The One and Only Big D Thread

I live around a lot of Bikers. You know Harley Davidson, and the like. Let me know if you are one of them. Just heard one flooring the living shit out of theirs. This is where I live. Cops allow it.

 

Koss ESP-950 Electrostatic Headphone
Vesper Pad Mod (Leather and Alacantara)

3rd take on the Koss headphones and get them sounding great......

Testing will start during the next few days with "SPDIF out" (I call it Coax), and I will refer to it as Coax in my review of the Koss ESP-950 headphones using the Coax output of my Xonar D1 Sound Card on my Win7 Workstation.



Setup consists of.....
Win7
Foobar 2000
Asus Xonar D1 w/DSP & multiple Dolby formats
SPDIF OUT
Morrow Audio Reference 3 Digital Coax cable
SPDIF IN
Modi 2 Multi-Bit DAC
RCA OUTPUT to Koss Headphone Control Box

Pics.....





It will be interesting what type of sound will be emitting from this setup. Right now the setup with the tube amplifier in my chain and the Dolby Headphone setting, I am very satisfied with the whole spectrum of the delivery and detail, timbre and body in the lower register to midrange smoothness. This is compared to having straight sound without the tube amp and the Dolby Headphone setting. Koss can use those Vesper Pads as a necessity. Don't even think about not buying them. You will lose so much in terms of seal and comfort. No less the Bass improvement is known to be improved as well. I don't know. I put the pads on right away.

I'm going to place my bets on Modi Multibit and a Coax will bring a great sound to this headphone. And it will be different than the tube amp setup. Will it be better. Doubt it. Just different. The sound is spot on now. Hard to think that it can get better than spot on.

 

Liked for several reasons, but, above all, for the plural of octopus

 

I for one vote for octopi*.

* Though octopii comes in a close second...

 

@Marvey
Agreed.
My good friend who I would hang out with all the time never drank. He is Korean.
I personally drink just enough to relax, mostly.

Spending close to ten grand the last few months has given me some inkling to get a buzz on. A bit of a celebration, you would say.
The spending spree is coming to a close. I am over the moon with the new toys. There are many that have not been mentioned.

 

What a night. Critical.
CPR needed for my Lady. Not breathing for over 2 minutes.
Critical Condition for 2 hours in Hospital.
Finally stabilized in in Stable Condition
On Ventilator
I almost left for store in 20 minutes.
She would be not alive, if I wasn't there to give CPR.
911 is extremely fast where I live.... 5 minutes.
Life savers, with my CPR... we save her
This is the fourth time.....
OMG.....
Say your prayers...
Or just wish us well.....
This has been going on for 2 years....
Didn't want to reach out....
But I don't know what to do at this point.

I'm very worried about my significant other......
Seen the signs, and I don't like this.... there has to be some type of other outcome.
I am struggling with this. Having a loved one deteriorate. Sorry. Big D needs a hug.

 

I'm really on the fence with headphone listening.
If you have the ability to listen to 2 channel audio.....
It is IMO just more relaxing.
Not to knock on a headphone website about something so dear to you all.
It just is so much more pleasing to have my life in a 2 channel world.

My new Koss ESP-950 Electrstatic headphones sound quite good. Are they the end all to headphone nirvana?

Not a chance..... But I sit here listening to my Altec Lansing computer speakers and wonder why the lack of fatigue and spot on timbre is so wrong. I think these speakers (2.1 system) cost $45. No listening fatigue, and to boot not bothering anyone. They don't play loud like my Klipsch 2.1 Promedia, but they are spot on. That is something that we must remember. Great sound does not have to be loud. It has to be right. My Altecs sound right. I have in storage for computer a Klipsch Promedia 5.1 with an extra subwoofer for the back surrounds, and it has a volume control as well. It was hooked up to a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 sound card. Quite the setup to have 500 watts RMS with perfect surround sound. It was not audiophile sound at all. But produced MP3 goodness. It was that type of system. You could hear it down the street. On the weekend, we used to have Dance Party (Me and my Son) playing the most obscene music that was in the Clubs at the time. When you were in the middle of the Klipsch surround system with the Dual Subwoofers and the 5.1 system... it was surreal.... the sound was pumpin', and it was a freakin' fun time to be inside the soundstage of the surround. Don't know if you have ever been in a surround with subwoofers coming from all around you. It is astounding.

