Rameish

When's the review coming lengcm, or some initial impressions. The tube power supply should be a significant improvement yes?

superia2012 - what if anything does fake gucci have to go with headphones...spam You've been banned.

Try Martin Electronics at Burlington Square. They don't have NOS spares but if you know the size of the drivers and specs you can get them fixed. Another option is to re-cone the divers or the surround - these old speakers then to use foam which did not last very long. I had a pair of old Verit Speakers that I re-coned in the 90s and gave them away because the sound wasn't the same after that. So unless you are okay with that and just want the speakers to work then try it.

With regards to hearing loss. ringing etc - please pay a visit to an ENT Specialist - they will send you for an audio test (a proper audiogram) and will look into your ears and nose with a little camera at the end of a tube and they will take some pictures of it as well. In some cases they will send you for a CT scan of the head. EAR problems may indicate something more severe/sinister. By all means go to a GP first but do realise GPs dont have the proper equipment to do a through job and will usually send you to an ENT specialist anyway.

MBD had a couple of 009 - they were sold even before they could be unboxed - so I and even the owner of MBD havent had the chance to hear them. Right now there are limited supplies (as always). Wait a while and I'm sure they'll have one for demo. It costs a bit more then the 007 II so be forewarned.

Like all headphone manufacturers Stax makes a variety of gear to suit an individual's budget. All I know is the 230 volt version of the amp cost more. Go to stoneaudio.co.uk to get a rough idea of the prices. I'm sure sg prices are less ;-). As to wether the lower end stax are beter than the equivalent dynamic type headphones well you should try it yourself. Music By Design has Grado headphones to compare with. There's nothing more for me to add - go listen and decide based on your budget. Don't gett to caught up in technology and specs : always remember it's the music. Lastly spend what you can afford. If you skimp you'll probably end up selling the cheaper stuff at a loss and going for the more expensive one too soon. If you over indulge then you're putting yourself a hole financially. TA

Most headphones are dynamic with quite a bit of mass to move. Electrostatic headphones have the advantage (in theory) that they have a lot less mass to move. They generally sound cleaner, faster and seem to give the impression of more details as you hear the nuances differently (for example the quiver of a violin string or the skin texture of a drum) This I found true of the Older Stax Omega SR-007 Mk II with the 007t Mk II amp with a CEC CD Player. Have heard this unit off and on over the last several months at Music By Design at Adelphi. Go take a listen. Compared to top flight Senns or Beyers through the likes of Cary SLI-80 or CAD 300 SEI it's a matter of taste. This goes to show you how much the Senn HD-650 or even the 600 need really good amplification to really shine. In the end go and listen for yourself. You're reacing an area/level where it's too expensive to listen to opinions - even mine. :-)

fuwen, suggest you shoot in color reversal film and scan it in. Or shoot in negative and scan it in. Frankly the real love for me is B&W, I remember the days of spending time in a darkroom developing the film and printing the contact print. Then deciding which frame is good enough for enlargement and choose the type of printing paper. I loved fiber based paper but these days any B&W paper will do. heady, like vinyl the film guys are a die hard bunch. You'll be surprised to know that brand new firm cameras are still being sold these days (rangefinder types). Cosina makes Voigtlander, Zeiss while Leica makes the M7 and MP. Far from dead. Kchew - I actually like the shot. The skateboard shot. Pool shot is nice too. Haiz don't stockpile lah. The shot with the guys back has absolutely zero artistic merit whatsoever kekekeke :-)

Where is that shop BTW, TT looks nice. What is it (Brinkmann) with a Benz cart?

Fuwen, why havn't you bought yourself a leica? You're such a film and rangefinder type of guy that I would have thought you would have at least an M3 or M6 by now. Of course if we strike toto then can get the MP ya? I'm still waiting - to strike toto kekeke.

Topic moved -

Careful now...we don't wanna step over the thin red line. Anyways nice to see some old hands still banging their heads away kekeke. Senn HD800 wow - i have yet to hear them. Some day soon I hope. On the bright side - my hearing has improved somewhat and can now take normal speakers without ringing. Headphones are still a no no for now... hopefully by the time I redo my heath check in feb everything will be a-ok.

