insomniac
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Team Zopiclone
Posts: 938
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Post by insomniac on May 21, 2009 1:38:31 GMT
After reading through this thread I have to say that I think it's ridiculous how anyone can tar all the Chinese with the same brush with accusations of theft, cloning, cheats... they don't design etc. Many of these people are part of very efficient companies, which are well supported by their Government and indeed many of their customers in the countries they export to. Rather than bitch and moan, they choose to spend that time (between long working hours) studying, learning, becoming smarter and better in everything they do, maybe even finding time in between to Design stuff! All this despite general living conditions being a LOT less cushy than what we're accustomed to.
I'm well aware that shady companies/individuals exist in China, just like they exist everywhere else but, its wrong to point one big finger and condemn like that.
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Post by PinkFloyd on May 22, 2009 20:40:47 GMT
She's burning in nicely now and starting to open out a bit, the seperation on Santana's "Black magic woman" is such that you can pinpoint all the individual performers... the other day it was pretty much an "in your head" listen but, 40 hours or so in things are develping nicely I also bought on of the Banzai kits for £12 and it's a great little board for evaluating opamps: I'm going to build a small regulated PSU for this one and use it purely for "chip evaluation". I'll get a better idea of how the Banzai performs over the next couple of weeks as it'll be coming with me on holiday... will see how the battery life pans out also..... So far, though, I can't fault it, for what it is and for what it costs it's a lovely little amp to have in your armoury. I am still preferring it over the Graham Slee Voyager, it just seems to have more "balls" to it.... sure the Voyager is a bit more refined and honed around the edges but sometimes at the expense of the music.... the Banzai is more a warts and all type presentation and screaming guitar notes really do scream through this amp, there are no rose tinted ear muffs supplied! Bass is beautifully extended, the bass line on Santana's "Oye Como Va" is both musical and toe curlingly deep... full yet well balanced.... with the Voyager you need to switch the contour circuit on to get anywhere close to this kind of bass, in fact you have to have the Voyager's contour circuit on most of the time otherwise it sounds pretty feeble (lacking body)... it's contour circuit just plumps everything up nicely. The Banzai can be a bit crude in places but, usually, this is indicative of a poor recording.... it amplifies what you feed it so if you're feeding it crap then it will amplify pure crap into your ears. The music I am feeding it via the ipod was ripped from CD using Apple Lossless.... far from "perfect" but better than MP3. I'll hook up some phono sockets on the "bare bones" Banzai board and see how it fares from output of a CDP player........
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Post by jeffc on May 23, 2009 0:33:08 GMT
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Post by rossman on May 23, 2009 7:40:58 GMT
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Post by puffin on May 26, 2009 20:48:20 GMT
I got my blue jelly today. The volume pot appears to be faulty as it cuts off one channel after it is turned to about the 10oclock position.
Mike. Do you find there is a lot of loud cracking noise when you insert the audio connection. Mine does this at both connection ends (MP3 player and the jelly IN socket)
Having just made a very good sounding Cmoy it's a bit disappointing. I can probably fix it. I will email the seller and see what he says.
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Post by PinkFloyd on May 27, 2009 14:03:27 GMT
I got my blue jelly today. The volume pot appears to be faulty as it cuts off one channel after it is turned to about the 10oclock position. Mike. Do you find there is a lot of loud cracking noise when you insert the audio connection. Mine does this at both connection ends (MP3 player and the jelly IN socket) Having just made a very good sounding Cmoy it's a bit disappointing. I can probably fix it. I will email the seller and see what he says. Hi Puffin, Sorry to hear you're having problems with it. Mine does not crackle at all, no, e-mail the seller and get him to send you another one. Does yours have two capacitors fitted or not? Mike.
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Post by puffin on May 27, 2009 17:35:42 GMT
Yes it does, but the power IN looks wrong to me. I only got it yesterday and so I need to have a good look, but something is not right. Nice box though!
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Post by PinkFloyd on May 27, 2009 18:22:55 GMT
Yes it does, but the power IN looks wrong to me. I only got it yesterday and so I need to have a good look, but something is not right. Nice box though! The guy who sells them (Michael) seems pretty on the ball so I'd ask him to send another one over to you,,,, not much good if you have to fix it yourself is it?
