Headphone Audiophiles - Page 2

I am not saying the wood will defiantly harm the Amp, and yes those are metal plates and also thick. The reason for the thick metal that is used on the Woos is because of heat displacement, there are no fans on the Woo.

Just to give you a idea, my Woo's PSU is 40 pounds the amp is 35 pounds. And I can say I would never put that wood on my Woo, not only because of the huge PSU and Amp but because of the heat those tubes give off. Woo's are custom built one at a time, there is no PC board its all Point-to-Point wiring.


Yes that is what I have, a comfy chair in my man cave. I also have the Denon D7000, AKG701 (never use those), Sennheiser HD650 with a Cardas Cable, Grado 325i, and of course Sennheiser HD800 with a Cardas cable.
The Sennheiser HD800 is the only headphone that I use its that good.
If you like to recable the Sennheiser's are great for that. The cable plugs in both the left Ch and right Ch of the headphones. There are many differant cables to choose from that come with the plugs attached and with different sound signatures.

My source player is a Oppo BD-83NE and its hooked directly to my Woo amp via interconnect King Cobra cables (1M). So not only do I use my headphone amp for CD/SACD(DSD), DVD-A I use it for my BD movies. The Oppo BD-83SE/NE is a really a great player for most any music and does a fantastic job of downmixing the HD audio tracks from BD movies. With the BD-83SE/NE I don't need a external DAC.
I also have a Onkyo TX-SR705A/V and Onkyo SKS-HT240 7.1 speakers(added 1 SKB-240) but I never use the Onkyo HDMI sound system because my headphone rig just blows my speaker rig away, and that goes for movie soundtracks also.

ss

New to this stuff myself, but here's my "rig" so far.

Old Sony Discman to line out RCA -> Marantz 7001 receiver -> AKG k601
iPod classic 80Gb -> UE Triple.Fi 10

I like the triple fi's quite a bit and are a nice change from the airy highs of the AKGs though I thing my sources for both are severely under spec. But that's what I have for now as I seem to have blown the budget on the phones.

Looking for a dac and amp to use with the AKGs at the moment. Really debating what Emo is looking to release for the DAC and possibly something tube, maybe Woo, as an amp.

Amp runs fine.......transformer cover is actually raised by a thin washer I added between the wood and case to allow any heat to escape that wouldn't just dissipate through the aluminum walls. Wood around the tubes barely gets warm. There is a lot of surface area to still allow heat transfer and so far I have zero issues. I have 20+ years of nuclear engineering background so I understand thermal theory and heat transfer quite well. I actually ordered some Absorb-gel adapters for the drive tubes and that will raise them above the wood for added assurance.

Glad to hear it. Yes Woo does a very nice job of hand winding there transformers. My WA6SE never seemed to get hot on top of the 3 transformers it has and my WA5LE seems to be the same way, and as you may know those 4 are huge on the WA5s.
I would caution you, if you make your very nice wood plates for a WA5, be warned that the area around the 300Bs and 6SN7s particularity if you are running the Shugang Treasure 300Bs and the CV-181s can get very warm.

ss

I have STAX 404 and an old SRM1 SS amp for them. I'm slowly building a trioded EL34 direct drive amp to power them and am playing with some plate to driver cathode feedback as I have too much gain though I may change the driver stage as well. I'm also experimenting with cross coupling a la Meier.

The PS iron is left over from previous projects and very over specified for the job, so this will be a big heavy beast when done.

Magic decoder ring on....


The headphones are STAX 404 electrostatic headphones....


.... currently driven by an old SRM1 solid state amplifier.





I'm building a tube amplifier to replace the SRM1. This will use EL34 output tubes which are pentodes, in this instance converted to triodes for better sound. The amplifier will need another stage before the output tubes to get enough signal. My preferred driver stage has a bit too much, so I will use some feedback to lower the gain and the amplifier's output impedance. If I'm not happy with this, I'll use another driver stage design I have.

Direct coupled simply means that between the output tubes and the headphone elements there will be no other components, eg transformers, capacitors except for the connecting wire.


I'm experimenting with feeding a small EQ'd portion of the LH channel into the right and vice versa, based upon an article by Jan Meier to try to create a more spacious, less in the head experience.


If I were to connect a conventional tube amp output transformer and use this amp with speakers, it would put out about 10W class A (with ES headphones, almost nothing). The power supply transformers I have spare would more suit a 100W or so amp, so are very oversize (about 16kg), but they are already here and so effectively free. The amp will be large and heavy because of this.

Simple and portable:

I have a Red Wine Audio modified iPod with lossless files on it. It goes into a Ray Samuels Tomahawk which feeds a pair of Ultimate Ears UE10s. The setup takes the edge off having to travel away from my home system.

No it doesn't.

I tried switching back and forth so many times between an I-Mod and a regular I-Pod, the difference I experienced, if any, is so miniscule, that I feel it is placebo more than anything else. I would highly doubt that I could identify them one from the other in an ABX test.

