The All Purpose Advice Thread

Thank you for your suggestions! The Bryston 2B is slightly too large, and very difficult to find used on 220-240V, and costs almost $3000 new! The NAD D 3020 seems to be very good as an all in one compact box and easy to find in 220-240V versions, and the NAD D 7050 seems to be good. Having trouble finding a source for the NuPrime IDA-8 without importing, and that unfortunately puts it 50% more expensive than the D 7050. Thanks for your suggestions, just need to keep an eye out on used HE-6s now.

 

I already have macs and I have spare pc's at my office which I can use. I'm not adverse to Linux either. I'm sure I can figure it out.

If I go the Linux route, do I have a dual boot setup on the pc? I've only installed Linux once, but I partitioned my hard drive and had a dual boot setup. I've never installed it by itself, although I'm sure it's not to difficult.

Are there any specs I should have as a minimum for this type of setup? I have a few spare pc's around, 3.0 ghz, 4gb ram, and 250gb hard drive. I wouldn't imagine needing more.

Last question, it would be better if I used that computer as a dedicated device?

 

Hmm, some other mini power amps that come to mind that may be easier to find in your neck of the woods: (I haven't heard them; just throwing the options out there)
Trends Audio 10.2
Temple Audio Bantam
Firestone Rubby
W4S mINT

 

Hello everyone. I'm fairly new to SBAF and still a bit of a newbie when it comes to hifi. For quite some time I have been saving to buy myself a pair of paradox slants as reviews and impressions have convinced me that it would be a really great headphone for me. I listen to a lot of different genres(though lately my tastes have been leaning towards a lot of synth pop and electronic music) and would not want a headphone that fails particularly in any genre. Pretty much, I would like to buy a TOTL neutral, natural sounding headphone. Hence why I'm going with the slants. But I have not been able to get in contact with LFF to have a pair custom painted and with 2 mini xlr connectors. So my question is, am I losing anything significant by going the "starving student" route? I would love to get a pair of slants with 2 mini xlr connectors for future proofing and to have more cable options but I don't think I will ever get a reply from LFF on whether he will do it. If there's a significant decrease in value in the "starving student" version can you guys recommend another pair of neutral, natural sounding headphones? I was leaning towards the hd800 but would love to have a more portable option that's easily powered by my LG V10. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

 

Howdy everyone, I noticed some people talking about making a computer into a dedicated music player. In my opinion, the best way to do this would be to hack a chromebook and install Daphile on it as a standalone OS. I have been planing on doing this for a while now and this might be the motivation to finally hack my chromebook and do some internal upgrades. I will follow this guide for others who want to try this on their own. I can write up a tutorial if I manage to do this successfully if anyone would be interested.

 

That would be really nice if you did that. I've never used a chrome book, but I like the idea of it.

 

A Chromebook is basically Google Apps on a laptop. It's super lightweight, has decent specs for what it is and has a super long battery life. The down side is there are some physical mods you have to do to remove the operating system and then you should upgrade the SSD since you have it taken apart. Depending on the amount of music you want to have portable you can get a decent size SSD or just keep the one that comes with it (Should only be like 32GB or something tiny like that) and use it to stream from TIDAL or Spotify or whatever tickles your fancy. When I get some extra spending money here in the next 2 weeks I can go ahead and make the tutorial.

Actually now that I think about it, I will just go ahead and make the tutorial using the default hardware since I use my home NAS to store all my music and stream it over my network. I should get around to making this in the following weekends.

 

Thanks for the info Ryu!! I don't have a large collection of music anymore unfortunately. Most of my cds are home, in my house in NY. I live in Florida. My girl erased several hundred gb's of my collection by mistake as well. So now I'm left with maybe 100gb of music. Starting over... Fml. I'm open to going the Chromebook route.

 

Hi Guys,

I just got a ZMF Blackwood which I’m using straight out of my Benchmark DAC1 USB. I like what I’m hearing so far but based on what I’ve read here I think the built in Benchmark amp is the weak link in my chain.

I want to really make the Blackwoods sing and currently I’m looking at the Lyr 2.

My budget is around $600. I’m willing to spend a bit more for significant gains in performance but I’m not sure by how much the T50 mods scale up with better amplification.

ZMF owners in particular help me out!

Thanks

 

I had the Lyr 2 & blackwood combo until I sold the Lyr 2 a couple of months ago and really liked it. It drove the Blackwood's to potential, could roll tubes to tweaks sound, and played well with my hd650 & hd800 as well. You will get a chance to hear the blackwood slam, have fast response, and have a fantastic musical tone from this versatile amp. I never thought I found the right set of tubes for my taste, between warm nos amprex's to more detailed but drier Russian premium and lisst. Probably should have splurged on one nice set and left it alone rather than try 6 less expensive sets that all seemed to lack something.

