#schiit vali 2+

[audio-luddite]

May the fourth be with you

Ya its a pun, I like puns. In celebration of the day my most used tube vendor sent me a note about a sale on new tubes, and some NOS. They pushed a bigger pun in "The Ampere Strikes Back." Just a note several units are named after people. Watt is one, Ampere is another. Proper form is to always capitalize the first letter of the unit if it is such. So Amp, Amps and Watt or Watts is proper, not amps if you are talking masses of electrons blasting down a conductor. The electronic amplification device is just an amp. Hmmm I wonder if amplification is a term derived from current?

Anyway back on the topic of Tubes.

One of the packages I bought years ago was on sale for 25% off. The regular price was a lot more than when I bought them. The discounted price was double what I had paid. It was a set of NOS GE 5670 tubes with a pin adapter to mimic a 6922 / 6DJ8. They were cheap and NOS and real live made in USA by General Electric JANs which is special for military use. F4 Phantoms maybe?

I put them in my ARC SP12 and they did not fit under the top cover. I ran them topless for awhile and was not very impressed, so I pulled them and put back the JJs that were in it back then. Subsequently I bought some Japanese 7DJ8s that had been raved about and those were in the SP12 when I sold it.

Later I bought a Schiit Vali 2 headphone amp that used one 6922 for when my wife told me to "turn it down!" For fun I did a listening test of the various tubes I had in my stash including the JANs. It is blogged way down below somewhere. (November 14 2021) The results were the sound was poor compared to all the other tubes I had. Even the microphonic TESLAs were better and basically identical to the JJs which are purported to be made on the old TESLA machines. The best were some old Russian tubes that were rattling around the bottom of my tube box.

Now of course I have to disclaim that better only means I preferred the sound. Usually that means I heard my usual audio signposts the way I like, or something was missing. In the case of the 5670s lots of stuff was missing

So lesson learned, do not buy 5670 GE NOS JAN tubes to use instead of ANY 6922 type! If on the other hand you have an F4 Phantom Avionic on your bench go for it!

#F4 Phantom #ge 5670 tube #audiophile #cheap audiophile #audio research preamp #Tube Depot #sound in a vacuum #vacuum tubes

[bigjoe11]

SCHIIT AUDIO VALI 2++ TUBE HYBRID HEADPHONE AMP/PREAMP $149

SCHIIT AUDIO VALI 2++ TUBE HYBRID HEADPHONE AMP/PREAMP $149

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[nhanhshopaudio]

Schiit Audio giới thiệu chiếc headamp đèn Vali 2+, công suất lớn, giá hấp dẫn

Schiit Audio giới thiệu chiếc headamp đèn Vali 2+, công suất lớn, giá hấp dẫn

Schiit Vali 2+ là chiếc headamp đèn có thiết kế nhỏ gọn, sở hữu công suất khá lớn, lên tới 1,5W, tuy nhiên mức giá vẫn được giữ nguyên so với phiên bản tiền nhiệm ra đời cách đây 5 năm, chỉ 149 USD (3,5 triệu đồng). Schiit Vali 2+ là mẫu headamp đèn nhỏ gọn nhất của Schiit Audio, được nâng cấp về mặt công suất so với phiên bản tiền nhiệm. Chiếc ampli tai nghe này được thiết kế bởi chính Jason…

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[amazingworkspaces-blog]

The Setup 2017 (Take 2) Workspace

Here are some of the products that make this workspace an Amazing Workspace:

Guitars:

Setup Details:

Intel i7 7700k @ 4.8ghz

Case: Corsair Carbide Clear 400C

Epiphone ES-339

Auxiliary Monitors: Dell S2415H

EVGA GTX 1070 FTW Edition

Monitors:

SX VTG Series

PC Specs:

L/R Speakers: Klipsch R-15M - Center Channel: Wharfedale Diamond 8 CC

Amp: Vali 2

Audio

DAC: SChiit Modi 2 Uber

Headphones: Audio Technica ATH M50X

MSI Z270 SLI Motherboard

Sub: Wharfedale Diamond 808

USB Audio Interface: Focusrite Scarlett Solo

32 GB Crucial Ripjaws DDR4 - NZXT Kraken X52

Receiver: Marantz NR1506 5.2 Channel

Main Monitor: Dell UltraSharp U2913WM

TV: LG Electronics 49UF6700 (4K @ 60hz)

#amazing workspaces #desk setups #desk setup #workspaces #desk #desks #setup #setups

[gamingspot]

Me ears have now ascended fully! I've got a Schiit Vali 2 amp on the way to power them as well =======............,,,,,,,,,,, You can get this awesome game now and get 100% money back and more here: http://ift.tt/2fTIkZ6

#gmaing #games #game #pc #xbox #ps4 #nintendo #ñintendo #play #play game #fita #jogo #videogam

[qoempu-miawpo]

Schiit Vali Gen 1 hybrid headphone amplifier http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?ff3=2&toolid=10044&campid=5337410323&customid=&lgeo=1&vectorid=229466&item=112486564430

#IFTTT #headphones

[gregostler48]

via Singapore Cosplay Forum by SGCafe

#Cosplay Forum #Singapore Cosplay Forum by SGCafe

[audio-luddite]

Sometimes you hear things.

