Trafomatic Experience Head One

[regal]

I think you made a good not just the FOTM choice, but you are now obligated to post listening impressions when you receive her
 
 
Quote:

Yes I confirmed that. Pulling the trigger now.

 

[oqvist]

I got my head one today... I am 100 % confident now I made the right choice with the wood. Looks are spectacular. matches the wood on the DX 1000 phono connector just about perfectly just such a thing Got an Auditor some months ago and was impressed by how big and weighty it was... The Trafomatic weights in at at least 3 auditors and is roughly the same size. Definiatly tons of iron in this beast.  Images do lie I expected something much smaller.
However a small detail... It doesn´t output any sound whatsoever on any of the inputs... No output from the phono or pre outs either... The amp does get power so later in the chain something is messed up.
 
 

 

[oqvist]

To get an idea of the size
 

 

[mr.khali]

Beautiful!!  Did you get the problem sorted out?

 

[oqvist]

Sadly no this amp need professional help it looks like! Checked inside to check the fuse and it´s very tidy inside too and no signs of bad connections, soldering or anything.
 
 
 

 

[Skylab]

That really is a beautiful looking amp.  Congrats.

 

[oqvist]

An update... I now have two Trafomatic head one running. They are that good!
 
No seriously the first had some short that was quite easilly fixed by a friend of mine when we found it.
The replacement that I got came with a broken lorlan selector... The one for the impedance output settings.
I sent that in for repair and got notice today that it was replaced and running al right!
 
One is going up for sale if anyone is interested.
Not the best first impression you can get but I can at least attest to the customer support being top notch.
 
Had the amp running for some 20h or such and it does sound very good. Leave very little to desire whatever I throw at it. But very similar to my Goldpoint Headphone Pro at least with my low impedance headphones. DBT would be hard on me. Both these amps just doesn´t do anything wrong or special they just make the headphones sound more natural then ever to my ears.
 
However you always want to justify your purchase. Luckily the differences was very clear on the T1. T1 get something closed about it on the GHP... On the Auditor it´s the other way around. There it´s bass kind of disappears. The Head One gives it a much better balance and there is quite some difference between the 30/300 output settings on it.
 
Reading about the ground hum for preouts and hiss and such I was quick to check that out. The amp now has a ground switch and a knob to attach a cable too but never had to play with that. No ground hum whatsoever. And very silent also out of my most sensitive headphones.
A bit of a bummer is that to use the sub out you have to activate line out which kills the headphone output. So I still need a second amp to hook up my headphones to my sub or LFE.
 

 

[oqvist]

KeeS can´t you send yours in for the V9 upgrade? I know you have the old version of the head one but they are so similar.
 
I have gold fish memory at times and have the amps side by side out of view so more then once I have misstaken which amp I am listening to with my low impedance phones. Giving up on the ED 8 going focus more on the Pro 900/SA 5000 now until LCD-2 arrives.
 
 

 

[Kees]

Why should I do that? Is the V9 so much better than my version? 
It'll cost a ton (shipping and import duties), it has to be worth it if I do it.

 

[oqvist]

I would be curious to know how much better it´s. So it would be to kill my curiousity some
I have never listened to the V5 GHP so I really can´t say. I ha have no reference points to the V3 either but it´s clearly a lot better end different sounding to that version.

 

[oqvist]

Put one of my head ones for sale now http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/507620/fs-trafomatic-head-one-revised-version#post_6858693
 

 

[oqvist]

Tried the LCD-2 now. Interesting is that the output impedance knob it makes no difference running 30 ohm/100 ohm or 300 ohm?
Anybody know why?

 

[santacore]

You should definitely hear a difference. The 2 amps I have in house that have impedance options, definitely change things. It can be very subtle, but there is a change.

 

[oqvist]

It´s with my other headphones. Particularly the T1 but there is no change on the LCD-2 that I can detect. Curious why since they are as detailed as any headphone I have ever used

 

[oqvist]

LCD-2 does a superb job justifying this purchase! KeeS mentioned it was a league above the Goldpoint Headphone Pro. Hasn´t been convinced about that except for the T1 but the LCD-2 is just more right on it then on the GHP and Violectric V200 I feel.