So you have another story.... This is just an observation of the headphone. I love them. I just don't know if they are a match. You know. 2 Channel Stereo. A Turntable would be nice. Please send me a FREE VPI 3 and a Ortofon Black, with your best Phone Stage... I will accept it at my doorstep. But that is at another level of music reproduction. The Music Lesson continues. The Wallet is flat. The time is at hand to decide what is your priority. Mine is no listening fatigue. To listen, is to enjoy. Micro detail, is shit to me. I want pleasure. Don't you?

 

There is a SingXer SU-1 in stock in the USA. Get it while you can.
1:19AM 3/27/17
https://kitsunehifi.com/product/singxersu1black/
This is the best upgrade you could make.... everf

 

So sorry to hear about your significant other. Hang in there.

Headphones will always be more fatiguing as the sound waves emanate inches from your ear and are on axis vs speakers where room, angles, and distance come into play. Completely different listening environments.

 

Most people would, but, apparently, although octopus looks Latin it is not. Seems it is actually Greek, hence the plural that looks wrong to most of us.

OhMyGod. Scary worrying stuff. Very best wishes to you both

 

Sorry to hear about your partner big D, but it sounds like you knew what to do in a very difficult situation so kudos to you. Sending positive thoughts and best wishes your way.

 

sorry to hear that, but I recommend you don't refer to yourself in third person, people don't take too well to that in these parts.

 

@cskippy
@GTABeancounter
@spwath
@Thad E Ginathom
Good News. She is not in Critical Conditon anymore. Stable in the ICU. Wew. All is well, and she will recover again with time.
Thanks for your well wishes. It really helps. I needed to reach out. Normally I keep these things to myself. This time it really was close.
4th time CPR and me have saved her life.

 

Need to keep busy, so I want to show how great the $400 SingXer SU-1 Digital USB Media Bridge is for using any Computer, Tablet with a USB connection.
It will take the digital signal and turn it into gold.





This is one hefty unit when you pick it up. Probably double the weight of what you would think it would be. On the underneath are dip switches to change a lot of the unit for different things. I'm not going to go into that today. I'll save that for another time. The SingXer SU-1 is clearly a powerhouse that cannot be denied for digital listening. And at a price that could be triple, and no one would blink an eye.



Let's here from some of the technical guys behind this unit from China and see what is really inside this thing and explore it's function and capabilities. I am over the moon with my SingXer SU-1. It is like having oxygen for digital music for me now. I just have to have it. Very much a game changer for the people that like to have their music on a computer or tablet.
Let's explore..........

SU-1 is the first machine we have developed equipment that is positioned in the high-end interface, is used mainly in the following three main technologies:

1 Full isolation technology (ground isolation), the use of 150Mbps full-chip isolation, interference can be completely isolated from the PC;
2 Source synchronous shaping technology and CPLD technology, I2S signal isolation after the re-shaping; thus eliminating the isolation chip to bring added jitter;
3 The independent development of the system clock, using CRYSTEK high-performance oscillator, low phase noise and low jitter.



Features:
1 SU-1 is the first using the XMOS latest xCORE-200 series of high-end USB digital interface products. New generation XMOS chip, using more advanced process technology, performance than the older U8 chip doubled, reaching 1000MIPS processing capabilities.
2 It is known, the weight of the core is digital audio algorithms. Our team in the field of digital audio work for many years, at the same time get XMOS FAE support team, we conducted a number of technical improvements and optimization algorithms on the basis of the original firmware.


Design details:
1 Carry out electricity as the mother of the acoustic design concept, pay attention to the power supply circuit design, high-performance, low noise and fast response of the LDO as the main power source. The entire board using multiple independent path LDO power supply, wherein the clock even partially adopted ADI ‘s ultra low noise LDO , in order to ensure the ultimate output performance laid a solid foundation.
2 The PCB motherboard with 4 -layer circuit board design, ensure that you have full power and ground plane layer, using the method of high-speed digital design, signal integrity and power integrity of the entire board. The clock signal for special treatment, using package design and precise impedance control, thereby ensuring the signal quality and increase the clock anti-jamming capability. Input and output signals follow a standard design, especially USB high speed signals using a 90 ohm differential impedance control.


