[wink]

You don't really know how good Stax earspeakers or the YGGY can sound until you've heard them through a KG designed amp......

This needs repeating.....

 

[Pokemonn]

My dream setup is ....

Chord Dave + MSB Select headphone amplifier + 007/009

 

[Music Alchemist]

My dream setup is ....

Chord Dave + MSB Select headphone amplifier + 007/009

That amp can only be paired with the MSB Select DAC, so it would cost at least $122,000, and that's before getting into the upgrades for the DAC, which can add over $30,000 to the cost.

 

[Pokemonn]

oh i didnt know that... Thanks for your input.

 

[Whitigir]

My dream setup is ....

Chord Dave + MSB Select headphone amplifier + 007/009

And I can tell that you are only dreaming of it because of the pricing ? Technically speaking, KG designs are the gold standards, and I don't know how a $30k amp is justified. If you want something solid state and powerful to the teeths ? There is KG Circlotron, and it can get as large as a fish tank.

 

[Pokemonn]

Thanks for your advice Whitigir. KGSSHV Carbon is better than MSB amps?

 

[Whitigir]

Thanks for your advice Whitigir. KGSSHV Carbon is better than MSB amps?

I can not tell what goes inside those MSB, I can only tell you from what I know of KG designs. Every basic principles for a great Amplifiers are inside the KG most recent designs with different flavors, hence there are many different designs and power output. Then we have the very well known T2

 

[336881]

I owned an SCD-1 years ago, and found its Redbook CD performance to be very mediocre, even compared to a Meridian G08. A Yggy with any decent digital transport (44.1/16 lossless PCM files) would absolutely crush it; no comparison. However the old Sony sounded excellent with SACD -- and I haven't yet found satisfaction on the Yggy with DSD files. Also it looks like junk compared to an SCD-1, G08, Chord (especially), whatever -- lol.

The Chord gear looks awesome, but it's a very large investment, and how long will it remain in the top echelon? Things are still moving very fast in digital.

Man I'm sorry but I can't wrap my head around this still. Are you talking about the cd's I used to get from streetside and sam goody back in the 90's? I had around 150 alternative, electronic and rap cd's I bought from them and I paid a very pretty penny for them. Despite spending all that money the s.q. was never anything to write home about. 99.9% of them were victims of the loudness wars and piss poorly mastered. I can think of only one or two cd's off the top of my head that actually had good s.q. Even my dad's classic rock cd's were nothing special.

At least from my perspective the yggy can "crush" the scd-1 all day long with redbook as my ears can't tell the difference between a $50 portable cd player and a $10k cd player with that overly loud crap.

 

[336881]

For future reference, I don't care about esoteric CD formats and the like; I only want to reproduce my existing music collection in the highest quality.

So let me get this strait. You can save up your schillings for a Blu mk2 research it and talk smack about its measurements. But going to Steve Hoffman's forums and cherry picking daves list of mfsl gold cd's is too much work? I'm a gear head but you just gave that name a whole new meaning imo.

 

[Music Alchemist]

Man I'm sorry but I can't wrap my head around this still. Are you talking about the cd's I used to get from streetside and sam goody back in the 90's? I had around 150 alternative, electronic and rap cd's I bought from them and I paid a very pretty penny for them. Despite spending all that money the s.q. was never anything to write home about. 99.9% of them were victims of the loudness wars and piss poorly mastered. I can think of only one or two cd's off the top of my head that actually had good s.q. Even my dad's classic rock cd's were nothing special.

At least from my perspective the yggy can "crush" the scd-1 all day long with redbook as my ears can't tell the difference between a $50 portable cd player and a $10k cd player with that overly loud crap.

Looks like you need to expand your music collection. (Or at least listen to more CDs in general.) Every type of music out there is available on CD, including very high quality acoustic recordings. And in my experience, when you convert a hi-res file to the lossless Red Book CD standard (16-bit / 44.1 kHz) with a program like dBpoweramp, the two files sound identical, even with ultra-high-end headphones. (This article covers a lot of information on that topic.) So it's the production process (recording, mastering, etc.) that really matters. It's like the vinyl vs digital debate. Digital is capable of far higher performance (documentation) but since many versions of albums available on CD or as digital downloads have botched production quality, the vinyl version can still be better.

So let me get this strait. You can save up your schillings for a Blu mk2 research it and talk smack about its measurements. But going to Steve Hoffman's forums and cherry picking daves list of mfsl gold cd's is too much work? I'm a gear head but you just gave that name a whole new meaning imo.

I'm saying that the production quality is what matters most in terms of sound, not the medium/format. I looked at the lists and don't care much about it. Those gold CDs are still Red Book, anyway. Put the same recording/master on a standard CD, rip both CDs to lossless, and the data will be identical.