I tried this with a Pico Amp and Shure 530SE headphones.

I find them so much better than dynamics that I'd rather not listen to anything else. Not heard everything like HD800's though.

I honestly don't recall. I went to the biggest hifi store in Sydney (Len Wallis) a couple of years back and spent a morning listening to everything they had and nothing I heard was good enough to be considered. Nor really to generate much interest in continuing the search.
I mainly use cans in bed to listen at night as they are not my preferred method of listening.

Agreed. I can easily tell the difference between my regular ipod with the lossy files on it and the iMod with the lossless files on it. I doubt I could tell the difference if the iPod and the iMod had the same files on them. I'll have to try that some time.

I am not sure of what you are trying to build, but your electrostatic type push-pull Stax ear speakers I don't think will give you any more out of head audio. Even If you went with a much higher end Stax SR-007 Mk2 Electrostatic Headphone and a much higher end electrostatic amp I would still have my reservations. And don't misunderstand me a electrostatic system that is well designed can be very good, It just depends on what type of sound you want.

Yes the HD-800s are one of the best headphones made for out of head and most any thing for that matter. But as you probably know the HD-800s will not work in a Stax system like yours, you would have to go to a dynamic system and a high end system.

Going to some store will not give you a idea of what a really nice dynamic or electrostatic system will do. There are many dynamic systems that will blow your current system away.

ss

Now your talking. That's a highly regarded system and that price is just for starters, oh and one more thing you may have to wait a year to get it plus pay your money upfront to get on the list (if he is still making them). And there is also the BHSE and the WES to compare if you are going that rout.

I can understand why a system like I have listed about(Electrostatic) would be great for gamers, but there again I have read many folks that have the high end Electrostatic Stax headphones are a little disappointed with the out of head soundsatge.

Yes A Woo system is very good with the HD-800s and also take a look at the Eddie Current systems. These are all tube systems, but keep in mind that these prices you see are with low grade tubes. So you probably will get the tube rolling bug and that can run into some big bucks. My WA5LE has about $1400 in tubes running on that amp, and then there are the upgraded parts to think about.
But my system is a 300B and these tubes can get very costly, my WA6SE tubes cost about $600 for a really nice set.
I also have a matched pair of NOS 6SN7GT Tungsol Black glass round plate 1942-1944 (very rare) coming from Greece.

ss

Just E-Mail Jack Wu (owner) and ask him, he is a great guy and one guy I would recommend taking his advice.


Did you get it from David? Also a very nice man.
My first amp was a LD MKIV SE, my son now has it along with a pair of HD-650s I gave him, he loves it.


The Tubes that I have in my WA5LE all came from Jack at Woo Audio. Grant Audio is the distributor for Shugang Treasure 300B matched pair, Grade A and the Shuguang Treasure CV181-Z / 6SN7GT matched pair, Grade A. TUBESUSA is the distributor for my EML 5U4G Rectifier tubes. That said I have got tubes on E-Bay also.

Here is a thread that should help you for tube rolling.
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/lit...olling-364043/

Obviously.
SS, do you get that I don't care? I'm building this for me based upon my experiences, preferences and tastes.

Your 'push-pull' comment and liking of the Woo amps leads me to believe you have drunk the SET Kool Aid. But look, Woo make a push-pull EL34 based ES amp. Mine doesn't cost $US5k has a better driver stage (doesn't use the rubbish 12AU7) nor the 5AR4. Total cost for my system incl what the parts cost originally and the 404 which I bought new at a great price will be maybe $A1200.


Accuracy mainly, and to date, none of the dynamic systems I've heard have even been close sounding thick, closed and muddy compared to stats.

From what I have read so far x-coupling is fairly sound in theory, costs very little for me to implement and I can adjust to to preference and it will be switchable.

Plus, I have all the parts, am an EE with some decades of designing and building tube amplification systems, I enjoy it for a hobby and I felt like building some tube gear again for a change.


Obviously the HD800's won't work with my headamp. But if I change the plate loads from chokes or CCS to a transformer of the correct ratio, they will. Cost maybe $300 and 20 mins work. If I ever heard the HD800's and was impressed enough to buy them, and they would have to be a considerable amount better, not just different from what I have it would not be hard to design and build a high performance headamp for them.


Did you bother to look at the link for the store? It's not exactly Best Buy. The system I used was the TOTL STAX at the time, incl the Omegas (and my 404 and Lambda Pro) and the tube driver amp. The dynamics were powered by some expensive dedicated headamp, but I don't recall which, so it was a more than fair and reasonable comparison. I took my time and none of the dynamics came close. Perhaps the HD800 would, but until I see and hear them myself, I doubt it.
Perhaps, but based upon a couple of decades of hearing 'blow you away' hundreds or thousands of times, it's happened exactly twice with two surprisingly modest, yet exceedingly competently engineered systems. So until the BYA system is placed in front of me and it's merits proven, it's just audiophile hyperbole.