Final Thoughts from Big D:

I know that some prefer to have a server type of setup for digital and use ROON or some software the works with Apple. You can use your phone or tablet and be unwired. Pretty nice. But ROON is expensive. The software for some of the music servers is clunky at best. If you are a Linux programmer, you're in luck. There are great sides to the music server. AURALiC Aries $1,600.00 / Bluesound Node 2 $500.00 / Cambridge Audio CXN $1,200.00. These are really your only considered good affordable choices as far as my research goes. Aurender N100H Network Music Streamer $2,700.00 is popular with people that have big money budget. A great unit that I can't justify the cost at all. The best software though, that I have seen for the IPad.

Don't know why the designers don't do Microsoft Windows software design. Not all of us is an Apple user. I was a Microsoft Partner and System Builder and also used Apple sparingly, but to be forced to use Apple with their semi-closed system and have electronics designers not design for Windows operating system and Windows Phone is just wrong. So be it.
Edit: Thanks @Torq below for clarifying why Apple has the lock on the streaming software, and why Windows and even Android don't have a chance.

There are many ways to listen to music. I lived in a million dollar condo when I first moved to Florida with I would say a $15k stereo system that was installed. It had whole house, every room sound. It was fun to have the music everywhere. The novelty wore off after a while, and I went back to just listening in the livingroom of the condo in surround sound. The amplifiers were big Denons and were designed to accomodate whole house sound. Volume Control Knobs in every room. Gigantic Condo, I tell you. 3,800sqft, Too far away from Mom though. 10 miles.

 

It's "Roon".

"Rune" (RuneAudio) is for embedded players and is free.

Not so very long ago I owned a mobile development studio* (I sold it as a going concern) - specifically building applications for other companies. There was literally no demand for Windows Phone applications, even for companies already paying to have one developed for iPhone or Android. The breakdown was something like 85% of revenue from iOS applications, then about 14% from Android applications (the vast majority of which were straight ports from the iOS version), and somewhere under 1% for Windows Phone/Mobile applications.

Given that the cost to do the port to Android for most applications was, at most, 20% on top of the initial iOS cost, and the amount was similar to port for Windows Phone/Mobile, you can get an idea of just how little actual demand there is for the stuff.

I can count the number of Android-first/only applications we built on the fingers of one hand, though many took it as an option on top of their primary iOS build.

I don't need any fingers to count how many Windows Phone/Mobile first/only applications we were asked for.

And the practical upshot of that was that we were better off not even attempting to do business in that space, as it avoided the need to keep engineers current, deal with tooling and Microsoft's byzantine licensing models etc., so I shut down that part of the operation well before I sold the company.

Apparently Auralic don't even consider not having an Android config app a problem. Though they will be adding a browser-based setup interface at some point which will work with any OS.

--

*No, this isn't, and wasn't, my "day job".

 

@Torq
Thanks for the reality of the situation. Apple won. Just like Blu-Ray.

It just sucks that I'm such a Windows guy.

Win7 Workstation
Win7 Lappy
(3) Win10 Lappy
Win10 Surface 4 Clone
Win10 8" Tablet
Win10 NUC (coming next week)
WinMobile7 HTC
WinMobile 8.1 Denim Lumina 640
WinMobile10 Lumina 640
Win10 Workstation (being built this summer)

It just hurts.

 

@Torq
The Auralic seems like the streamer of choice for the money. I'm watching the DAC situation over the next 6 months and seeing if anything develops before I take the plunge on upgrading from Modi Multibit. Just have a feeling that something good or an upgrade from Schiit may happen.

 

In the context of the Auralic Aries, a used, basic, iPod touch, which is all you need to configure it, is going to be less than $100. Once it's configured there are myriad control-point applications for various Windows platforms. Most of them are free.

 

@Torq
I have an IPod Touch 4th Gen.
Thanks.