insanitybeard
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Post by insanitybeard on Sept 7, 2007 9:47:16 GMT
So you reckon the RS2 is the pick of the bunch Miguel? I'd be interested to compare the GSthous' against the RS1s, RS2s and SR325s. I was guilty of paying too much attention to the industry reviews, same with the earmax. And I freely admit, just as Mike said the earmax isn't worth 650 quid, at least in terms of quality of sound.
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Post by slwiser on Sept 17, 2007 22:51:47 GMT
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Post by gns on Sept 17, 2007 23:11:44 GMT
It's no good. I see I need to make eye candy and I'm not getting rich by not doing that. This is why it has taken me nearly 10 years to get GSP Audio only just established. Great SQ is NOT the way to go - styling is everything! It is obviously best to use ancient technology derived from the development of the electric incandescent light bulb, after all, because the electrons flow in a vacuum it sounds better, and if you include a DAC better still, because as the BBC's Tomorrows World announced at the dawning of CD: "because it is digital it sounds better". Obviously I am a sad old hippie by doing what I do. I will never taste the fruits of the Gods by making great music from plain boxes. I need to embellish with the shit from the golden male cow. I need to worship idols. I need to taste the forbidden fruits of crapola. Bullocks! I'm off to bed. Lorry containing two pallets of packaging to unload at the crack of dawn. Suffer little children for thou shall inherit the World. What a load of ballcocks this shit hole planet is!
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insanitybeard
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My head feels like a frisby, like a football.....
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Post by insanitybeard on Sept 17, 2007 23:23:56 GMT
To be honest Graham the Earmax I bought looks great, the Solo is very nicely made and finished just not so funky to look at. BUT.... ever since I got the Solo it's been the amp that's powered my headphones. I havn't bothered with the others. Nuff said. Keep up the good work.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2007 0:29:34 GMT
"and if you include a DAC better still, because as the BBC's Tomorrows World announced at the dawning of CD: "because it is digital it sounds better".
I presume that people requesting an inbuilt DAC want to use their Solo with a PC. In that case, why not get a half reasonable soundcard, and feed analogue into the Solo ? If people think that a simple DAC included with the headphone amplifier is going to equal a decent standalone DAC, then they are heading for disappointment. Good Soundcards are relatively inexpensive today, compared with the premium price that a headphone amplifier of the SQ of a Solo, combined with even a simple inbuilt DAC would cost. Besides, the PC USB standard does not support full 2 way digital communication for jitter correction etc. either. The better soundcards have quite good SPDIF out, and can also be used for creating higher resolution audio projects. You could for example (Graham is going to hate this !!!) use a decent Turntable and a quality phono preamp (perhaps a GSP Audio product ?) and convert the vinyl collection to 48KHZ 24 bit files. These could then be burned to DVD, and played back on a good quality DVD player for normal use , and the vinyl used for when you want the absolute best quality.
SandyK
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Post by slwiser on Sept 18, 2007 2:07:53 GMT
It's no good. I see I need to make eye candy and I'm not getting rich by not doing that. This is why it has taken me nearly 10 years to get GSP Audio only just established. Great SQ is NOT the way to go - styling is everything! It is obviously best to use ancient technology derived from the development of the electric incandescent light bulb, after all, because the electrons flow in a vacuum it sounds better, and if you include a DAC better still, because as the BBC's Tomorrows World announced at the dawning of CD: "because it is digital it sounds better". Obviously I am a sad old hippie by doing what I do. I will never taste the fruits of the Gods by making great music from plain boxes. I need to embellish with the shit from the golden male cow. I need to worship idols. I need to taste the forbidden fruits of crapola. Bullocks! I'm off to bed. Lorry containing two pallets of packaging to unload at the crack of dawn. Suffer little children for thou shall inherit the World. What a load of ballcocks this shit hole planet is! It is amazing how much you understand end users now.
