new CD Rhythm and Blues sounds fantastic.  Great disc(s).  Great sound.  Great fun.
 
Second thing I did this weekend was pick up FLAC Player for my ipod Touch.  I was hoping that I wouldn't have to venture into the world of FLAC. I was hoping that 320 was good enough for my ears.  I really wanted that to be true true true.  Guess not.
 
I started the day by listening to the MP3 320 conversion of the Black Crowe's July 23 show in Raleigh.  I went to that concert, so as soon as I saw it was available for download, I got it.  I listened to the whole thing.  Then I started FLAC player listened to the first encore song - Don't Know Why.  During the Encore, the Black Crowes had supporting band Tedeschi Trucks come up and play.  During Derek Truck's slide solo, I can hear more "air" in the FLAC than I could in the MP3.
 
That is the best way that I can explain it.  More airiness.  I can hear better reverb and space around the slide guitar and around the cymbals.  It is a more accurate representation of what it felt like to be in the audience that night.  I also experience the same thing with Porcupine Tree's Stupid Dream CD.  During the first three minutes of Even Less, I hear more space and air around the instruments.  I'm listening to the entire album again while writing this...
 
Looks like I have to go start ripping more discs to FLAC.  
 
I know that I'm covering many different topics in the Intruder thread, but I am looking at this as an entire system, and I think the Intruder is probably the most important and most impressive part of my system.  That is why I chose to post these impressions here.  I hope this is not too OT.
 
Going Balanced on the Intruder and feeding it high quality FLAC files is a five star winner for me.

Thanks for the update. I agree, there is more to music than some will admit and lossy format is just that, lossy. I use FLAC and WAV files. The Intruder will reveal the difference with ease. 

 

[CosmicHolyGhost]

Guys,what is the battery life that you guys are getting? I am using x3, db2 and intruder. Intruder is always the first one to be out of battery...

 

[musicheaven]

Guys,what is the battery life that you guys are getting? I am using x3, db2 and intruder. Intruder is always the first one to be out of battery...

Yeah it's an hungry amp, I get about 7 hours. I don't mind though I use the amp as a desktop unit so does not disturb me, the sq from it compensates for the short battery life.

 

[AgentXXL]

New Intruder owner here... I just received it today and so far I'm only mildly impressed. I'll clarify that though - so far, I've only been using it with single ended input and output. I'm going to spend some time later today re-terminating the stock cable that came with my HD800s so that I can use them in either balanced or single ended mode.
 
Once I'm running in balanced mode, I expect I'll be much more pleased than I currently am with the SE output. And based on what I've read, it sounds like I need to spend a lot of time on burn-in for this unit. So far I've only managed to put about 5 hrs on it. I've never been much of a believer in burn-in for solid state electronics, but I'll defer to the audiophiles here at Head-Fi that have far better hearing than I do.
 
Will any source work for burn in or is it recommended to try and equally burn-in all signal paths? I.E. do I need to spend time with a SE source, a balanced source and a USB source to fully burn-in all possible signal paths? What about content - should it be a variety of music/media or just something as simple as pink noise?
 
Overall I'm really looking forward to using the Intruder. While the DAC is limited to 48KHz/16bit, I'll admit that what I'm hearing so far is pretty pleasing. I'm only really comparing it with my Fiio E17 and my Pico DAC/amp, but the Intruder is doing quite well stacked next to them. I've heard and compared my Pico and E17 with some higher end desktop DACs and alas I think my hearing is the limiting factor (i.e. I find that the E17 and the Pico both have very similar sound signatures, as did most of the higher end DACs). It's only once I got to the $1000+ devices that I started to notice a difference.
 
Regardless, my main reason for getting the Intruder was that I do most of my listening portably. Combine that with the fact that my HD800s will benefit from the balanced output, and hopefully I'll find the Intruder meeting my needs. Certainly any time I've had my HD800s hooked up to a balanced amp, I've been quite pleased with the result, so here's hoping the Intruder lives up to my expectations.

 

[jamato8]

Intruder and balanced is the way to go. I burn in with balanced. 

 

[muzic4life]

Quote:

Intruder and balanced is the way to go. I burn in with balanced. 

+1...reminds me of this pics:
 

 

[AgentXXL]

Well, I made a little progress today - I re-terminated my stock HD800 cable and turned it into a modular cable that I can use with all sorts of adapters, depending on the amplifier I use. Here's the post in the DIY Cable Gallery thread:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/71148/diy-cable-gallery/12705#post_9738641
 
As for how it sounds, I'm definitely more impressed with the Intruder when using a balanced headphone cable. In the pictures and for my testing I just used a single ended input, but further testing with the USB input is sounding very NICE! As it turns out, I don't have a balanced source I can use for an input, so I suspect I'll do most of my burn-in using USB to feed the Intruder.
 
