Theres a good deal for the G. E. C. CV2984 on a random webpage that seems reputable
This I may be able to get without much issue
The mullard ecc82 is out of budget and hard to get, do you know any other more common alternatives to this one?
Is there a bread and butter cheaper alternative to this, you favorite combination, remember I love high frequencies im not bothered by sibilance, I love midrange next and bass last. I want the big warm space that I already get just with a bit more technical proficiency.
You may want to look for Mazda 12AU7 or 6189, Siemens ECC82, JAN Sylvania JG-5814A (Black Plate, Triple Mica), JAN CRP-5814A (Raytheon), or a Telefunken 12AU7/ECC82 (Ribbed Plate or Smooth Plate because they cost less than other Telefunken tubes).
Loving the hek stealth on my echo mkII but its pretty harsh off the rnhp so I think its time to upgrade my solid state solution.
Im looking for somthing warm or at least leaning warm with good texture under 3000$ CAD/2300$ USD. So far the vio v340 seems like the best option, and im also considering the ifi ican pro signature but ive heard its a smoother amp and I dont really need any of the thrills attached to it.
Just want to make sure im not missing any options. Id love to find a used v350 or a hpa 1 but the used market seems to be dry on those right now.
Ill be paring it with a Bf2 but I might upgrade that in a little bit as well so I can move the bifrost to my 2 channel.
On the cheaper side, I can personally recommend the Cayin iHA-6. I like it a lot with my Meze Elite and ZMF Auteur. I’ve also just purchased a higher-end solid-state amp from Cen.Grand. It’s called the 9i-806 “Little Silver Fox”. It’s $2400, so it’s a little over your budget, but is supposed to compete at the level of the Violectric V550. It’s a new offering, and I happen to be the first person in the US to buy it, but the amp’s bigger brother, the 9i-906 “Silver Fox”, is gaining popularity in the high-end of solid-state headphone amps.
I also use the BF2, and as much as I like it, I think it might be the bottleneck in my system. As it stands, the Cayin can hang with the Little Silver Fox when using my Meze Elite. To be fair, I just got the amp about a week and a half ago, so it’s probably still burning in and it can take a while to notice changes in amplifiers until your brain adjusts.
The exogal comet plus is a great opportunity now they shut down its running cheap, if you dont fear QC issues, but be careful they need to include 1 or more controllers or cant be used. Preferably with the pulsar BT controller dongle.
Thoughts on CD transports? Looking for something to dip my toes. I have no idea how much I’ll need to spend to give it a fair shot against streaming but I’m guessing it’s far from an analog setup.
I know antipodes had something but not sure if that’s worth hunting for.
Nice! I will definitely keep my eye on this conversation with the other members because I wanted to try CD transport next year since Ben from Mojo Audio kinda convinced me. Maybe even start a a whole new thread dedicated to CD Transport would probably be cool.
I can’t really add anything since I’m using my blu ray player as a CD player as well, but I did put down some notes to help me on my hunt next year. I will paste my notes below, so sorry if it’s a text mess.
My CD Notes for hunting a new transport next year:
Jay Audio CD3 MK3
5 things to look for in a CD Transport:
THD+N
This stands for Total Harmonic Distortion. This is a measure of how much distortion is added to the audio signal as it passes through the CD player. As you can imagine, the lower the number the better!
Signal to noise ratio
Also known as S/N ratio. We know you’d much rather hear the sound of Hendrix’s fingers flying up and down the guitar neck than the noise produced by electrons whizzing around and bumping into things. This specification measures the difference between the sound you want to hear and the noise you’re not interested in. Again, the lower this figure the better (-120dB is lower than -60dB)
Linearity
A perfect example of digital to analogue conversion would treat each bit of data in exactly the same way and the relationship between each bit would be entirely equal in terms of the ‘space’ between them. This is measured in non-linearity - the deviation away from this perfect condition - and therefore some variation between individual bits. Here you want a number as low as possible.