Only thing that I thought the Lyr lacked was fine detail reproduction. I thought the Valhalla 2 (w hd650, blackwood wouldn't pair well with this) and vali 2 were better at this, although the vali 2 wasn't a great match with the blackwood overall.

 

Thanks for the info. I'm trying to think of other options at this price range and I'm drawing a blank.

The Liquid Carbon is much less powerful than the Lyr 2.....

What do you use now for the Blackwoods?

 

I also tried to think of alternative amps, but came up fairly empty. I am personally not a fan of the LC even though some here are. I found it lifeless and grainy, but others think it has a lush sound, so who knows. One of the garage 1217 amps would work, heard good things, but I am not very familiar with their amps and which one works best with what headphone. I don't think the mjolnir2 would be a significant upgrade from Lyr unless you have a balanced Dac.

I am using a ragnarok right now, and it's the best amp I've heard with the blackwood, but it's a different animal that what you are prob looking for.

 

Heyo, someone recommended that I post here on head-fi before buying an amp, so here I am. Can anyone recommend a good amp for my HD650s for around ~$200? (I already have a DAC, modi 2) I was looking at the O2, schiit vali 2, BH crack (although it's out of my pricerange, was gonna save up and get it if you guys think it's worth it instead of getting an amp now), bravo ocean, and the dark voice 226SE (when it goes back on MD). Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Edit - I mainly listen to stuff like bobby darin, frank sinatra, the platters, roy orbison, etc. if that helps.

 

The Vali is a very serviceable amp for the HD650s. I'm not sure there's a sub-$200 amp that'll work better with the 650s.

My experience with the Crack (actually a Crack-a-two-a) is that it is way more punchy and dynamic sounding than the Vali1 I currently use, but I suspect it takes a few $hundred$ in upgraded caps and tubes to unlock the Crack's full potential.

 

I saw your message that was then followed by a poster giving you bad advice to buy a Little Dot. As was pointed out, Vali 2 is perhaps your best bet below 200. Competitive with that is the Project Horizon III, if you're willing to stretch you budget slighty, but I have not actually heard this amp. You could also save for the Valhalla 2 and BH Crack w/SB or, if you're anxious to get something now, go with the Vali 2 today and sell it once you're ready for the Valhalla 2. It shouldn't be an issue selling the Vali 2, as Schiit products are perennially in demand.

Despite what the Little Dot guy said, the Valhalla 2 is indeed a true OTL amp and one of the best in its price-point for the HD650.

 

Another vote for the Vali 2 for the HD650. A good combo if you're willing to grab a good NOS tube to elevate the Vali 2.

 

Hello seniors~

I'm getting a little more serious on listening lately and I'm looking at "upgrading" my current "setup"(iphone+earpod)...

Current setup:
Source:
PC(Asus M7F)+Foobar
Amp:
None
Headphone:
GMP450PRO for home
Bose QC25 for travel

I'm new to audiophile hardware, I've used a few MP3 players as well as an iPod Classic...Indie folk is one of my favorite genres, however, problem with indie music is that source quality is usually in lower fidelity. Sufjan Stevens would use iPhone for recording sometimes. On the other hand, I'm getting more into classic(probably excuse for upgrading ). I would march into dreams with Beethoven's Symphony 5 when I was a kid, my dad always wondered how the punk could I fall asleep like that. Anyways, I was never satisfied with what came out of my headphone, and I'm really interested in knowing what hardware can get me closer to the scenery where the composer wanted to show me.

I'm willing to spend an est. of $2000. I'm more interested in portable DAC in the higher spectrum as I'm traveling more often for work, it would also be good to settle with a headphone which I can enjoy for life. Having a business trip to Shanghai lined up sometime this month, I'm planning to try out Hifiman products there, I'm specifically looking at HM-802s and HE560/HE6, but I'm open to others as well.

Any advice/recommendation would be appreciated!

 

When you say portable do you mean can be used on the go or is transportable (i.e. small enough to be packed away between destinations and used while not in public)? That will affect the recommendations for both DACs and headphones.

 

I've had a taste of the high end tube amps, and let me tell you... the Vali holds well against them. I'm sure the Vali 2 is better, but the first Vali can be found for ~$80 used. Phenomenal amp, and it's perhaps one of the best values out there. Still don't believe me? Go dig up Marv/Anax's first impressions on changstar when the Vali was first revealed; they seriously lost their shit that this amp wasn't being sold at $1200.

 

anyone got to try hd800s with Gov2 in balanced mode? I'm currently using it with T3 now but grabbing Gov2 for transportable use seems to be very tempting for me (also want to try that with HD650 as well)