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Post by dc on Sept 18, 2007 4:24:22 GMT
It is amazing how much you understand end users now. and yet he does nothing about it! I got one, an grateful Perhaps Graham should develop a nice casing and audio buzz words, and then leave the plain jane product for us rockgrotto members that's a thought!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2007 16:13:19 GMT
I used to work for a high end hifi shop here in the States 1979-1983, sold McIntosh, KEF, Bryston, IMF, Bang&Olufse, etc. I remember one night a couple of us got together after hours and decided we'd hook up everything and compare everything in the store and pick the best combination, irregardless of cost. Result: Tandberg 2080 receiver, a pair of Phase Research speakers (now gone, but a transmission line 8in paper cone woofer/2inch Audax baffleless tweeter). Source was reel to reel tape. So, in the company of systems costing into the 20 thousands of dollars, we (all) loved the then $1200 Tandberg and the $1100 Phase Research speakers. Hands down.
The point, I guess, is that expensive isn't always better. The little test above was also not determined on personal preference, we all agreed that what we heard was more music with the winners. We, of course were a bit flabbergasted, and yet, next day, we had to give the customer what he/she wanted, but in the back of our minds, we knew where the true excellence lived.
Just a thought, John
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Post by gns on Sept 19, 2007 4:09:07 GMT
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Post by slwiser on Sept 19, 2007 22:56:44 GMT
High end for me is found at a nominal 1000$ range. At this point I start not being able to tell any differences in sound between some very nice equipment. At this point differences can be heard but is one better than another? I think at this level and any higher personal preferences and expectations come into play. And I think that beauty of a piece of equipment does make one think it can sound better. That is just the way we are built. It is also true if one generally spends more they are almost compelled to hear a "better sound" for the more expensive piece not that they actually could in a true blind test unless the sound differences are pronounced.
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leo
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Post by leo on Sept 20, 2007 0:36:06 GMT
Talking about DAC's ... I am starting to enjoy the Non Oversampling DAC's more. Someting based on the 1541 or 1543. Oh! I almost forgot: TUBES RULE! One of the dacs I once built was NOS dual TDA1541A's, passive I/V with 6C45PI's used as a buffer, one of the best sounding dacs I tried if I'm honest, only reason I ditched it was it looked a mass of wiring, pain in the arse to set up etc but it sounded sooo good
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2007 2:14:43 GMT
"Talking about DAC's ... I am starting to enjoy the Non Oversampling DAC's more. Someting based on the 1541 or 1543" Miguel You are getting better ! At least 1 out of 2 correct ain't bad. Alex
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2007 1:20:02 GMT
Miguel O.K. then. You actually got 2 out of 2 incorrect. Now with apologies to Leo, who loves his non oversampling DAC with a 1541, there are explanations elsewhere as to why oversampling DACs are better. One of the main reasons that they are better, is the fact that they permit a much more accurate phase response due to much gentler filtering , instead of the brick wall filters needed with non oversampling DACs. Before someone like Leo gets agitated, I know that some people do away with the brickwall filters and argue that if the artifacts are way above human hearing range it doesn't matter. It does matter, as it is letting all those HF artifacts into the amplifier, rather akin to people who don't use decent shielded interconnects let RF into their equipment, again on the basis that it can't be heard, so it doesn't matter. As Graham explained very recently when awarding the Cuga leads, it does affect the equipment. Alex
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leo
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Post by leo on Sept 21, 2007 8:24:41 GMT
I don't get agitated mate its actually quite easy to stick a digital filter on the I2S lines, I don't bother with the old double crown now because to my ears it just sounds better without it, for the digital filtering and upsampling I leave that to the newer PCM1794 in the other dac, two totally different dacs with their own flavour. Horses for courses as they say
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rowuk
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Pain in the ass, ex-patriot yank living in the land of sauerkraut
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Post by rowuk on Sept 21, 2007 14:55:56 GMT
My first post here! I play trumpet with several different orchestras and 3 months ago bought my first serious headphones the AKG-701. I tried about 10 pair of different ones, but these sounded to me to be closer to what I hear live. At first we plugged the headphones into some "high end" CD player by Pioneer. No joy there. Then they connected a UREI mix board and I got a taste of what headphones can do! In the mean time I have bought the BT-928, and did the mods recommended here - as well as building a solid power supply. After break in, the 701s sound very, very good. I have built most of my hifi and am very happy. This thread about "High End" is very similar to what gets posted on the trumpet forums. The members that can hear the grass grow (and are annoyed by that very audible background noise) try to convince the rest of us about what we are missing. To be honest, when I listen to the recordings that I make of my symphonic or chamber music, the hardware becomes pretty insignificant. The real power is in the playing (especially mine of course). Sometimes I wish the resolution was tunable - especially when I crack a note. From what I have read while lurking here, Graham Slee (among others) seems to be plugged in to what works. I ask him: if Rohs and CEE and your customers pockets would let you get away with anything, how expensive would "the best that you are capable of" cost. Could you imagine an improvement to the Solo (or a completely different amp) if 1,000 (5,000) Quid was the target price instead of 399? I am not asking if this is necessary, just if he can imagine a no holds barred approach giving (somewhat) better results. We have these arguments concerning trumpets too. The price span for professional instruments is $1,500 - $12,000. In this case, the $12,000 is not necessary, but that much better!
