[whirlwind]

After 2 weeks I need a change. Even if I like a lot a specific combination, after some time I feel I need to try something new or to revert to an older combo. I love this flexibility, because each of these have something to say. There is no right or wrong here, flexibility means you can watch the same scene from different angles. This is why I will never buy an amplifier without adjusting capabilities or what we call here tube rolling.

Same here...I don't roll much anymore, but every couple of weeks I will throw a different combo in just for a different flavor.
Great pic and great looking amp

 

[hpamdr]

The S is not as bright than the original HD 800 but brighter than T1. It takes a little time to get used to it anyway, once trained you feel it more natural and feel wider sondstage than T1 ! (I do not listen Metal nor Electro and i'm a bit older than you )

 

[OctavianH]

The S is not as bright than the original HD 800 but brighter than T1. It takes a little time to get used to it anyway, once trained you feel it more natural and feel wider sondstage than T1 ! (I do not listen Metal nor Electro and i'm a bit older than you )

Well, that very large soundstage is worrying me a little bit. I do not know why but I associate the soundstage of a headphone also with the genre one is listening. For example, a large orchestra in a large hall needs audio equipment with wide soundstage to sound its best. A rock band performing in a limited size stage might not sound so good on a very wide soundstage because the overall impression looses intimacy. This is why I always considered the HD 800 tuned for classical and large venues, while T1 being more romantic somehow to pubs, bars or smaller concert venues where a 4-5 piece band plays. Of course, I might be wrong. Another thing which makes me skeptical about HD 800 is the brightness, I am fully convinced it is detailed and analytical, but I am unsure about its presentation for example for electric guitar. I have a feeling these kind of instruments need a little bit of warmness to shine: electric guitar, piano, vocals. However, I have learned to play a little bit with soundstange and level of warmness on Eternity by choosing specific combos. I will think, you gave me a serious subject!

 

[OctavianH]

New stuff to try: Ken-Rad 6J5GT/G. Nice sounding ones.

 

[OctavianH]

Black Sabbath has no age. I love it. Bill Ward has to be there. This is the quintessence of music for me.

 

[OctavianH]

And after that I went to Empire...

 

[OctavianH]

Yesterday I went on the nostalgia path. It is fine, there are bands you followed your entire life and they are, indeed, the best. But I always search, as in tube rolling, for new experiences. There are so many good new bands which sound killer, thanks to new production levels, and are in a way, the same as these big bands were sounding in their earlier career. I love Black Sabbath, I love Queensrÿche and the same for all the good old bands like Motörhead or Judas Priest. A big part of my life went for them and also for the bands in the more "extreme" area like Obituary, Morbid Angel or Death. I also listen to extreme metal. But this morning I decided to go back to new territory and one of the bands I love and recommend is Striker. These guys are killer.



I like a lot the new wave of heavy metal which for the last 5 years brought us a lot of incredible bands. Heavy metal is coming back, from the 80s and we are here, to follow. Striker, Enforcer or Wolf are a good example of post 2000 bands which still have a lot to say on this genre. But I will stop here, this thread is about tubes not rock music.

 

[OctavianH]

Now more on topic but not quite. The reason I chose Tomas to build me a tube amplifier was that I've seen that he has vision. He designs tube amplifiers which are compensated (if this is the right word) by newer technology and work properly because of the new tricks. These tricks are well known for the experienced listeners of tube amps (not me) and many use CCS, MOSFETs and stuff like these. The output is a more cleaner, precise sound, more details but still, not solid state dry sound we all, the tube lovers, hate. A kind of more detailed sound, cleaner and with less distortion but with the beloved harmonics. But this is what Tomas explains much better than me on his website.