On a related note, I've been a musician since the early '90s. I know all about the quality of live sound and how much of it is lost in the production process.

At the end of the day, it's the music itself that matters. I'd rather listen to a song I like in lower quality than a song I dislike in higher quality. That said, I already invested five figures into my music collection, so I'm not looking for more music at the moment; my focus is now on the gear side of things to make the music sound better.

 

[mulveling]

Man I'm sorry but I can't wrap my head around this still. Are you talking about the cd's I used to get from streetside and sam goody back in the 90's? I had around 150 alternative, electronic and rap cd's I bought from them and I paid a very pretty penny for them. Despite spending all that money the s.q. was never anything to write home about. 99.9% of them were victims of the loudness wars and piss poorly mastered. I can think of only one or two cd's off the top of my head that actually had good s.q. Even my dad's classic rock cd's were nothing special.

At least from my perspective the yggy can "crush" the scd-1 all day long with redbook as my ears can't tell the difference between a $50 portable cd player and a $10k cd player with that overly loud crap.

Sorry man, I actually owned the SCD-1 and yes, it kinda sucked with most of the CDs out there -- by today's digital playback standards. I'm not going to buy a player based on a limited catalog of special gold CDs. The Yggy sounds VERY good with most PCM files, even rips from CDs like the ones I played on the SCD-1. The loudness-war stuff is a thing, sure, but it's become so overused as to be an excuse for crappy sounding gear.

I think it's foolish to buy one of the behemoth Sony units today; the spare parts and ability to repair them is evaporating, and the new DACs are extremely good. I have a turntable and vinyl collection for the main rig anyways.

 

[Whitigir]

Parts extinctions is not a fun thing to deal with

 

[336881]

Parts extinctions is not a fun thing to deal with

Yes, yes it does. Why I said do it backwards and get a laser first. A laser and remote for my cd player set me back $400 and will last me 10 years. Way less than tidal. Even with the collection of cd's less than tidal. Also the players I have mentioned have a track record of lasting quite a while. Who's to say these new dacs do not crap out in ten years time? Some of them come with un obtainium chips as well.

 

[336881]

Looks like you need to expand your music collection. (Or at least listen to more CDs in general.) Every type of music out there is available on CD, including very high quality acoustic recordings. And in my experience, when you convert a hi-res file to the lossless Red Book CD standard (16-bit / 44.1 kHz) with a program like dBpoweramp, the two files sound identical, even with ultra-high-end headphones. (This article covers a lot of information on that topic.) So it's the production process (recording, mastering, etc.) that really matters. It's like the vinyl vs digital debate. Digital is capable of far higher performance (documentation) but since many versions of albums available on CD or as digital downloads have botched production quality, the vinyl version can still be better.



I'm saying that the production quality is what matters most in terms of sound, not the medium/format. I looked at the lists and don't care much about it. Those gold CDs are still Red Book, anyway. Put the same recording/master on a standard CD, rip both CDs to lossless, and the data will be identical.

On a related note, I've been a musician since the early '90s. I know all about the quality of live sound and how much of it is lost in the production process.

At the end of the day, it's the music itself that matters. I'd rather listen to a song I like in lower quality than a song I dislike in higher quality. That said, I already invested five figures into my music collection, so I'm not looking for more music at the moment; my focus is now on the gear side of things to make the music sound better.

Coo...Sometimes I get carried away with new toys.

 

[intlsubband]

This is an interesting old thread, not sure if any of the protagonists are still around.

I wonder how you went with your L700/ 009 thoughts. Did you get one or the other?

I am just starting the electrostat route myself. I have a nice old SRM-313 connected to my setup and a couple of headphones on the way - the L700 and the Koss/Drop 95x with a Stax plug. Looking forward to playing around with these two, and I imagine I would ultimately only keep one.

I found some of the DAC discussions here quite interesting too. I tried Yggi only at head-fi meets and didn't really have enough time to form an impression, but there wasn't really an immediately obvious one, apart from its sheer size... At this point in time you can find yesteryear's top DACs for good prices, and despite tech changes, some of these sound every bit as good of anything else that's out there. I am using the Antelope Zodiac Gold at the heart of my system - it is the best DAC I ever had in my system (to my ears) which includes some bit-perfect DACs. The Zodiac's other main plus is the almost unlimited potential as a preamp.

Getting the electrostats components now make it a complete, full-range headphone system - apart from the 313 it outputs to an Auralic Taurus mk2 amp, and is being fed by a dedicated computer with digital library, a Denon CD transport, and a Sony turntable. The L700 will join the LCD-XC and HD-800S as a complete headphone system.