[Armaegis]

I don't remember who was asking about pro mixers, but the Long & McQuade on Pembina has a couple used Mackie mixers for really cheap (there was one for $50 which is great steal).

 

[-iKa-]

I just got one of two orders from china in (Only 1 week of waiting! (But I did pay around 100 for shipping so it makes sense)) mostly nice cables, and I think having a nice power supply and better pwoer cable actually made a difference in terms of the noise floor.

 

[Armaegis]

I have the iFi Pro iCAN in for review this week if anyone wants to come to check it out.

 

[Velomane]

How long will you have it? What are your initial impressions?

 

[Armaegis]

I should have it for a week and a bit.
 
Initial impressions as a pure amp... it's decent. No contest with any of your big boys though. It has a whole ton of features, but I honestly haven't liked any of them so far except for maybe the lowest bass boost setting. The rest are interesting to play with, and they product interesting effects, but ultimately they all degrade the sound quality to my ears. The tube modes are not neutral, and steer heavily towards the stereotypical tubey sound with higher harmonic distortion content. It makes it "fun" at first listen, but again loses out on accuracy.
 
Testing so far has only been with my HE-6, which is not necessarily a fair test for an amp. I'll try the HD650 and some of my others in the next day or so.

 

[Nexolek]

Oooh interesting! Apparently the Tube+ option has a decent effect on sound (at least according to some reviews I've read). I've been eyeing this thing for a while actually. Might have to come check it out!
 
Edit: Completely forgot to say thanks for hosting the meet Armaegis! It was great to put some faces to names and hear so many different things. Looking forward to the next one!

 

[Armaegis]

  Oooh interesting! Apparently the Tube+ option has a decent effect on sound (at least according to some reviews I've read). I've been eyeing this thing for a while actually. Might have to come check it out!

 
Just let me know when you'd like to come down to. My schedule is fairly open at the moment.
 
So far I think the regular Tube mode is better than Tube+, but I've also only used it in balanced mode so far which I think cancels out a lot of the "nice harmonics" of the tube+ mode.

 

[Nexolek]

   
Just let me know when you'd like to come down to. My schedule is fairly open at the moment.
 
So far I think the regular Tube mode is better than Tube+, but I've also only used it in balanced mode so far which I think cancels out a lot of the "nice harmonics" of the tube+ mode.

Same here. Perhaps tomorrow? I'll send a PM.

 

[Velomane]

Thanks for the report, Armaeigis. For once you're not enabling my vice.

 

[Armaegis]

  Thanks for the report, Armaeigis. For once you're not enabling my vice.

 
Well you do have an Yggy incoming, so I thought I'd take it easy on you

 

[Armaegis]

There are rumours that the Sennheiser HD650 may be discontinued soon. Here's a used one at a decent price:
http://www.canuckaudiomart.com/details/649337565-sennheiser-hd650-headphone/

 

[ri-fi]

Quick question for the group: where does everyone stand on powercable shielding? Needed, uneeded, or system dependent. What I gather from my research is that sources benefit more from shielding, and shielding an amplifier only truly makes sense if it will sit very close to other cables. Particularly signal cables. Would love to hear others opinions. I think there is some merit to cable voodoo, but exactly what is providing the upgrade isn't always easy to pin down. Thanks.

 

[-iKa-]

I believe that if you have dirty wall power you have to have some sort of power filter to lower your noise floor. If you plan on running power cables over signal cables (or vice versa), you probably need shielded power cables, otherwise, there's honestly no need. Multiple power cables running over each other should be fine, as they are all running at the same frequency, so even if they distort each other's signals, the change shouldn't affect sound. 

 

[Armaegis]

Shielding can be a mixed bag depending on application. Some of the things to be wary of are the shields acting like antennas, and adding capacitance to the cable. There's also a difference between electrical and magnetic shielding.
 
For power cables, shielding is not really necessary from the concept of keeping the power "clean". The magnitude of the waveform from the wall is ridiculously huge compared to what could possibly ever be induced by a "noisy" environment. The power supply in your device is already going to rectify and regulate everything coming in; if it can't handle a bit of scratch that's literally a million times lower in magnitude, then you've spent your money poorly and should probably buy something with a more robust psu. You've also got a hundred feet of copper wiring running through your walls going from the panel to your outlet and passing near a fridge or air conditioner at the same time. Adding a shield for the last couple feet isn't really going to make a difference. Capacitance in a power cable is also highly undesirable as this will restrict actual power flow, though this concept is less important for something like a dac that doesn't draw much power. One potential application of shielding on a power cable though would be to try and minimize "noise" from getting out, but shielding doesn't quite work as well for containing as it does for, well, shielding.
 
Shielding on interconnects is another matter however, since the signal levels here are much lower and closer in magnitude to what could potentially be induced by noise. Interconnect signals are also typically amplified, meaning any noise picked up will get worse coming out the other end of your device. In this case, shielding is useful as long as you didn't turn it into an antenna. The downside again though is capacitance, which will interact with the load impedance and create a low-pass filter, meaning you could potentially reduce your frequency response at the upper frequencies (there's additional issues with digital transmission as well).
 
Really the best practice is just to ensure ample space between cables. Long tight parallel runs should be avoided if possible; crossing at 90 degrees or haphazardly at odd random angles is better. Try to keep high level signals like power and speaker cables away from low level signal interconnects. If you have concerns about your environment harming your interconnects, then shielded balanced cables are the way to go.

 

[ri-fi]

-iKa- and Armaegis Much appreciated. Your comments reinforce my initial understanding. Thanks.