Congratulations on the new Grado’s, my upgrades and spare parts come from:
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Got a ZMF Aegis heading my way. Should have it Friday. Last year I made the switch to a solid-state amp (Mjolnir 3) in my main setup and thought I was out of the tube game. This dang Aegis has changed my plans, and now I’m perusing eBay, Etsy and Reverb many times a day trying to track down 70+ year old tubes. It’s all fun of course, but it can get quite expensive and exhausting after a while.
Needless to say, I’m really excited to get to hear the Aegis at home with all my headphones. This is the most expensive single audio purchase I’ve ever made, so I’m a bit nervous about it. Fingers crossed that it meets or exceeds my expectations!
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I really enjoyed my time with Aegis at Canjam, felt like great performance for the money and really good sound. Congrats!
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Congrats! It looks like it’s an awesome amp, even among it’s peers. Fabulous pedigrees on all fronts, from the designer, the distributor and the manufacturer. One of one. I’m sure it will be awesome sounding.
I completely hear you on this. I just got a new preamp to go along with my Mogwai headphone amp so I’m spending way too much time googling, reading head-fi threads, looking on ebay and Reverb etc and generally just more obsessed with tubes than I bargained for (or ever wanted to be lol). It sounds like the Aegis is tube-type friendly enough that I’m sure you can find some great sounding tubes for not a lot of money. And the friendly and knowledgable crowd on that thread can help too.
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Thanks Nick, I had already ordered some of the gimbals and pads from Nyczaj 
Planning on doing the BA cable mod next month.
In the mean time
Quick and dirty headband mod using a Geekria ‘woollen’ headband cover and some shaped packing foam. Surprisingly comfy! I am thinking of getting some hemp string and crocheting a cover now. Also on there are at the moment are the Geekria large pads. They add a tiny bit of mid bass and smoothness, but much much more comfy. One thing I already like is that I can switch pads so easily, depending on mood, music or whim.
[EDIT] I just listened to Rumours by Fleetwood Mac and omg these headphones are made for this music 
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I was able to order a double-sided Modhouse Tungsten today, with custom grills! Now, a long wait…
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So the Hisenior Mega 5 EST 7th Anniversary Edition…
I don’t have much time right now as I’m dealing with a lot of IRL situations. But I did want to followup and say that the Mega 5 EST Hype is legitimate. Without getting into a boring and lengthy write-up, ill just say that I like the Mega 5 EST more than any of the headphones I own. I don’t know if this is strictly due to tuning, or fit, or a combination of the 2…but these things are freaking amazing.
EST IEM drivers are a good example of things that you cant trust on a graph. The FR of the Mega 5 EST would lead you to believe the treble is dull sounding…but it is anything but that.
These things are so good, it’s scary.
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I just purchased a Simgot Supermix 4. I had a ton of reward points from the Linsoul Store, so I figured I’d pick them up. First quadbrid IEM from Simgot…will be interesting.
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That’s really cool. I listened to the double-sided a couple of times at Axpona and liked it a lot.
Did you have seconds to get your order in, or were you able to take your time?
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Not sure in that I got on there right at 8 am my time, and had decided on everything previously. Order was in at 8:04 am timestamp!
When I checked about 45 minutes later just for fun, they were sold out again. I have no idea how many orders he takes at a time, but I had no issues with the site. It didn’t seem overloaded so much it wouldn’t process orders.
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When I was fiddling around with the fuses for my LTA Preamp, one of the tabs of the little black fuse holder was broken. It was taking me ten frustrating minutes of fiddling to get the fuses lines up just right that the holder would insert back in without snagging and not being able to sit property.
I called the guys at LTA and sent them a pic of the IEC connector and they were able to send me back a part number I could order. The next time I decide to fiddle with fuses, I won’t have an issue.
Cheap!
I decided to finish my desktop PC build, eliminate all boxes and go with an all in one solution. This is something that just “happened” as the LIO is no longer for sale at Vinnie Rossi but Vinnie was nice enough to offer to piece together one for me from returns and offer me a five year guarantee, with a HP amp, a DAC, inputs and a variable resistor ladder volume controller for only a few hundred bucks more than I was going to pay for just an amp. It will also serve as a nice alternative to my Firstwatt F8 amp… emr, room heater for the June through August months as it’s a 25 WPC Mosfet 2-CH amp which should have very nice synergy with the Voxativ speakers.
Not as cheap!
…are we there yet?
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Congrats! I loved my LIO – are you going to consider doing the DHT thing?
He can also outfit it with a DC output in the back to power say your OpticoRendu.
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That! is an interesting thought. Didn’t offer that perhaps because it’s real work and not something he could just put together from existing modules?
It’s a pretty brilliant design that didn’t didn’t take off in the industry obviously but I’m glad that the LIO has your approval, I was really hoping I wasn’t doing something stupid.
Less than $0.50 on the dollar, right from the manufacturer and warranted for five years. Kind of sexy too with the silver and white and he said he even had to dig through stuff to get me a matching silver and white remote. lol I asked him about the tube stage at a later date but since it’s for my desk and something that I’m more often than not going to forget to turn off overnight, the tube may be only for if and when I use it as an amp.
These are units that have been sent back for credit towards newer gear and just sitting, so I’m sure he’s glad to turn that into cash.
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Definitely agree it’s a great office solution – when I set up my current system, the goal was for an all-in-one solution, and even had my Timbernation rack made specifically for it to allow DHT; I was really lucky to get it with the L2 DAC + L2 phono stage, but Vinnie talked me out of the DHT since he was steering customers more towards his newer (pre-Brama) products.
Alas, upgrade-itis took its course and I ended up taking the path of going from all-in-one to as-many-separates-as-possible…
The interesting thing though is that despite Vinnie’s approach, power conditioning and power cords into his PSU still mattered!! Befuddles the mind… I’m sure he got you the silent switching version, the original generation made a click every time it switched capacitor banks…
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Yeah, I read about that. He said they were all retroactively fixed. Some cushioning or damping material under the relays or something like that.
Bought some isoacoustics orea indigo feet. I’m bought it specifically for my new class D amp whenever it gets here…
I also read the best practice is to use it with a block of wood that’s 2 inches. I’ll probably get some butcher block wood down the road…
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Custom made by some dude*, who was recommended by another dude**.
Who claims these rivaled his blah blah.
- Reviewer for audio journal. Who also has a day job.
** Audiophile nut who has gone way off the deep end.
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Best product review ever.
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“Custom made by some dude*, who was recommended by another dude**.”
And purchased by some other dude! 
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Still waiting to hear if there’s any merit to the rather incredulous claims of how good it is compared to some $$$ commercial stuff.
The maker was not interested in production or selling, and is only making them for referred friends (supposedly).
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