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Nigel
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Post by Nigel on Sept 21, 2007 15:03:19 GMT
Welcome to Rock Grotto rowuk. Nothing like blowing your own trumpet, sorry couldn't resist.
That's a great question though & it will be interesting to read Graham's reply.
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Post by gns on Sept 21, 2007 19:28:01 GMT
From what I have read while lurking here, Graham Slee (among others) seems to be plugged in to what works. I ask him: if Rohs and CEE and your customers pockets would let you get away with anything, how expensive would "the best that you are capable of" cost. Could you imagine an improvement to the Solo (or a completely different amp) if 1,000 (5,000) Quid was the target price instead of 399? I am not asking if this is necessary, just if he can imagine a no holds barred approach giving (somewhat) better results. We have these arguments concerning trumpets too. The price span for professional instruments is $1,500 - $12,000. In this case, the $12,000 is not necessary, but that much better! Firstly, I extend a warm welcome to you "rowuk". Karl Marx in my opinion was vastly misunderstood. His approach was to charge only for the material worth of the product plus the labour costs entailed and the overhead that allowed continuance of the enterprise. Although profit was to be discouraged, that last proviso replaced it, such that prices would not become totally ridiculous thus ensuring a level playing field for all. Therefore, if it had taken 105,000 GBP to develop a WEEE/CE compliant design, it would have been OK from his point of view to charge a selling price that ensured pay-back of that cost. In the case of the Era Gold REFLEX phono preamp and its derivative, the Revelation, the resulting prices are currently 620 GBP and 740 GBP respectively. If there was the profit of which Marx detested, I'm sure the prices of these products would be double! So you can now all label me a Marxist. Provided I can afford the things my family needs (including what they need for their sanity), and I can make that money from the products I design, then the price should be dependent on Marxist philosophy. Would the 12,000 trumpet be derived from Marxist values? Who is so good that he can make a trumpet 12 times better than the man who makes it for 1,000? Proviso! The level playing field exists? However, is the true cost 1,000 or is it 12,000? If the true cost is 12,000, then the 1,000 trumpet is unfair. The market forces of the "wicked Witch of the West" dictates a distributor profit of 50% and a dealer profit of 67% along with a Government profit of 17.5%. Take that off 1,000 GBP: 1,000/1.175 = 851.07; 851.07/1.67 = 509.63; 509.63/1.5 = 339.76 GBP I think that (1,000 GBP) would buy you the "control" preamplifier I am embarking on designing. But could I afford that? No! So looking at Marxist philosophy, luxury goods would exist? I don't know... I could possibly see the distributor needing a 40% profit (28.6% margin) on specialist stuff where it costs to hold stock, and for the dealer who has to demo the gear for about 7 x 1hr demos to sell it, involving tyre kickers and people who are not sure what colour they want, provided he isn't leasing his shop from a Yuppie property developer (who would cease to exist under Marxist law), would need 55%. Thus with Government "stealth tax" VAT, the selling price would be 866.30 GBP. I could still not afford this, therefore Marxism would allow the sale of luxury goods. But by Marxism, nobody would be able to afford it based on the Monetarism that we have today, which has caused us all to be paid far less than our worth - after all, that's where Western profit comes from That and cheap Far Eastern produced goods. Therefore the real reason for there being a "middle" High-End, is Monetarism. The thing that "hides behind the curtain pulling your lever" (literally) Back to the question... I have to sell to live. If nobody can afford what I have for sale I don't live. So rather than trying to make a headphone amp that costs more than the Solo, I'm trying to make a better headphone amplifier all the time without increasing prices to silly extremes. This can be done through a thing called learning. But learning isn't instant, and in the meantime I have to live. And if you can wait until I have learnt everything there is to learn, then the price of the absolute best (from me that is), will be identical to what the Solo costs today, plus inflation (but infinity is a long, long way). It is my job to remove chunks of cost out of the equation if I want more in my pocket. And there are numerous ways of doing that - maybe not easy ways, but they're there
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rowuk
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Pain in the ass, ex-patriot yank living in the land of sauerkraut
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Post by rowuk on Sept 22, 2007 12:08:58 GMT
So, I guess my question is sort of answered. If I read you right, the Solo is THE essense of what you have technically, economically, socially and politically learned and to get "better" I have to wait for you to learn more - in which discipline is insignificant...........