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Post by jeffc on May 28, 2009 10:32:27 GMT
Guys, My cute little black Bonzai amp arrived this morning and on a quick listen before work you can believe Mike's summary of this things SQ. Build quality looks excellent too, no probs with any vol pot so puffin must have been very unlucky. Left it on with what I thought were charged 280 mAh NiMH batteries and no signs of LED lights on when I got home 9 h later so I will need to look further into battery life. Good thing though is that I bought the $34US version, didn't see the one advertised with caps and cable, but it arrived with caps installed as well as what looks to be a quite a high quality 2M coax interconnect with 3.5 mm plugs which is just what the doctor ordered to plug it into my battery-powered Trends UD10 USB DAC. My bet is these cheaper units might disappear soon for the ones advertised with caps and interconnect, so if you're thinking of jumping on one of these, you could go the cheaper one now with fingers crossed it arrives like mine with the extra goodies. More on SQ later. cheers.. jeffc
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Post by PinkFloyd on May 28, 2009 11:08:29 GMT
Guys, My cute little black Bonzai amp arrived this morning and on a quick listen before work you can believe Mike's summary of this things SQ. Build quality looks excellent too, no probs with any vol pot so puffin must have been very unlucky. Left it on with what I thought were charged 280 mAh NiMH batteries and no signs of LED lights on when I got home 9 h later so I will need to look further into battery life. Good thing though is that I bought the $34US version, didn't see the one advertised with caps and cable, but it arrived with caps installed as well as what looks to be a quite a high quality 2M coax interconnect with 3.5 mm plugs which is just what the doctor ordered to plug it into my battery-powered Trends UD10 USB DAC. My bet is these cheaper units might disappear soon for the ones advertised with caps and interconnect, so if you're thinking of jumping on one of these, you could go the cheaper one now with fingers crossed it arrives like mine with the extra goodies. More on SQ later. cheers.. jeffc Hi Jeff, Mine also came with the caps and interconnect so maybe all of them will come like this? Glad you like it and it'll be interesting to see how long your 280 mah batteries last for.......
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Post by puffin on May 28, 2009 20:48:06 GMT
I got in touch with the seller via ebay and they are sending another one.
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Post by codefu on May 31, 2009 16:53:37 GMT
Hi Mike. Those are great photos of the amp. I am really glad you like it. I am working hard on improvements and will have a rechargeable version ready next week. I am also looking into some differences between the JRC4556AD and the JRC4560D. Again great photos and I am so glad to hear that you like it. I have a new aluminum case that I can powder coat for a rock solid enclosure. I will email pics soon. Any ideas or thoughts on that? I really like the clear acrylics, but I was thinking of offering both. It is funny to see the argument about things being made in Asia. There are so many people here from the U.K. making things. You would not believe the amount of factories. And Thailand is very very different from China. The people here live for "Sanuk" or fun. Even at work...everyone is singing and listening to music. Can you believe almost all Seagate hard drives are made here. Nice. I really think the King is a great man and really looks out for the well being of Thai people. Granted, they aren't rich....but by the looks of things these days...having a little is still better than being in debt. Thailand has zero national debt and the King has a philosophy called Sufficiency Economy....just meaning that having enough is sufficient. There is a lot more to it...but it is a great philosophy that is in line with the Buddhist "middle path" approach to life. Not to take the high road or low road.....but the middle road. I have listed a new kit on eBay that you can find by searching "v2 cmoy headphone". It is using the JRC4560D and I added 2 Elna 470mF 25V capacitors. Hope all is good and sorry it took so long to visit the forum. I am very impressed, and I will be a regular guest for sure. Talk soon. -mike d
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2009 20:57:25 GMT
Sawatdee krup! Sabai dee mai? I'm interested in your in your "rechargeable jelly" I was already looking at the FiiO5, but suspect yours may be superior by design. Will it be more compact than the standard version? Chok dee, Chris
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Post by jeffc on Jun 1, 2009 12:01:02 GMT
Hi Codefu, I have recently purchased a black jelly amp and I must congratulate you in that it looks and sounds great. All the email responses also made the purchase a very pleasurable experience and nice touches like this can be hard to come by these days. You'll do well. If you're after feedback, a couple of things. Mounting the 470uf Elna smoothing caps on their side or maybe better still, under the PCB, would make opamp swapping much easier and leave space also for a small bypass caps if anyone was interested in tweaking without disassembly. Also in the black jelly amp, which I thought looked mafia mean with the black knob and all , the internal LED could be omitted for obvious reasons that the light doesn't shine through the acrylic. Other than that, it would be a really nice touch to have a jack also hooked up at the switch and wiring arrangement to switch to a battery charger when in the off position. Haven't looked at how or whether this could be done easily but it would save a lot of opening and closing of the lid. Sounds like you have something like this in mind already for a future model. And as this place is keen on SQ comparisons, I'm sure the folk here will be interested to hear you impressions on SQ difference between the 2 JRC opamps. cheers.. Jeff
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Post by puffin on Jun 6, 2009 18:50:30 GMT
I got my replacement blue jelly today. Works fine. They want me to send the duff one back, but that is going to cost me money to send it to America. Any views anyone?
