[DTH]

Thanks for the response, I'd be curious to hear the weight with either type of battery.

 

[Packgrog]

Holy god.

#T088 has arrived. Not only is it amazingly tiny, but my god the sound is wonderful. The thing is dead quiet with my iriver H120 on pause. You have to crank it to the max volume on low gain, and about 75% on high gain (volume maxed on the player through the line-out) to hear any hiss at all. Of course, 10 o-clock on the Tomahawk on LOW GAIN is my limit on listenable loudness (and is kinda pushing my limit with some songs) with my Future Sonics EM3, so that's saying something.

Amazing. Absolutely amazing. The bass is a little heavy with these phones, but it's definitely not distorted, and the EM3 have a little more bass than most IEMs anyway. I suspect this will settle down a bit with burn-in. That said, there is NO distortion of any kind, and the bass isn't excessive. Plus, I have barely 20 minutes of listening time with it so far, and through a Rat Shack gold plug cable, so this is bound to improve. God, it sounds wonderful, though. VERY pleased!

-Packgrog

NP: Chroma Key - Graveyard Mountain Home (holy... hello soundstage!)

 

[The Monkey]

T038 is here an it is very very nice.

First, good god this thing is small. I mean it's almost too small. It's giving my iPod a complex.

Second, I like the silver. I would have preferred a whitish tint, but this thing looks pretty slick and matches my UE cases and my UE-10s prefectly (pics later).

Third, oh yeah, the sound. I've only been listening for about 30 mins., but this amp is so clean. No hiss. With my UE-5c, the Tomahawk is doing a good job of cleaning up some of the muddiness in the bass and bringing forward the mids. Much, much better articulation, which leads to a perception of a quicker, more agile sound. And this is with the UE-5c, which I consider to be a fun, but slow-footed iem. I'm interested in what the UE-10 will be like. We'll see... Anyway, so far, very very good.

 

[rajs]

Got T103 today via FedEx from Ray. The thing is WAY WAY WAY SMALLER then I could ever imagine looking at pics and the thing is SO LIGHT.

Thanks Ray -- will be listening to it in a few days and then taking on a long trip with.

 

[mnm222876]

T099 arrived today. Paid on Christmas, probably sent out on the 26th, arrived on the 28th. That's crazy fast. Thanks Ray!

This thing is incredibly small but sounds incredibly BIG!


.

 

[4metta]

Bass is filling in quite nicely in my Tomahawk with burn-in. I would say I have about 40 hours on it so far. (haven't been counting) I'm excited to see how much better this baby can sound. It sounds pretty damn good right now!

 

[Skylab]

This was also my experience - bass was MUCH better after 25 or so hours burn in.

 

[Britbonic]

Well maybe there is something to this notion of burn-in after all!

I have to admit, I've been skeptical in terms of the degree of difference that longer term burn-in/break-in actually makes. Maybe it's cause I've never done it formally where I actually tracked the changes but instead just made SQ judgments based on assumptions about actual burn-in time.

In any case, my Tomahawk has been running continuously since it arrived here early Weds afternoon. I 've got it connected to my Ipod or my RME Fireface 800 which in addition to being an awesome recording tool is a really sweet DAC. Am I'm using relatively new UM2s - (less than 50 hours on these. Not sure of the recommended break-in period). I've also got a Portaphile V2 Maxed that I've been using until I got the TH and am using for comparison purposes.

The music sources are on shuffle so anything from straight ahead jazz to straight ahead rock'roll mixed with a nice sprinkling of classical and electronic stuff. But all stuff I know pretty well.

Overall this is just a great sounding amp. If the TH were the only portable amp I had ever heard, I'd be immensely satisfied and wouldn't have no reason to look further for a portable amp. What I've noticed in the almost 60 hour of burn-in is that the midrange has opened up nicely, especially the upper mids. Vocals and especially percussive things just sound great. If I'm listening to a rock tune, I notice it in the snap of the snare drum or the cymbals on a jazzy piece. The bass has definitely improved. I think I'm hearing a little more depth than before. Where the Portaphile still wins in this area is in bass control. This bass is just a bit tighter and less boomy than the TH, especially on material that is more bass heavy like some of the electronic stuff. I'm hoping this will continue to improve with further burn-in and is not a shortcoming of the amp when compared with the Portaphile or even the Hornet.