No you posted in the right sub-forum. I don't see why anyone would want to censure this post. I have no idea why echoloft is down btw.

hope the puppy is okay? You can get knobs at the 2nd level Sim Lim Tower. Quite a few shops there have replacement knobs.

sgheadphones primary function was and is to provide a place where people can discuss, seek advice, and post their findings. The Buy/Sell section was introduced and unfortunately quickly became a place where you could buy almost anything from unknowns. This became a problem. There were also some people who would get freebies from manufacturer and then selling these (op-amps) to people here. There was even an instance where a picture of a woman with contact details - I suspect you had to pay for her services. She was/is quite pretty btw if indeed the picture was an accurate rendition of the real person. In order to bring some order to this section of the forum, these new rules were imposed. Personally, I would have preferred not to have a buy/sell section. But who am I to blow against the wind. The IEMs you mentioned do have different sized foam and silicon tips. You can also get custom molds for your wife. The assumption is if you're gonna buy IEMs of the ilk you mentioned, chances are you'll be into this hobby and hence 50 posts shouldn't be a problem. The last thing they we wanted when this forum was set up was for the buy/sell section to dominate everything else. That would kill the joy and hence the forum would go into decline if not shut altogether! The admin and fellow moderators obviously don't want that to happen. Hope that helps to soothe those ruffled feathers. Cheers

Yes MP3 does give me ear ache as well - of a different kind LOL. You may have excessive ear wax (best case). Go to your GP and let him/her take a look. The doc will probably give you ear drops for a week and ask you to come back for a ear rinse to take a better look again. If need be he/she will refer you to an ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) specialist. Don't wait!

Well...that's the best way to get the most out of your iPod. I'll find out about the price if I am at Adelphi tomorrow. BTW I think speakers and amps should be listened together. Not individually. You could also try Monitor Audio speakers ( a tad bright for my taste) but I'll use a different amp then. An fellow just PM me about what's better than lossless - well AIFF or WAV.

Logically yes but not quite true. I found a lot of up-sampling DACs used in CDPs or even stand alone DACs tend to produce an unnatural sound. They sound clean with better resolution initially but as time passes they become irritating ( well to me at least). There are of course a few that do sound very good but they really cost an arm and a leg (so I wont go there for now). I was a bit puzzled because some of these that sounded bad used the same dacs as those that sounded good and often you couldnt tell by looking at the price tag as well. Anyways I've come to the conclusion it's all about design and implementation - not chips and decoders. It even boilts down to type of resistors used believe it or not! 16 Bit 44.1 khz technology is unfortunately flawed - think of it this way: Regular CDs are a chopped down version of Vinyl which is an altered sound (with pops etc) of the original master tape. So CD is actually yesterday's MP3! That is, in the day of vinyl and open reel tapes, the 16 bit 44.1 khz offered a logical way to compress music onto a relatively small disc. Our loss - less is not always better :-) Use you ears lah! If it sounds good to you then it is good whatever the technology - older DAC chip can sound very good with or without oversampling. And yes up-sampling can likewise sound good too. There no perfect technology out there that does away with the need to design somthing carefully - of course there's a lot of bull sh*t as well. Take a look at this: How an upmarket brand does a con job:- http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f7/goldmund-...pioneer-285743/

Okay since it's an iPod based home audiophile system this is what I would do. Get a Wadia iTransport first (S$650 retail from Absolute sound) you'll need a DAC and a good 75 ohm cable to get the digital source from you iPod to the DAC (the Lite Audio DAC-AH is not bad) or you could use your govibe (I've no idea how the govibe sounds) btw). You'll need an amp the CEC AMP3300 offers 64 watts per channel (available from music by design at adelphi) And Go for either the Vienna Acoustics Bach (floorstanders or the Vinenna Acoustics Hayden bookshelfs). That's what I would do for an iPod based system. Your iPod would need to have music files stored in at least Apple Lossless or better - but as a fellow Mac user I think you already know that ;-).