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Post by clausdk on Jun 6, 2009 22:15:11 GMT
If he sent you one free of charge the polite and correct way would be to send the faulty one back.
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Post by puffin on Jun 7, 2009 7:06:32 GMT
clausdk. I was minded to send it back anyway. They say that they will refund the postage. So back it goes.
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Post by PinkFloyd on Jun 7, 2009 21:43:14 GMT
I got my replacement blue jelly today. Works fine. They want me to send the duff one back, but that is going to cost me money to send it to America. Any views anyone? I think Mike will want it back to examine it, he builds them by hand from the ground up and is very conscientious so will be concerned as to "why" this particular one has failed.... I don't think he wants it back to reuse the components, it wouldn't be worth the postage costs..... Good customer service if you ask me
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Post by puffin on Jun 8, 2009 6:40:13 GMT
My only concern was that I removed the board, as having built a Cmoy from scratch, I was fairly sure that the bad cracking noise and pot problems were due to a bad ground.
Having re-assembled it to send back, and re-soldered the capacitor pcb pins,it now works as it should! The pot seems very slightly biased to the left channel. I will explain this to Mike (although I see he has started to post on here and may see this)
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Post by charleyphogg on Jun 8, 2009 10:29:45 GMT
It is funny to see the argument about things being made in Asia. -mike d I believe I'm the original a**hole that posted that, and my thoughts still stand, but for reasons not clear in my post. I have refrained from commenting because I do not want to make this into a political issue nor do I want to hijack a thread. I was unclear and out of line, and I figured it best to let it be, no matter how unclear, or unfair I unintentionally came across. I will say this once in the public domain, after I have said whatever it is I'm going to say, take it up with me in pm or wherever. I do not have anything against any group of people, I don't care who you are, we are all on this rock to share, plain and simple. But in doing so, if you ( government ) want to play on the world wide stage, then you best ought to adhere to those rules, until doing so, I don't care what you ( government ) do, you will never be someone I respect, or will do business with. To spell it out plain and simply, I have no issue with any Asian people, my issue is with the Chinese government. I apologize for offending anyone, that was not my intent . Back to your regularly scheduled programs....... edit: welcome to the ghrotto codefu
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pjc68
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Post by pjc68 on Aug 8, 2009 0:11:13 GMT
Iv`e been looking at one of these banzai jelly amps on ebay, i was thinking about buying one for my father for xmas. also a good pair of portable headphones like the igrado or the koss portapro. Has anyone heard these phones on this amp. My father has a rechargable sony walkman portable cd player and a pair of sennheiser hd470 headphones, i would be gratefull for any info on this subject
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pjc68
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Post by pjc68 on Aug 8, 2009 1:09:37 GMT
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pjc68
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Posts: 721
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Post by pjc68 on Aug 8, 2009 1:10:06 GMT
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Post by puffin on Aug 8, 2009 16:30:34 GMT
I have both. The two are a pretty good combination. However the iGrado's are not very comfortable IMO. I couldn't wear them for more than 30 mins without them feeling uncomfortable. I tooke them apart and modified an old pair of Sony's to accept the drivers. This is a standard headband style. These are much better and I could wear them for hours. I have tried my mates Grado SR60s (which are said to have the same drivers) and these seem sterile in comparison.
The BlueJelly is quite a bright and forthright performer. I have not tried changing the op-amp yet, but another might give a different presentation.
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pjc68
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Post by pjc68 on Aug 8, 2009 21:09:20 GMT
Thanks for the info Puffin. What are the koss portaprto SQ like on the bluejelly, are they more comfy than the igrado, my father has sennheiser hd470 phones which are not bad, but was thinking of the impedence issue, the igrado are 32ohm and the koss are 60ohm. What is the best opamp to put in the blue jelly, any info on phones, upgrades etc would be helpfull. pjc68
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