Good sound is a pleasure. That is really why we do this aint it? I noticed something over the weekend.

My wife was busy and noise complainy. So I put on my headphones. I am still learning about the ARC SP-14. More accurately I am confirming things. The tape monitor circuits avoid all the active circuits. Just lines and switches. If I fire up the CD and the headphone amp I do not even need to turn the ARC on. Set the tape monitor switch and off I go. I have the headphone amp attached to the tape out. So it was just the CD the Headphone amp and the headphones. Some ICs and one vacuum tube.

I played the Trinity Sessions CD. It is a milestone document of sound and music. There are a few famous audio nuggets there. Most notable is the first track just Margo T and a background of the Air Conditioner blowing. Better systems with the right wires and you hear the duct rattling, so exciting! (sarcasm)

I like the last three tracks the most. "Sweet Jane", "postcard blues", and "Walking After midnight." I used them for a comparison of phono cartridges on my LP version, and the various tubes in the Schiit-Vali+ with the CD. Reason is the simplicity of the recording, the clarity of the sound and the detail. Jumping forward I noticed something in the headphones I never had before. All in the vocal.

In the first two, I could hear Margo's lips parting. You know that moist simple click you hear if you have ever been very close to a girl who was about to say something. Then very light and subtle breathing in for the next words of the song. It was intimately close.

There were the sweet whistles of sibilance in some of her words. Almost a lisp, but so human and charming.

So obviously could I hear these things in the speakers? Same tracks but now through a fancy preamp and a big ol' steam powered Amplifier. Next day wife doing other stuff so I fired up the big system. Yes, the sounds were there. Actually her whistling on Ss was just a bit more prominent as that is really a very complex sound and I bet the amp was subtly complaining. Hey perfection is an ideal and a reality for no one.

The really cool part is that this is a good CD. It is an essential part of any serious collection of silver disks if good sound is your goal. The LP was made from the same master. I guess it is easier to get an LP made now than a CD. We live in interesting times.

#schiit vali 2+ #cowboy junkies trinity sessions #vinyl #CD #grado headphone #audioblr

[bigjoe11]

Schiit Audio Vali 2+ headphone amplifier Review

Schiit Audio Vali 2+ headphone amplifier Review

https://www.stereophile.com/content/schiit-audio-vali-2-headphone-amplifier I do not report these tube-rolling observations to criticize the Vali 2+’s performance as delivered and tested, nor to second-guess Stoddard’s choice of tube. The new-old-stock GE/CGE 6BQ7A is a tube of the highest quality. The stock Vali 2+ is an excellent amp, which exceeded my highest expectations. I mention this…

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[audio-luddite]

There are no experts

I recall one definition of an expert is someone from a thousand miles away.

The internoise has thousands of experts. Most know dick shit.

I know a bit of stuff. I have built lots of electronic things from plans. I make no claims about circuit design, but I can tell a FET from a Bipolar. I can tell a 12 AX7 from a 6DJ8. (read the label). In the age of Bravo Sierra media anyone only needs attitude to get a you tube following.

A few years ago I was shopping for a CD player. There were not many out on the market. I found a youtube site that did "reviews" and it was this guy who's method was to project the brochure on a screen and slowly read the words. It was fascinating how little this person contributed.

Yesterday I was wandering the digital wilderness and came across some review sites. Since I have looked for things the browser knew that and it fed me this stuff. One was of course the "best new turntables for 2022". It was stupid. First is the guy probably never had personal contact with any of these. Second I could tell from the choices that it really should have been called "best specifications for fancy Turntables under $600 dollars that I looked up." Anyone can look that stuff up.

An Audiophile would not even look at that stuff. If it costs 4 or 5 figures they may look. 75% of the choice matrix is bragging rights.

Buying a turntable is like buying shoes. You have to know it will fit. By that I mean it works the way you need it to. They all go round. The old ones I had were totally manual so I had to use my hand to carefully place the needle in the groove. The ones I now have are automatic so I can push go. Old man hands do not matter there. Fine motor skills be damned. The least expensive "good" TTs are fully manual. Oh and if you have to mount cartridges fine motor skills almost to brain surgeon level is helpful. Hence detachable head shells being good.

