Had this one for a while thanks to @oberon . A nice cheery burl. The felt feet are on me as i fear every type of rubber on my shelving.
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That looks gorgeous with the light effect going from the top through to the base. Those felt feet however are a faux pas. You can probably find clear stick on pad somewhere.
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Nope its a different one, buy his asap sell your v550 
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What is it the Niimbus does better than the V550 in your opinion?
Its just more authoritative and has explosive dynamics in comparison, sounds so effortless. It will drive anything, sooo much power and driveability in reserves, it makes the Susvara open up and really move while the v550 was tame about it.
You will notice the bass and subbass quantity and quality (if you thought while listening to the v550, hmm feels polite), this thing fixes it. Also has more body.
One of the v550 traits that i liked was the treble, this one just makes the v550 sound muted veiled in comparison, its more clean and open in a good way. ((Not bright or analytical, just better)).
Its basically an upgrade over the v550 in every possible way, extension, bass, mids, treble, details, background, stage size, imaging, texture, energy, and anything i could think of.
Its so transparent too, like a chameleon, any change in your chain will make you notice the change more than amps like Aic for example (the Aic will always try to sound like an Aic). Which is fun if you have multiple things to play with.
I don’t think its worth the new price of 6.6k$, but for the current used prices of under 4k$ compared to a new priced v550? Save a little more and get the niimbus, you won’t regret it.
Also, the pro stepped volume doesn’t crackle, even with sensitive headphones like 15ohm lcd 4z.
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Oberon put on clear feet, like i said i dont want any rubber on the shelves that isnt herbies as everything else has left mars and marks.
I can put on some black herbies or find some cork. Cork would look best imho.
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Spike it…heheeh😈
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There’s some 3M tape that is completely clear but has enough of a thickness that it may work as a footer. It’s the kind of tape they use for clear car bras. I’ll ping you and mail you some for you to try.
Nah, i think cork would look very good
The updated 1266tc hybrid pads. Slightly bigger and roomier. Its a hair warmer and relaxed than the og pads. Also sealed vs sealed has a hair more bass, i don’t feel i need to wear it floating as much like it was kinda mandatory with the og to bring up the bass.
The comfort is pillow on ears now which is great.
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A rectangle to replace a 13 year old rectangle.
Someone was selling a Cowon Plenue 1 for criminally cheap so I jumped on it to replace my old S9. It will mostly be for when im wood or yard working. It has the same BB dac chip as my Plenue S. For $250 it is 80% of the sound, with 80% of the features, at 80% of the weight, and puts out 80% of the heat. Which the one bad thing about the S is it gets pretty hot during summer use, this one is more even tempered.
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I’ve been climbing down the power rabbit hole because it seems like every step things get better and it’s the type of improvement that pays dividends throughout the entire chain.
I’m kinda sorta rationalizing the cost of it all by saying that there’s a lot of hand me down effect, where my HP system gets hand me downs and my TV system gets hand me downs, so I’m actually upgrading three systems for the price of one. How’s that for a juicy rationalization of the insanity?
The market being flaccid and Shunyata changing over their equipment line has been a confluence of events that I’ve been taking advantage of.
What did I get?
Shuyata Typon T2 to daisy chain into my Denali 6000/S v2
The Reference Umbilical for their link up
A Sigma V2 XC PC for the Typhon
A Alpha V2 XC for my amp.
As a bonus, I’ll be able to leverage the built in chassis grounding system of the Typhon into my existing chassis grounding block so very curious to see what results I get there.
I’ll take pics and update my diagram when I get everything installed, hopefully this weekend if I don’t run into issues with Customs.
I swear, I’m really really done this time. I have no business throwing this much power conditioning gear into the level of components that I’m at currently, but everything I’ve done thus far keeps scaling magnificently. I’m hoping this is the culmination of it all.
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Ha, not likely! 
Keep us posted on it. 
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Although I’m supposed to be focussing on portable gear, I’ve always been curious about this Questyle desktop gear. Picked this up on eBay for a decent price. Going to get it warming up and have a listen this afternoon.
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Sweet! Looking forward to your impressions, I really enjoy their Current Mode Amplification in their portables. I’m guessing their desktop/full-sized units are even better.
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Hi all! Been a lurker for a while, but I thought I’d start here with an actual post.
A few new things. The Cayin iHA-8. Good driving power and a very deep/open presentation. Very neutral, I thought it was kind of dry at first like the iHA-6, but with usage some of that class-A tilt came through and it got better at representing warm tones and more liquid overall. It pairs better with the HE1000se and Arya Stealth, but it’s also doing a fair job with the HE6se V2, which could be more intense but is coherent and controlled. Very transparent, I think. Differences between DACs are really obvious and I’ve never heard my headphones so distinctly from one to another before. But also not the strongest character and I think it’s DAC-dependent.
The A70 Pro is being used purely as a pre-amp, which it is great at. It was a substantial jump from previously using my dongles direct into the iHA-8. The volume control is staggeringly better than the iHA-8’s and driver control in general had a big jump, and with it came holography, tightness, quickness, etc… As a headphone amp? It’s a mixed bag, but I suspect it’s an improvement over previous Topping designs and it has some control, transients and decent clarity with sharp imaging. However, no liquidity, the resolution is off/lacking and there’s this weird treble shelf/hump peaking around 9Khz for me. Weird and not natural for sure. But as a pre-amp none of that comes through and it seems perfectly transparent.
Dongles-wise, the most recent for me are the FiiO KA17, Onix Alpha XI1 and SMSL D10. As an all-in-one the KA17 really punches above its class. Probably the best driving power in a dongle, it’s the only dongle I know that met the HE6se V2 and got out with some dignity. The Onix is warm, slightly hazy, good driving power, good liquidity. Good for certain things. D10 is decent as an AIO, but when used as a DAC, it’s got super clear leading edges, it’s surprisingly punchy, and very neutral (a bit rolled off at both ends tho). Slammiest dongle I have when used as a DAC into a system.
Finally, they’re in the back behind the gear so can’t be seen, but still fairly recently got an Altor ISOUSB galvanic isolator using the latest chip. Amazingly good. Jaw-dropping to me and what it did for sound quality is nuts. Even things I didn’t expect like punch, weighting and extension. The clarity it adds is shocking, even noticeable with pure tones lol. This seems to be the best galvanic isolator one can get, and for about $70 it’s a must-own IMO. I’ve heard that it can show up some DDC’s. And because it has a 5.5 barrel connector to add a power supply, I put in an Ifi iPower X 5V to take my dongles to the limit, which gives some gains depending on the dongle at hand.
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Everything got here, two days late thanks to FedEx… more like F’edUp.
Connected it all up and letting it soak in for a day before I give it the first hardcore listen. I’ll probably listen tonight though but I want to give it at least 24 hours of on time before I begin to make any type of comparison.
That military grade connector on the umbilical is impressive, they say it’s propriatary, very satisfying twisting and locking that thing on.
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Is it more than the usual threaded collar they use for those things?
I don’t know, I’ve not seen it on other audio gear, it’s all metal and it twists and locks all in the same motion, a third of a turn is all that’s required to lock it in. I’ll take a picture of the female connector on the Typhon 2 itself the next time I take it apart. I’ve got another cable coming in on Monday.
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It’s definitely been used in some form in other components, such as on one of my Sonic Frontiers DACs shown below:
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What I should have said is that they developed this particular design and specd it for 30 amp. (One of the Typhon models is 30 amp) The basic idea is just a carry over of the airplane and mil spec type of connectors which are simply better, less prone to vibration and no accidental uncoupling.