The Predator, Portable Headphone Amp/USB DAC Combo
Oct 24, 2007 at 11:14 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 987

Ray Samuels

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Dear friends & head-fiers....
As every year around this time, close to the Holidays, we at Ray Samuels Audio, release a new product & give the head-fiers the first choice of purchasing these products at special price for a limited time.

Predator.jpg


We are very pleased to inform you that the Predator, portable headphone Amp/Dac combo, is nearing it's completion, as all pc brds are manufactured.
The Predator's both pc brds, the amp & the USB, are mil specs grade with 4 oz oxygen free copper. All resistors are that of high quality Dale Vishay SMDs.
The Caps are the highest quality film caps by Panasonic. The power lanes & signal lanes are separated from each others with ground lanes & blocks of ground sections to minimize the floor noise.

You should hear no noise or hiss at all from the DAC when connected to your computer, it is completely silent in every sense no matter which headphones you use, including all the sensitive headphones, IEM, with full gain of 11, at MAX volume..
That by itself is just a remarkable accomplishment when comparing amps with each others using IEM's.

Predator2.jpg


The amp section has identical parts when it comes to quality; no corners have been cut, as the Predator has the lowest noise specs than that of the Hornet & Tomahawk.

The Predator has 3 position gain switch, low, gain of One, medium, gain of Four & high, gain of Eleven. These gain setting come very handy when variety of phones are used with different impedances.

The USB/Source switch is located on the face plate, it selects between a mini stereo input source and the USB input. When the amp is used with an external source, the USB circuitry is completely disconnected from that of the amp as if it never exists and no battery power is going through it.

The Predator can play while it is charging, with no loss of sound quality. The charging time is within 2-3 hours, the play time is 7 days at 8 hours per day, per charge. The Lithium Ion battery in the Predator is good for over 500 times charging. This means 500X7 days with each charge at 8 hours per day comes to 3500 days at 8 hours per day. 3500 divided by 365 days per year = 9.6 years. That is how long the battery should last.

Predator1.jpg


We are working on the chassis at mean time as the extrusion is in the work, 3 more weeks according to the extrusion manufacturer, the first chassis hopefully will be available.

The size of the Predator is going to be smaller than the Hornet bigger than the Tomahawk, right in between. The gain switch, the DC input & USB input will be at the back panel, no thumb nuts will be at the back panel as we won't be using any changeable batteries, so the look will be more like front face style.

We are doing our best to get the predator by the Holidays, hoping we can meat the dead line.

We will post later the price, the color options & take your orders.
Please do not ask for any other info now as we are trying to keep up with the rest of our work.

The Predator will be at the Florida meet next week-end, New York meet & Chicago last.

Ray Samuels
 
Oct 25, 2007 at 3:31 AM Post #3 of 987
Ray... nice. I am very excited to see what the chassis will look like. I was hoping to make it to the FL meet, but it's not looking good.
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Thanks for posting some more information on the Predator.
 
Oct 25, 2007 at 4:45 AM Post #4 of 987
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray Samuels /img/forum/go_quote.gif
You should hear no noise or hiss at all from the DAC when connected to your computer, it is completely silent in every sense no matter which headphones you use, including all the sensitive headphones, IEM, with full gain of 11, at MAX volume..
That by itself is just a remarkable accomplishment when comparing amps with each others using IEM's.



Wow, that has peaked my interest.
 
Oct 25, 2007 at 5:11 AM Post #5 of 987
Congrats on the new amp/dac Ray! Can't wait to hear it this weekend, and seeing you won't be so bad either! I want to spend a little more time with the Apache than at the last two meets, but all this portable mania will bite into the time AGAIN!
 
Oct 25, 2007 at 7:25 AM Post #11 of 987
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray Samuels /img/forum/go_quote.gif
You should hear no noise or hiss at all from the DAC when connected to your computer, it is completely silent in every sense no matter which headphones you use, including all the sensitive headphones, IEM, with full gain of 11, at MAX volume..
That by itself is just a remarkable accomplishment when comparing amps with each others using IEM's.



Ray, you know I'm going to test this one for myself.
wink.gif


And try the K1000's with them as well, not that it will work with a portable amp, you know I like to do it just for fun.
k1000smile.gif
evil_smiley.gif


-Ed
 

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