My position is for every nice new unit there are several better ones for sale on your local Craigslist for much less. (usually)

Set up carefully and made level (really important) you will do fine I promise.

So that guy was bullshit.

Then there was a similar exercise by a person for headphone amplifiers. I had just got one and was happy with it. It was not even on his list so sad. This guy would not know an OP amp from a triode. So he went on an on until I had to turn it off. Full muttering mode.

Bottom line is if you buy something you will probably be happy with it. I bought Grado headphones that are not the top of the entry line. Solid middle range of that level. I am satisfied as I hear things I expect in the way I expect them. I do not expect them to be in the same league as my amp and speaker experience.

So on to more positive things. I got some new tubes for the SP12. I had heard wonderful things about 7DJ8s that they lasted really well as they were built for 7 volt heaters rather that 6 volts but still worked. To be crystal clear, I know exactly what that means. They were Japanese Toshiba and yes they were NOS. Sorry. I reserve the right to change my mind.

I spent a few hours with one in my Schiit Vali 2 and was pleased how it compared to the old Russian and the newer JJs. Wanted to be sure before I went all in the preamp. It is a bit of work to untangle cables and extract the preamp and remove the cover (8 machine screws).

So I made the change and tapped here and there to be sure there was no microphonic effect. Yup that was good. Right now I am in burn in mode. I think I am good for at least a couple years. Apparently these may last 10,000 hours.

If you want a toe in the tube water a Schiit Vali 2+ is a good place to start and is an Excellent headphone amp to boot. (It takes THOUSANDS to beat it, at least that is what Stereophile says.)

So I am experienced meaning I have touched equipment and done all these things. I have been shocked electrically and experientially. I have seen many things. That has honed my bullshit detectors to a fine edge. If that make me an expert then so be it.

#audiophile #audiophile on the cheap #vacuum tubes #headphone amp #schiit vali 2+

[audio-luddite]

Glass Shoot out?

Tube sound is frustrating. It should not make a difference, but it does. I suppose one could rationalize that a supply for 50 year old weapons systems do not need to be hi-fi. They just need to work in radar or whatever. Anyway to it.

I found an old stash in the crawlspace. When added to my box of goodies from the last couple years I had 5 different 6dj8 tubes, or functional equals.

5670 GE JAN NOS tube USA Made with a converter to match the pins on the 6DJ8. Cheap and $10.00 USD each. I had tried them in the SP12 but they actually did not fit (too tall with the converter). Probably 50 ish years old or more. JAN means military supply and that is not for stereos.

6922 SOVTEK Made in Russia but labelled in English. It think these were in the preamp when I bought it 32 years ago.

TESLA ECC88 of dubious identity, but definitely microphonic so pulled from the preamp when I tried them. That is not a problem when using headphones as I did here. Originally made in Czechoslovakia before that broke up.

JJ E88CC maybe 5 years old? Those are made in Slovakia using the tools and machines from the old TESLA factory.

The 5th one is the tube that came with my Schiit Vali2+ that I never used. Since I have only one I did not try it in this.

The playing field is Paul Simon's Graceland CD through my Yamaha player and the Shiit Vali2 into Grado 125x headphones.

Here are the contestants posed on top of the Phazer TT which had no other part to play.

The Vali2 has a single tube. There are no other tubes between the headphones and the CD player. All differences are in that tube.

And dammit there were differences! Insert rant here.

I limited myself to a single session straight through of 5 tracks from the CD. Repeat four times. All the tubes were used at least a few hours, but no I did not burn them it for each session. Swap it out and fire the bugger up.

First up the 5670. Summary it lost. The sound was OOKAAY but there was a glare around some of the sounds. Vocals were good, but there are some very delicate percussion things including a cowbell or two that were not great. Some vocal backgrounds were confused.

Next was the "TESLA" which was much better. The small bells were clear and metallic and the vocals more distinct and clear. You could hear the hands on the bongo drums. Had I found nirvana? The recording has a lot of reverb added as well as some out of phase background singers. The reverb delay is clearly heard as separate rather than aire around the vocal.

So on to the JJ. As E88CCs those are supposed to be premium as E88CCs are "better" than ECC88s. Sonically the twin of the Teslas. Actually more than sonically. If you look inside the guts of the two are basically the same. Sensible as they are supposedly made on the same machines from the same designs. I could not tell the difference.

Currently the best of my Teslas (2) are in the SP12 preamp with the rest as JJs (3).

The SOVTEK 6922. Older than my kids, so Old old stock? I have three in my stash so the other 2 are dead and gone I guess. This is the hard part. I think they won. The vocals sounded more natural. There was no strain and it was just nicer. Well I left the thing in the Vali 2. All the things I preferred in the TESLA & JJs were in the Sovtek, but there was more of something. Or maybe there was less of something.