The trumpet issue is similar. The manufacturer is Dave Monette, a 10 person operation that builds 6 instruments a month. They are the essense of what he has learned and like Slee products are sold directly to the end customer. In his case, you order the horn and wait 12-14 months. I bought one 10 years ago and received the second one last month. It is obvious what he has learned in 10 years. A trumpet at 1/12 the cost I do not perceive as unfair though just as my modded BT928 is not unfair in comparison to the Solo that I am saving for (I have 4 children - a little planning is necessary!). It is damage control until I can afford better. I do not think that Marx addressed "damage control".............
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Post by slwiser on Sept 22, 2007 13:59:50 GMT
Over on Head-Fi.org I found this reference to an amp priced nearer the Solo in relation to an amp priced above 3K$. This is from one who has reviewed many amps and has performed I think a neat service in doing his reviews for a start at where someone may want to start looking. www.head-fi.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3293187&postcount=44In a Marxist world his reviews would not have been possible since those choices would not have been available, as I understand how Marxism is normally implemented.
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Post by PinkFloyd on Sept 22, 2007 16:04:51 GMT
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Post by slwiser on Sept 22, 2007 19:52:53 GMT
Skylab has done a lot of reviews. However he seems to prefer the Meier line more than he should based on sound reproduction alone. In a way I guess I can understand it, we all have our personal favorites. You have done some excellent reviews as well. We should put that link up also, even more so since you own a Solo.
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Post by slwiser on Sept 23, 2007 0:38:49 GMT
Note: One size fits all, since one size is all that it comes in and only one pattern in a Marxist world.
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Post by gns on Sept 23, 2007 1:06:44 GMT
I see some are living in the "merry old land of Oz" ;D Your leaders will be proud of you and con-men will sleep peacefully in their beds. A small minority however, value my approach because it has resulted in them gaining something they may never have found supporting "the man with the diamond ring" (to quote Mark Knopfler) It tells me a lot about some members here. It tells me who are real music lovers and who like tone It is not upsetting in anyway - quite helpful in fact, as it educates me in understanding my market. I guess, it is like those people who say "No I don't like that" when offered something different to eat, never having tried it, a bit like my 8 year old. But hopefully he will grow out of it. A bit like people saying "it's crap" never having heard the amp in question. I find all this mildly ammusing.
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Post by fanboi on Sept 23, 2007 4:03:05 GMT
Billy Joel, The Entertainer is worth a listen to the lyrics.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2007 6:17:53 GMT
I have 4 pieces of equipment that have transformed my listening pleasure and will not be leaving me. They are an AudioNote preamp, a Rothwell preamp, Audio Technica ATH-W5000 headphones, and the Slee Solo Green headphone amp.
All represent the highest of sound "value" per dollar spent acquiring them.
High end, boutique, item of the moment, descriptions have never meant much to me, but I've found that sound value for dollar spent is my indicator of great equipment.
John
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