Tomorrow I'll spend a couple of hours listening while I take my time building more adapters for my modular HD800 cable.

 

[jamato8]

Quote:

Well, I made a little progress today - I re-terminated my stock HD800 cable and turned it into a modular cable that I can use with all sorts of adapters, depending on the amplifier I use. Here's the post in the DIY Cable Gallery thread:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/71148/diy-cable-gallery/12705#post_9738641
 
As for how it sounds, I'm definitely more impressed with the Intruder when using a balanced headphone cable. In the pictures and for my testing I just used a single ended input, but further testing with the USB input is sounding very NICE! As it turns out, I don't have a balanced source I can use for an input, so I suspect I'll do most of my burn-in using USB to feed the Intruder.
 
Tomorrow I'll spend a couple of hours listening while I take my time building more adapters for my modular HD800 cable.

Great!! I look forward to more impressions and excellent work on the cable. 

 

[oll180]

Curious if anyone has used the intruder with mr speakers mad dogs? Dan from mr speakers gave me a few amp recommendations and the intruder was one of them. Wondering if anyone has tried them and their thoughts on the combination. Ive got quite a few 24 bit tracks so might be the best option but if it sounds good enough I could give it a go.

 

[AgentXXL]

Curious if anyone has used the intruder with mr speakers mad dogs? Dan from mr speakers gave me a few amp recommendations and the intruder was one of them. Wondering if anyone has tried them and their thoughts on the combination. Ive got quite a few 24 bit tracks so might be the best option but if it sounds good enough I could give it a go.

I haven't heard or seen the mad dogs at all... but I'll comment on the use of the Intruder's DAC with 24/96 encoded FLACs. So far that's the one feature of the Intruder that impresses me most. Even though the DAC is limited to 16 bit/48KHz playback, my 24/96 encoded FLACs sound AWESOME!

I guess it has something to do with the balanced output, but even when I was listening via single ended output, I noticed more detail from the Intruder DAC. I'm not sure why - technically my Fiio E17 and Pico DACS should both sound better - they are both 24/96 capable via USB.

It just goes to show - better technical specifications don't always equal better sound. Based on what I've read about the mad dogs and my albeit limited experience with the Intruder, I am pretty confident they would work well together.

UPDATE: I'm attending a local Head-fi meet here in Calgary on Sept. 8th. One of the other attendees is bringing his Mad Dogs so I will probably get a chance to listen to them using my Intruder. Not sure if his Mad Dogs are single ended or balanced, but I'll get in touch with the other attendee to find out.

 

[oll180]

I haven't heard or seen the mad dogs at all... but I'll comment on the use of the Intruder's DAC with 24/96 encoded FLACs. So far that's the one feature of the Intruder that impresses me most. Even though the DAC is limited to 16 bit/48KHz playback, my 24/96 encoded FLACs sound AWESOME!

I guess it has something to do with the balanced output, but even when I was listening via single ended output, I noticed more detail from the Intruder DAC. I'm not sure why - technically my Fiio E17 and Pico DACS should both sound better - they are both 24/96 capable via USB.

It just goes to show - better technical specifications don't always equal better sound. Based on what I've read about the mad dogs and my albeit limited experience with the Intruder, I am pretty confident they would work well together.

UPDATE: I'm attending a local Head-fi meet here in Calgary on Sept. 8th. One of the other attendees is bringing his Mad Dogs so I will probably get a chance to listen to them using my Intruder. Not sure if his Mad Dogs are single ended or balanced, but I'll get in touch with the other attendee to find out.

Cool thanks. Any info would be great. Don't get much of a chance to try before I buy where I live (nowheretown, Australia). So I generally rely on the good folk of the internet for advice.

 

[AgentXXL]

Cool thanks. Any info would be great. Don't get much of a chance to try before I buy where I live (nowheretown, Australia). So I generally rely on the good folk of the internet for advice.

Confirmed - the other meet attendee is still bringing his Mad Dogs. They are single end terminated so I'll only get to test them with the SE output of my Intruder. He also mentioned that they are for sale, but I doubt you would want to purchase them from Canada. Used gear can sometimes be a great deal, but shipping to Australia is likely to be very costly.

 

[oll180]

Confirmed - the other meet attendee is still bringing his Mad Dogs. They are single end terminated so I'll only get to test them with the SE output of my Intruder. He also mentioned that they are for sale, but I doubt you would want to purchase them from Canada. Used gear can sometimes be a great deal, but shipping to Australia is likely to be very costly.

I already have the single ended mad dogs. Im just looking for another amp. Im using the schiit magni/modi at the moment, which is ok but too bright for my likings. So if you could let me know how the intruder sounds with the mad dogs that would be awesome. I hear they sound great with plenty of power behind them.