At this point as I'm switching back and forth between these 2 amps, I'm finding that I enjoy listening to music with the TH a bit more than the Portaphile. This may not be a totally fair comparison as I've not done as through a burn-in on the Portaphile, mostly due to battery life. Some of this may also be attributed to further break-in of the UM2 themselves or maybe it's cause I'm paying more attention than in the past.

Would be curious if others have done/are doing similar comparisons between these 2 amps.

JB

 

[Pete7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Britbonic /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well maybe there is something to this notion of burn-in after all! I have to admit, I've been skeptical in terms of the degree of difference that longer term burn-in/break-in actually makes. Maybe it's cause I've never done it formally where I actually tracked the changes but instead just made SQ judgments based on assumptions about actual burn-in time. In any case, my Tomahawk has been running continuously since it arrived here early Weds afternoon. I 've got it connected to my Ipod or my RME Fireface 800 which in addition to being an awesome recording tool is a really sweet DAC. Am I'm using relatively new UM2s - (less than 50 hours on these. Not sure of the recommended break-in period). I've also got a Portaphile V2 Maxed that I've been using until I got the TH and am using for comparison purposes. The music sources are on shuffle so anything from straight ahead jazz to straight ahead rock'roll mixed with a nice sprinkling of classical and electronic stuff. But all stuff I know pretty well. Overall this is just a great sounding amp. If the TH were the only portable amp I had ever heard, I'd be immensely satisfied and wouldn't have no reason to look further for a portable amp. What I've noticed in the almost 60 hour of burn-in is that the midrange has opened up nicely, especially the upper mids. Vocals and especially percussive things just sound great. If I'm listening to a rock tune, I notice it in the snap of the snare drum or the cymbals on a jazzy piece. The bass has definitely improved. I think I'm hearing a little more depth than before. Where the Portaphile still wins in this area is in bass control. This bass is just a bit tighter and less boomy than the TH, especially on material that is more bass heavy like some of the electronic stuff. I'm hoping this will continue to improve with further burn-in and is not a shortcoming of the amp when compared with the Portaphile or even the Hornet. At this point as I'm switching back and forth between these 2 amps, I'm finding that I enjoy listening to music with the TH a bit more than the Portaphile. This may not be a totally fair comparison as I've not done as through a burn-in on the Portaphile, mostly due to battery life. Some of this may also be attributed to further break-in of the UM2 themselves or maybe it's cause I'm paying more attention than in the past. Would be curious if others have done/are doing similar comparisons between these 2 amps. JB

I'd say give the Tomahawk a lot more burn-in time before passing judgement. It uses the same size cap (15,000 uF) as the Hornet. The Hornet supposedly needs 450 hours for optimum burn-in. I'm sure the Tomahawk will need the same. My Tomahawk has approximately 150 hours on it, and there have been some noticeable changes since receiving it last Friday. Since last night, I could swear the imaging has improved.

 

[Packgrog]

Heck, I've had mine for 2.5 days now and I'm already noticing significant improvements in controled bass response. Nice!

 

[musicmonkey]

My Tomahawk #44 arrived this morning about 30mins ago, despite the fact i've only had 2hrs sleep (long night-pre new year party-yawn....) i'm up an about waiting for the shops to open as i cannot find any AAA's in the house - arghh!.

It was posted on the 21st december and i received it 9days later, pretty quick service considering i'm in deepest darkest scotland and we are in the middle of a holiday period.

A size comparison with a UK 50p coin.

It's sooo tiny.

Why didn't i think to buy batteries?......

 

[nico_g]

Hello musicmonkey,
I think you are the first, or at least one of the first, to receive his Tomahawk outside of America !
Lucky man !
I hope mine will come soon (today maybe ?).

 

[musicmonkey]

The shops are open in 15mins, gotta get my alkalines......

These guy's along with freshly roasted Hill & Valley beans are gonna help to keep me awake, and stave off the impending hangover, all previous plans for today are put on hold............

 

[nico_g]

I have here some alkaline AAA batteries, but still no Tomahawk

I even have an ALO Cryo dock connector !

 

[wolfB]

Glad to see some of these arriving the Old World, finally. Might not take too much longer until I get mine.

I am keeping two fresh Duracell AAA's warm.