I did the following over the last week or so: I compared two Burmester CDP the 061 and the 001 - the 001 uses one dac chip per channel while the 061 uses one for both channels. The 001 uses a in house modified belt driven Philips Pro unit, while the 061 uses a modified direct drive CDM Pro 2 unit (I think I got the tech details right - although you'll find different reviewers from different audio magazines say that the 001 uses the CDM 2 Pro unit as well. Anyway I too thought that the DAC was making the difference (the 001's 2 DAC chips were making the 001 CDP sound better). Hooked up the Burmester 979 transport (uses a CDM 9 Pro unit) transport and compared all three with a Burmester DAC - same Stereovox Cable. Conclusion? Sad to say the transport and, more importantly, it's implementation matters. The differences were nuances throughout the audio spectrum - top end a little more relaxed, bottom end a little fuller/richer more legato. Mids were sweeter. Worth the extra cash? That's up to you. The Pre-amp was the Burmester 011 and the power amp was the 036 and the 911 mk III. All interconnects were stereovox. Speakers were the Burmester B50 (white edition). Very very nice indeed - all three CDP/CDT. I may just go down and compare the CEC transport LOL if I have time. Transport does matter unfortunately - why I have no clue whatsoever. In short if it sounds better (not just different) it is better. Cheers and have a nice day.

No easy answer here. You should look at system synergy instead and budget accordingly. I'll provide an illustration. Let's say you went to a shop and compared both a Senn HD-600 and a Grado RS-1 via your iPod (music encoded with apple lossless). You'll probably prefer the Grado RS-1 because the Senn is gonna sound horrible without an amp the Grado RS-1 sound good. You then plug in a potable amp to your iPod - say an I Qube - what happens is this the SennHD-600 improves quite a lot and the Grado RS-1 improves a little. You scratch your head and say to the dealer let me try a cheaper Grado say the SR-225. You then realise that without the amplifier the SR-225 sounds almost as good as the RS-1. What to buy? First you'll need to find out which music presentation you prefer - if it's the Senn HD-600 then you'll need to really budget for a good amp (I would say at least twice the price of the HD-600). If you prefer the Grado RS-1 then even a more modest amp costing say $600 will do the job. Keep in mind system synergy though - You can make both the Senn HD-600 and Grado RS-1 sound not soo good with the wrong amp. The Senn HD-600 seems to like expensive amplifiers while the Grado headphones seem to be more compatible with more amps that don't cost too much. It's the same for a home CD Player based rig - system synergy is essential.

Let me get this straight - the amp is a secret and so are whatever mods and the somewhat classified cable- so this must be a secret review then :-) Hmm... may be I should create a special secret sub-forum. And of course there's no way to verify because it all too secret. Guys, this is a headphone forum - ie a place to SHARE your views, mods, experiences etc. Maybe I'm just too old. I don't know - but it kind of defeats the purpose of writing about it if it's all too ahem secret. Self Edit ;-) Aron (of Stereo Electronics) has sent me a PM to clarify. The amplifier in question is under development and may be marketed as a commercial amp in the future. The cable is a DIY cable but it's being sold to a few people so it's a commercial product as well. My guess the mods to the headphones are as well.

Looks like a "standard" EL34 Williamson Amplifier or a variation of it. If so the smaller tubes are probably 12AU7. The looks of the amp are very similar to may chinese made amps: Leo, Vincent etc. You may want to try the Chinese brand/made Spark: The faceplate is different but they have a few EL34 amps (some with headphone out as well). Precision Audio sells Spark Amps in Singapore and are located on the ground floor of Adelphi. If you're looking for the exact brand - I cant help you.

Go to Music By Design - ask for Eugene. They bring in the full line of Zu cables. Do check with them first for stock avail b4 going down. Tel: 63343981

For S$300 look around for a second-hand CD player that used to retail for S$600-800 when new. Look out for the Rotel RCD971 (it's a good buy even at $400) if it's in perfect working condition. Others include the Marantz CD600 OSE (LE). More laid back sound then the above mentioned rotel. Some of the older NADs are good too.