What have you purchased recently?


Theyre here and they are the real deal!

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Did you have both now for the comparison? Get some good hype fuel going.

Yup, first one arrived yesterday, and the real star of the show arrived today. Gonna get a listening session in a little bit later

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I’ve been bad over the last 6 months, pretty much overhauling my whole system. And now I added these. They are “B” stock from Rosson, but I see no visible imperfections whatsoever



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no joke
Was listening to SRL, sus and mysphere tonight and enjoyed the mysphere the most…
Such a good deal used and criminally overlooked

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Also a B-stock purchase…

Well I didn’t want to go out this month anyway :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

I like it. First impression was “that sounds… odd?” After trying on more than one amp, with more than one genre I found it growing on me. Getting the wrong combo and it sounds oddly muffled? Like an empty concert hall without the reverb. Get it right and I really like them. The richer the sound the more I like them. On bass heavy songs they seem full of depth but the mid details still shine through and are all nice and present. I like that a lot. Definitely not for everything I listen to and of all the headphones I have tried I find these to be the most picky and to need the most mental adjustment. I can’t just swap in and out of them quickly, my ear has to burn in to the sound before I hear what they are doing! When I do though I really do like them. Very interesting listening experience and I want from “omg what have I done with my money” to “oh… oh? OH!” over a period of a few days. Great learning experience about sound signatures, reviews, opinions and subjectivity.

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Have you had any issues with shoutiness? For me personally, that was my main issue with the the lcd-2c. What made it more noticeable to me was that you had some shout in the mids, but then that darker treble that kind of made it more noticeable (especially on bass lite tracks like 33 by Smashing Pumpkins).

That issue aside, the bass is definitely thick and fun, and the mids have nice snap to them. I also think that the lcd-2 pre fazor are so well liked, that they are often compared against the 2C, when they have different signatures completely (and completely different drivers). And I’ll admit, I prefer the pre fazor over the 2c, but you also have a lot of different pre fazor revisions, manufacturer variance, etc that makes the pre fazor more of a gamble purchase.

Nice to see that you are enjoying them so far. When I owned my 2C, they were what I tended to use for older classic rock, early hip-hop, and motown music as it added some richness that was lacking in the recordings of those early stages of those genres.

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I find that on some genres, such as classical or jazz, for example, where bass is less important and treble more that I get that. It’s like most of the 2C just loses interest and goes missing apart from the mids.

I love how much detail and texture it gives to bass notes, especially drums and anything with a “wall of sound” influence. The more bass the more the mids shine and I think I agree that any style that is relying on a meaty bass and a mids melody really shines on this headphone, especially with male vocals. I also found that sometimes it sounds better on a less detailed but warmer amp as it calms down a little but can take the warmer bass and run with it without getting overwhelmed. Thinking particularly here of my Audio_gd R2R11 which surprised me. It’s fuzzy and richly warm and for bass and drum heavy music with guitar mids or vocals the 2C sound fantastic for leaning back and just chilling. This really helps with poorer recordings where the mids can edge into shouty.

I would not want them as my only headphone but as part of a set they have a place. Very very music genre dependent but when they work they are just a rich, warm bath of sound to luxuriate in and relax.

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Well said, I definitely agree with that. I felt similarly about the optimal use cases for them.

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I will spare the talk about how the pandemic affected the gpu market…but i had been running a 1650 for awhile and luckily hopped on the bestbuy app at the right time the other day


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What’s the going rate for a 3070 nowadays?

This one was $599 new

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Yes, you are right.
It can sound strange if you get a lesser amplifier.
Especially in the SS amp area you can do a lot wrong unfortunately.
Most people don’t know that.
With Otl amps it’s similar but not quite as bad, it works but it’s not ideal in that respect especially for planar headphones.
You can try it with other tubes and it can work if you are ready for it.

