ECP Torpedo III [indexed in first post]

I mean a lot percentage-wise. Over half with 56 || 80 headphones. But again the high sensitivity in the case of Elears should be OK. Would be weary about it with harder to drive headphones is all. I have found a couple that the T3 doesn't drive effectively as is.

 

You have the optimum power transfer from the amp, when the load is either 32 ohm or 250 ohm.

 

Actually, 32 or 300. But even phones like T50rp spin offs from various mfgs that are usually right around 30-50R are not a good match for the T3 despite having reasonable sensitivity. It's best to have the amp designer comment on the specific situation with Elears. I'd also like to know.

 

I am not sure I want to guess. I don't know anything about the headphones in question, so knowing how they will respond to a particular situation would be a guess. I do like the parallel resistor option, however.

One additional note is that the new output CCS option will increase both the amount of standing current available as well as the percentage of that current directed toward the output. That may well help with some of the harder to drive phones.

 

The boards are still not for sale?

 

Tom has a full time job. I'm sure he'll get them up when he has the time.

 

Gotcha, the Beezar site is nice and probably better than anything I could put together myself but it is somewhat difficult to tell if something is new to buy!

 

Yup, that's what I was expecting you to say. It's hard to hang one's hat on something working well, and making a recommendation, when it's so new and unknown. I'm going to order the Elear headphones, not to be used primarily with the T3, but will certainly be able to offer some T3 listening impressions nonetheless. By the time the Elears arrive, I presume those output CCS boards will be in too. I won't go as far as soldering in a parallel resistor, though.

 

Yes, it seems like a good choice to use parallel resistors with these 80 ohm headphones, both to match the impedance to the transformers, and to tame the huge impedance peak (impedance rises from 80 ohm to around 325 ohm in the bass).

I would think that choosing the value of the parallel resistors by listening we can achieve the best possible bass response with these headphones.

Great that you made room for these resistors on the PCB

 

I did?

 

Your measuring points at the output are perfect for parallel resistors

 

Looking forward to your impressions on the combo, i wonder how the pairing will be since the T3 is a dynamic and punchy yet also delicate sounding amp. And the Elear is also considered to be very dynamic and punchy perhaps it will be too much of a good thing?

 

@Riotvan

Well part of the beauty would be the ability to tune to your liking with tubes. Our tube rolling experiment proved that dynamics, attack transients, etc absolutely vary from tube to tube. So maybe your favorite tube will be different with a different headphone, but I don't normally believe in too much of a good thing. I'm a glutton for good things.

PS With @MortenB pointing out test points for inserting a parallel resistor, I am more willing to pick up a wire wound resistor and see how the output power at the headphone is affected and how everything sounds with vs without as well.

 

Yeah i like good things too, i was just going on the comment that Tyll made that it was perhaps a bit too dynamic. But i agree lot's to tweak with the T3.

Again, looking forward to your impressions!

 

I don't hear Tyll saying anything about the Focal headphones being too dynamic. I hear him saying, that they are very dynamic and it has taken him some time to get used to this kind of dynamics.

I'm new at head-fi, but has been in the high end audio game for many years, and as mentioned earlier I'm also a musician playing in a band. One thing with headphones that sounds very different from the sound of big high end speakers, or live music is how dynamically compressed headphones are. Honestly, there is quite a big difference.

Based on the early impressions and reviews it seems that Focal has managed to make headphones with less dynamic compression, bringing the sound closer to the sound of the real thing. I can't think of one reason why this is not good, and I can't wait for the Focals to be available here in Europe..!

 

Yes. I would much rather be bugging Doug for the parts list on his new DAC, but I don't have the time right now anyway. Plus, I had orders during the week, my wife went out of town, and I had to babysit the dogs, etc., blah, blah.

I got out my belt/disk sander and set it up in the garage today to do all the CCS boards. In breaking them apart, there is flash left on the edges. That means nothing except for the bottom edge at the "K" and "A" pads. You want that smooth so you can solder the edge flush to the T3 PCB. Otherwise, it's just hanging out there by the leads, not a good thing.

I considered leaving sanding the edges up to you guys, but then thought I could knock them out pretty quickly to ensure you guys had a good product ready to solder into place. The problem was, it took me longer to get the belt/disk sander out, set up, and then put away when I was finished, than it took me to sand all the edges.

I wondered about soldering the leads into place, too, but that's way too much work and does not materially add value to the CCS board. Regardless, if anyone is short of a spent lead or two, please make a note in the order on beezar.com and I'll include some spent leads for you. You need to make certain that you have resistor-size spent leads, because the pads are pretty small. Rectifier leads and others that are thicker will not fit into the pads. I highly recommend bending the lead around on both sides of the CCS PCB for stability, instead of just poking the lead through the hole and bending it at ninety-degree angle. I'll have some pics posted tomorrow explaining what I mean.

Anyway, they'll be up for sale tomorrow sometime.

 

Getting my TIII with new output CCS delivered on Monday. Will post some impressions. However I only previously heard the original TIII at meets, and that was a few months ago, so I won't really be able to comment on the difference the CCS makes, just the absolute sound quality.

Sources will be Cayin iDAC6, Grace m9XX and Schitt Modi Multibit. Headphones will be Senn HD800, Fostex THX00 with ebony cups and Lawton stage 1 and HiFiMan HE400i

 

Enjoy. That Modi Multibit, T3, HD800 chain should be formidable!

PS, how'd you get the Ebonies already?

 

They're the EMU Ebony cups, not the Fostex.

I'm really interested to see which DAC I like better between the iDAC6 and modi multibit. I came really close to getting a Yggdrasil but was super intrigued by the iDAC6's dual AKM4490 with tube analog stage implementation. Then I got it at a great deal, so decided to go that route. If the modi multibit blows the iDAC6 away I'll probably sell them both and get a Yggdrasil.

 

Just saw the CSS boards were up on the site and i snagged a set, exciting times ahead boys