The reason I make a new post here is that I want to say again how important is the source on what we listen. We always pay a lot on tubes, on amplifiers or headphones but sometime we forget about power cleaners, filters or source optimization. I will tell you my story, which will be hopefully helpful for someone even if it is somehow off topic. I listen to music from my PC because Foobar is the most comfortable way for me to listen to hundreds of albums. I have a wall of CDs but who has time or wants to search for something? (remember, here we have a heavy metal fan). I listen for CDs from time to time but I work on my PC 12-16 hours a day, when needed, and I need my music to be close to me and I want fast searching on my collection. But as we all know, PC brings problems, USB transmission and jitter and other stuff. I have tried to improve this for the last 3-4 years trying many tricks like iFi products or Uptone USB Regen, but for me the best was the JCAT USB Femto. It is expensive, around 400 EUR, but it makes miracles. It is a PCI express USB board and you just plug it in your PC PCI Express 2.0 or newer port and power it externally via an Sbooster linear power supply or other 5V power source and thats it. Your DAC will evolve a lot, like my previously used Qutest or currently TT2. BUT JCAT released last year a new model called JCAT USB XE. It is, as expected, more expensive, but it brings a lot of improvement soundwise. Well, my post does not want to make any marketing to JCAT products, but want to express more about how important is our source, about how and what we feed to our DAC and then how much better a custom made amplifier can sound when using these simple tricks of feeding the DAC good data. I use here TT2 and MScaler. The Mscaler is known for its merits, all can read a full thread of it. But when I upgraded my JCAT USB card from the normal Femto to XE I went up to a definitely new level. It is incredible to find out that using TT2 and Eternity and Verite you can still find an improvement. Well, source matters, never forget about this guys!

Sorry for off topic, sorry for heavy metal links, somehow a thread is alive when people are alive and it is hard for me to split audio and music from the things I love. But I try to be objective, to speak about what is in the benefit of others and to bring new information, if it is possible, to help others decide better when they spend some money. We all love music otherwise we will not be here, let's hope I am helping someone sometime to make a better choice for his/hers audio system.

Now, I go back to my Striker listening session. Respect Canada for bringing us such a great band!

 

[OctavianH]

Today it was a day for music, how lucky I am. And I have listened all day to Eternity, and one of the bands that stood out was Unto Others with their lates offering Strength. But one song made me think a lot, more exactly Hell is for Children. It is a cover version of Pat Benatar.



Listen to it guys, it is not rock or heavy metal. But it says a lot about life, values and more. Never forget to protect the ones you love, never forget to report any child abuse or look on the other side when something is not right. We have amps, we have tubes and we are lucky, but this crap is happening near us and we need to take action.

 

[UntilThen]

I do not believe you. Well, mine seem legit.

Well did you try the EL156 in Eternity?

 

[UntilThen]

After 2 weeks I need a change.

I have stabilised. I hardly change tubes now. I'm mainly using EL11 with EL12 spez. This is the best combination for me. I can go weeks with this combination. I've also gotten the HD800S. Love both the HD800 and HD800S with Odyssey.

Took a picture of Odyssey on the 13th Nov 2021 because it's Odyssey 3 month anniversary. That McDonald coke is to remind me of the event.

 

[OctavianH]

Well did you try the EL156 in Eternity?

Not yet, I still wait for my adapters. But I will try it soon.

I thought a lot to get the HD800S at the offer they have now, it is a good price, but I decided to remain on Verite, I think HD800S will be too bright for me. I had in the past a headphone I liked more than HD800, the ATH-ADX5000 from Audio Technica and sold it for the same reason. Even with the most "romantic" tubes I was not getting what I expected. It is true that I never heard HD800S, but I think I have an idea about how it sounds.

 

[OctavianH]

Hmm, Monday morning and things are happening on head-fi! The new Feliks Audio 300B amp is here, nice piece of furniture with wood and everyting people like, and we have also a new headphone from Meze? A kind of Empyrean for the poor, made of plastic (I guess actualy it is magnesium)?

Well, at 2000 USD which will translate to 2000 EUR in Europe, I start to regret not trying the HD800S at almost half the price. I foresee how this thread will end: in 5 years we will not listen to anything because we will not afford any headphone and Eternity has no outputs for speakers. LOL

Later edit: Ah! They changed the mini-XLR connectors, so we need another cable for this.

