Hammy

Speakers or headphones?

Headphones. LCD-2 Classic, Liquid Fire, Gungnir MB A1

Example. The first track is soft for the first 2:30 then kicks in and gets loud. With inverted phase the loud part kicks in with more energy. The soft part sounds better with correct phase. The loud part sounds better inverted. Most of the album is loud. Most of the album works better with inverted phase.

Two albums for me. Especially the early Kawehi covers were must-haves...

I'm streaming Kawehi swinging from the chandelier. https://kawehi.bandcamp.com/album/kawehi-covers
That's a nice cover

She is good man. Her solo work is impressive...

I've long thought it safer to just avoid Leonard Cohen.

What triggered my reaction was hearing "Hallelujah" sung during the DC COVID memorial service. They should know better than that. It's not a hymn. It's a secular song about sex. Some of those hallelujahs are orgasms.

That certainly sounds like an ignorant blunder. Must have been a lot of sniggering at the organisers.

bold? It doesn't sound good, lets try turning up the volume?

Generally a bad idea. But OK, I am hard of hearing, so you you might have picked up on subtleties that are lost on me :)

Punctuation is so punctual isn't it?

Period.

(I hate people who talk in menstrual cycles!)

I did try downloading the affected tracks again. But the affected tracks are listed as the wrong length (shorter) than they should be on the official HDTracks tracks list. So what HDTracks has as their download is corrupt.

For the past 15 years I've used AccurateRip to verify CD rips. And for the past 10 or so years I've also used CueTools DB to verify CD rips. All of the CD rips in my library are good. None will have corrupted tracks.

Yet when I download from HDTracks, Qobuz, 7digital, Bandcamp, and other sources I have to trust that the service is sending me good files. There is no AccurateRip or CTDB equivalent to verify downloaded files. So no third-party way to verify integrity.

I immersed myself in learning about classical and music history. I found and explored a lot of classical music. Also went to many live concerts. Mostly Oregon Symphony, but others as I was able. All that knowledge about classical music is still with me even if the CDs I bought back then are forgotten.

I give you a ton of credit for trying. I simply lucked out: my Dad was a master of the orchestral repertoire, so almost everything I heard was analogue. (The only exceptions that come to mind are a young Michael Tilson Thomas and Bernstein's Mahler set on DG.)

I got started by taking a music for the listener elective class at college. Homework was going to concerts. That's when I started buying classical CDs. That was mid 80s. My only regret is that I didn't realize the DDD classical recordings were so bad and bought so many.

The Koss has gotten me to listen to listen to Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Alison Krauss, Foggy Mountain Jamboree and other bluegrass tonight. I'm in the middle of some polka on the banjo right now.

This headphone loves bluegrass. I've never heard $390 for an amp and headphone do bluegrass this well before. Wow. Rollin' in my sweet baby's arms. I've got the Koss setup paired up with a Modi Multibit for source.

Similar issues with piano recordings. I don't want my head inside the piano. I also don't want my head in the room if the piano sound loses the "you are there". Some orchestra recordings manage to the balance of "you are there" with the room sound just right.

Vintage AKGs excel with this music. Certain Philips headphones also work well but give an old K500/K501 some proper power and you enter bliss...

I don't know if a listener should be trying to simulate what the performer would have heard or what an audience would have heard. On some piano records, simply raising the volume lets one fake this shift in perspective somewhat.

Dang! I have a Sony BDP-580, not a 590.

The BDB-580 is so close. Almost a right model. I paid $300 for a new Pioneer BDP-80fp just to rip SACDs. Audiophiles have a strange way of justifying purchases like that. For me it means I can make drunk purchases of $6 SACDs without guilt as long as I ignore that initial $300 sunk cost.

Sounds like a great problem to have. The last time I did this, I ended up with some cool single take modern classical recordings.

I don’t have a crimson. I do have a fire and platinum. I’ve only heard the crimson twice at meets. The Cavalli blended hybrids are a different sound than the glass. No tube is going to get the glass to sound like the blended hybrids. They’re different. Yin and yang.

The blended hybrids sound more like their solid state side. The glass sounds like the tubes with the amp running with no global feedback. The glass lets the tube freak flag fly.

Can’t really call the glass softer or less incisive because so much depends on the tubes. I can make the glass sound aggressive or soft or incisive or mushy by changing tubes. It’s difficult to describe the sound qualities of the liquid glass because whatever you try to describe depends on the tubes.

Here's her KEXP performance live on KEXP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5zhoRBUSbE

That does not sound like the title of a happy song.
(edit: thought I got this in directly below @Lyander's post)

Thanks for the recommendation. I bought her albums.

I've done this so much with DSOTM I don't even listen to it anymore haha... speaking of floyd what do you think of the 2019 "dry" mix of delicate sound of thunder ?

Looking forward to your impressions of the amp.

I'm embarrassed to say that I don't yet have the 2019 remix releases. So I haven't listened to that "dry" mix yet. I'll get a round tuit. I have a lot of Floyd and Floyd covers. But not everything.

https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=38967

I'm excited the LG X is finally available. I'd have already ordered one but I'm thinking of waiting a week or so till the smoke clears a bit in the Portland area. I don't want the shipping and delivery people out working in this smoke just to get me an amp sooner.

I'm happy you got it. Don't have any guilt. I got lucky and was able to buy a Liquid Glass by being online here early in the morning when one came up for sale. It's only fair that others get lucky too.

I already have a Fire and Glass so I'm doing fine. Very fine. My desire for a Crimson would be to get me to buy an LCD-4. The Fire loses its balls and sounds more angelic (relatively) as the headphone impedance goes up. Not ideal for the LCD-4. The Crimson and Glass don't have that problem. The Platinum doesn't either.

Damn, I want a LG too. Very hard to come by for 230 Volters.

Uh...I wasn't aware that was an issue. I haven't seen any reports of the power brick dying.

Not a current issue I'm aware of. I'm playing the long game. I want this amp sound to still work in 10 years. 5 or 10 years from now I may not be able to get the right spec replacement power supply for this amp. $484 is inexpensive insurance. Heck, I'll spend that on tubes for the amp over 10 years.

One thing I should mention is that I already own a Liquid Fire and Liquid Glass. The LP is not my primary amp. When I want to indulge I listen to the LF or LG. I consider the LP to be my transportable amp and second system amp. It's a lower tier than the LF and LG and I don't expect the cap mod to change that. I still find the LP worthwhile to listen to even when I've got the LF and LG two feet away.

Any drone recommendations?

Most of the drone music I listen to is in the doom metal, drone metal, drone doom, or stoner genres. I like the power and slow flow of the bass drones. Bands like Sunn O))), Sleep, Earth, Om. There are also other styles of drone like Bass Communion (Steven Wilson) that can venture into drone styles. I need to explore some of the electronic drone style music. I've heard some pipe organ music get into drone.

For Sunn O))) try
Monoliths & Dimensions: https://sunn.bandcamp.com/album/monoliths-dimensions
White 1: https://sunn.bandcamp.com/album/white1

My collection isn't focused on a style or genre. A mix of classical, jazz, experimental, electronic, stoner, drone, metal, jams, whatever catches my interest at the time.

A pleasant surprise on Bandcamp is finding out that what I bought ends up being in high-res or better than 16/44.1

Colin Stetson's "SORROW - a reimagining of Gorecki's 3rd Symphony" is neat and the Bandcamp download version is in 24/48. https://colinstetson.bandcamp.com/album/sorrow-a-reimagining-of-goreckis-3rd-symphony