Total correlated jitter
Jitter is gaps in playback caused by processing problems or the internal clocking of the digital to analogue converter. These gaps are measured in picoseconds and are far too small for the ear to hear. But we’re perfectionists and this can still lead to loss of accuracy, musicality and detail. And you guessed it, the lower the number the better.
Stop-band rejection
Our products have filters which remove from the signal any frequencies which are outside of the bounds of normal human hearing. This provides a better, more enjoyable sound. Of course, no filter is 100% accurate and this figure measures the filters efficiency. The lower this number, the less extra sound is getting through (-120dB is lower than -60dB)
Ben advice to me on CD Transport:
“… First of all, read a few more of my blogs: the last thing you would ever want to do is upsample to an interpolated sampling rate such as 44.1KHz to 96KHz.
Only ever upsample to even multiples such as 44.1KHz to 88.2KHz or 176.4KHz.
And never upsample bit depth…it does nothing good for you and often interpolates and distorts the musical signal.”
“ All that being said, any proper CD transport will sound better than the best in computer audio, streamed from the internet or played from a local music library. No comparison IMO.
And upsampling from 44.1Khz to 88.2KHz or 176.4KHz on a CD transport is a good idea if you have the option: it puts the digital artifacts outside of the audible range and yields a smoother sound.”
Blog Ben was talking about:
*It just my notes I will be using to hunt down a CD transport next year, so I hope it helps you on your journey right now. If any of this information is misleading, feedback would be appreciated. Like I said, super excited to start next year for CD Transport. I am broke right now, so I am looking forward what kind of CD Transport you will be buying .
PS: CD Transport Ben likes is the one that can upsample, so that might be something to consider.
For the 24 hours or so that I had it, I liked it . I sent it back to Schiit to fix the alignment of the cd tray since it was crooked and it is on it’s way back to me now. I like how it serves as a digital hub and also can play back CDs. So I can hook up a usb streamer or pc to an input on the urd and then pass cd or a stream to a dac over aes, coax, or usb. Usb isolation on it seems very good too, I didn’t hear any noise being passed from my pc.
Is L&P W2 still a good buy for a small dongle to run off a phone? Any other suggestions? It needs to be lightweight and fit in jeans pocket. I listen to my Andros about 80 mins a day so would like to get off the stupid apple dongle.
I have a an LPGT for portable use but it’s quite chunky for my daily carry on the train and walk to work and I actually dropped it one day while trying to manage and now I can’t even sell it. So I just use it around the house and when walking the dogs (if you see someone walking 2 big dogs with a VC around Hoboken terminal, that’s likely me).
I purchased the W2 to have something that could work with my phone and have a minimal footprint. For my use case, it’s more than good enough for listening to music in bed. I purchased it used or advertised like new from
I did actually consider that first but it seemed more like something I might use with a laptop or an ipad but perhaps not necessarily best with a phone - at least that was my impression from a few reviews I saw.
There is a big, wide, gaping hole between 55" TVs and 65" TVs. I’d step up from my current size but I’m unwilling to go all the way to 65" as I’d find myself moving my head side to side to watch and it’s just to dammed imposing in my existing space.
I used to have a 46" for a long time, and jumped to 65". Been tempted to jump to 75" next tv upgrade, parents have one and it doesn’t seem much bigger to be overwhelming sitting from the same distance.
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. I sent it back to Schiit to fix the alignment of the cd tray since it was crooked and it is on it’s way back to me now. I like how it serves as a digital hub and also can play back CDs. So I can hook up a usb streamer or pc to an input on the urd and then pass cd or a stream to a dac over aes, coax, or usb. Usb isolation on it seems very good too, I didn’t hear any noise being passed from my pc.
while trying to manage and now I can’t even sell it. So I just use it around the house and when walking the dogs (if you see someone walking 2 big dogs with a VC around Hoboken terminal, that’s likely me).