 

[hpamdr]

..........I work on my PC 12-16 hours a day, when needed, and I need my music to be close to me and I want fast searching on my collection. But as we all know, PC brings problems, USB transmission and jitter and other stuff. I have tried to improve this for the last 3-4 years trying many tricks like iFi products or Uptone USB Regen, but for me the best was the JCAT USB Femto. It is expensive, around 400 EUR, but it makes miracles. It is a PCI express USB board and you just plug it in your PC PCI Express 2.0 or newer port and power it externally via an Sbooster linear power supply or other 5V power source and thats it. Your DAC will evolve a lot, like my previously used Qutest or currently TT2. BUT JCAT released last year a new model called JCAT USB XE. It is, as expected, more expensive, but it brings a lot of improvement soundwise. Well, my post does not want to make any marketing to JCAT products, but want to express more about how important is our source, about how and what we feed to our DAC and then how much better a custom made amplifier can sound when using these simple tricks of feeding the DAC good data. I use here TT2 and MScaler. The Mscaler is known for its merits, all can read a full thread of it. But when I upgraded my JCAT USB card from the normal Femto to XE I went up to a definitely new level. It is incredible to find out that using TT2 and Eternity and Verite you can still find an improvement. Well, source matters, never forget about this guys!
.........

Yes files, source and DAC matters when you have good amplifier and headphone !
All the game is to assemble a good match from DAC, Amplifier (tubes), Headphone. Chasing perfection could be a a non ending game with extensible wallet.
It turns for me that Eternity is a really good amplifier and depending of tubes you can get many flavor and sound signature which make headphone and DAC pairing much more flexible.

I'm also using my PC for work a lot unfortunately even if I have spent a lot on usb cleaner and better power supply and jitter optimization at the end I have switched to a much lighter players. About jitter and usb isolation for me it turned to be more an issue due to not have a dedicated player unit and a not so well implemented usb (isolation/clock) on DAC. So i decided to not invest anymore on my work PC for music listening. I have professional NASs where work and music data are stored which makes my life easier !

I use Rpi4 PiCore player with Pi2AES hat or daphile on a dedicated nuke PC/laptop. I have a huge collection of music file (No Roon, No Spotyfy, No Tidal...) and stream from bandcamp from time to time. Streaming from LMS from NAS with Web based UI and is easy to use from my work laptop and allows to control multiple players in home.
I've also many DACs some that measure well and some I finally likes better ! The Soekris ones sounds incredible for the bucks and matches my needs !

With most DAC in a Chip (mostly the one that measure well) I use oversampling with SRC filters and with Soekris i use no oversampling and let the DAC do it's job with some customized filters.

All this is only audible if at the end you have a good amplifier with a good headphone !

Currently I'm so happy with Eternity, Soekris 2441 and rpi4 (with SoundCheck kit) + pi2AES that I even just switch some tube combination depending of my mood and music.
I sill have other DAC/player/amps in other rooms but i do not personally listen as much as the previous one !
So finally many thanks to Thomas, Soren, Michael, Klaus to makes me pause in purchasing new stuff ... Now it time to just enjoy listening music !

 

[OctavianH]

I'm also using my PC for work a lot unfortunately even if I have spent a lot on usb cleaner and better power supply and jitter optimization at the end I have switched to a much lighter players. About jitter and usb isolation for me it turned to be more an issue due to not have a dedicated player unit and a not so well implemented usb (isolation/clock) on DAC. So i decided to not invest anymore on my work PC for music listening. I have professional NASs where work and music data are stored which makes my life easier !

I was quite surprised about the Jcat USB XE vs the previous model Femto. If I would try to describe what I hear, well, it is not about details but more about coherence of sound, if this makes any sense. But there is a big difference if you power such an USB card internally from the PC's ATX power supply (usually a MOLEX connector) or if you power it externally via a linear power supply. And now we came about the elephant in the room: it does not quite make sense to buy only the USB card, you have to buy at least an Sbooster 5V for it. Difference is quite big, audible. I have thought a lot to go for a dedicated music server, or a small Macbook on battery, but in the end I decided to continue to use a PC for the times while I work or play something while listening to music. That's it, you cannot try all of them, you need to find your best scenario.