It becomes very clear when you connect the lcd 2 c as an example with other headphones that are made for Otl.
Even the Lcd 2 C has no chance of keeping up.
I notice this quite clearly when I connect the Auteur to the Otl and then the Lcd 2 C to the Otl.
It is the same or similar, but not in everything. the Auteur definitely swims away.

When I connect the Lcd 2 to the hybrid amplifier, the sun comes up and the Auteur is less good in a direct comparison.
Yesterday I would have said I would sell the lcd 2 with the hybrid amplifier because the Auteur is sufficient and commit myself to something else.
Today I listen to the lcd 2 on the hybrid and ask myself what do you want to do?
All the magic comes out of the planar headphones when they are connected to the hybrid amplifier.
It’s confounding when you realise, even after months, that you’ve got something really good that you can’t give away.

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My fiber media converter arrived, and I’m currently just running it with just the stock power supply. (I think I have an iFi iPower2 kicking around somewhere that I could use…)

First impressions: At the moment, the difference seems very small. Most noticeably, I’m hearing longer decays (reverb trails, ringing instruments ring longer, etc).


Also, I took Souldriver up on the offer, and a pair of JAN Phillips 5751 tubes arrived in the mail yesterday to try in my Quicksilver! Thank you!

First impressions: I listened to these last night with the Eikon and so far, it’s honestly the best I’ve heard my Eikon sound on the Quicksilver. These tubes are real good. (As others mentioned, it’s a cleaner, clearer, linear kind of sound.)

However, because these are lower gain tubes, I have a suspicion that they’re specifically going to favor sensitive headphones like ZMFs/Focals, so I’m interested to find out if they end up losing some synergy points with my Diana V2.

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FWIW That was my impression with Wired Ethernet vs FMC, there was a win, but it wasn’t huge.

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Same experience for me. I have settled on my Admiral branded Philips Holland EL84 and my Amperex 12AX7 for most of my headphones. Only when listening with my Auteur do I use the GE 5751 tubes. I am still looking for a better 6BQ5/EL84 pairing with the 5751 tubes. To my ears, the 6BQ5/EL84 tube swaps are much more noticeable with the 5751 tubes.

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I am very happy you like them. They are one of my favorite tubes. They are a JAN from late in the tube development era around the early 80s. From the JAN it should be technicaly sound, clean, microphonic free, linear with slight extension, and hopefully have a good long lifetime. Being a late era tube they do retain some sweetness, richness, musicalness, where some earlier jans could be all no nonsense.

Regarding the gain, did you have to put your volume up at all? The idea of these in guitar amps was the lower gain would keep volume lower so you can use the power tubes more and hopefully get better breakup earlier.

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Yep, I definitely turn my volume higher with these tubes. With my previous tubes, my pot was around 8-o’-clock-ish and with these, I’m more at 10:30 or 11-ish.

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All the 30 series GPUs are seeing record low prices and discounts right now because Nvidia is sitting on a surplus of cards that they can’t get rid of due to the crypto mining crash and the shit economy. This is a big problem for them because they are trying to launch the new gen 40 series later this year but obviously can’t until they unload their current stockpile. hence the actual reasonable (relatively) prices, If you are somebody who has been waiting to upgrade now is the best time to do it.

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Even at the current prices, I’d still wait for next gen, personally. It’s like prime day deals imo. You aren’t missing out, you’re just buying the best before it’s irrelevant in 4 months. The jump in performance in the next series is pretty substantial and they already built more production facilities before the crypto crash and said they’d have available stock even with crypto miners. For basically the same MSRP (which I understand current gen is selling under at the moment) you’re still getting more bang for your buck next gen and not by a small amount. Unless your GPU took a shit, I’d hold out for next gen. Both Nvidia and ATI are gonna be swinging hard really soon. I’m going AMD/ATI next gen for sure and I’m so ready for native 4k 120hz ultra settings to be stable and steady. Can’t do that now no matter what build you have but next gen mid tier build will do it no problem.

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