Conclusion:

I should not have bought those 5670s. They were cheap for a good reason. Some of the TESLAs were terribly microphonic in the Preamp so I had to pull them. Not a problem in the Schiit Vali and headphones. A serious problem in a preamp. The JJs are good as so that makes me happy.

I am intrigued by the Sovtek tubes. My usual sources do not list the 6922, but very similar 6N1P and they are not expensive.

I have a new set of tubes coming as my JJs are getting old. Those are Japanese 7DJ8s. I guess I will give them the Schiit test too.

Fun eh?

#Schiit Vali 2 headphone amp #Grado headphone #audiophile #TESLA ECC88 #JJ E88CC #Sovtek 6922 #GE 5670 tube #Paul Simon Graceland #Yamaha CD player

[audio-luddite]

Anticipation.....

That's all I got for now. I should have the headphones by the end of the week. Fedex has them. Thursday they say. Well I can only wait, oh and buy a record.

I just pulled the trigger on Steely Dan's AJA. I never bought it before which is surprising as it has a reputation as a "test" record. Steely Dan were a couple of talented and quite anal retentive artists. I recall going to a media show where a producer did a presentation on that album and brought a copy on a Sony HD video cassette. Normal tape was not good enough. They did weird things like overdub piano and guitar notes so precisely to create a sound that was from an unidentifiable instrument.

I found a 180 gram EU pressed copy for not crazy money. So I ordered it. It will not be the first album through my headphones, but maybe the second.

This should satisfy my urge to buy stuff. I hope.

Still this little headphone amp thing brings into sharp focus the ironic nature of audio and vacuum tubes. Numbers tell us that tubes distort noticeably. They distort more than solid state. The distortion is pleasant sounding so it is preferred over an accurate signal. It gets truly strange when people choose different tubes to accentuate different aspects of their music collection.

Golden Ears long ago abandoned the idea of test instruments being useful and just use their ears to judge. It is not because ears are better, but people like certain things. A lot of music sounds better with reverb. Studios add it in. I remember an expensive high end CD player that actually mixed in hiss to make the sound more "natural." It is more psychology than physics. If things were judged just by distortion meters and such many high end products would simply not exist.

They exist because tribes of fans adhere to one or another faith about what they think is best. Just look at the contradictory comments on the audio forums. To somebody everything sucks. Calm heads know that aint true.

I am part of this thing. I have a tube preamp. I like what it does to the sound. I CAN hear effects different tubes have even when they are serious flaws like those microphonic NOS Teslas. I liked the sound, but I know sometimes you must pull back so occasionally I do. I am aware that better is usually not better, but just preferred at the time.

I do endeavor to make things as good as I can. I did a lot of vibration treatment to my turntables. I modified my amplifier's power supply to give it more reserve and to isolate the channels. I make sure the phono preamp and cable capacitance is compatible with the cartridges I use. I build really good speakers. I give my stuff the best chance to shine.

It does shine.

So once I get this stuff here I can listen the way I want without upsetting the wife.

#schiit vali 2+ #6922 tubes #tube preamps #tubes distort #audio tribes. #cheap audiophile

[audio-luddite]

Well distance is an abstract.

The headphones I delayed ordering are now on the way from the freaking other side of the continent. The store I ordered them from is on the other side of our city. With luck I will see them in a week.

Had I know they were lying about being in stock I would have ordered from GRADO Canada directly (which is where they are coming from) I would have saved a few days.

So the little Schiit Vali 2+ is here and sitting on my shelf all lonely and unused. OH WELL. Got here about a week after I ordered it.

It is really cute. It is very well made from the outside and feels solid. Joy of Joys the JAN GE NOS 5670W tube and adapter fits. That makes me genuinely excited. The tube it came with (made in Canada of all places!) is in its wrapper.

In one of the curious facts of the universe a lot of cold war weapons used these in their electronics. Like Radars, ICBMs, and F4 Phantom Jets. GE is the actual General Electric and made these tubes up to 1986. Probably the very last tubes made in the USA. There are gobs on the market and they can be had fairly cheap. They are military spec rated for dogfight Gee forces and up to 80,000 feet altitude. Tough little bottles.

The best thing is they have an excellent reputation for sound and I have 5 of them. I bought them for the ARC SP 12, but with this little adapter they are too tall to fit in the preamp.

It took me about an hour to clear a spot on my steam powered stereo rack for it. It is small, but the cables for connection and power stick out the back so you need a lot of depth behind. The tube sticks up and so clearance there is needed as well.

The ads show it sitting on an otherwise empty shelf with its brother components. My system rack is fully occupied. Two big shelves for the black amplifier and its outboard extra power supply capacitors. One shelf for the CD Player and ARC preamp. The top shelf for the turntable on its isolating platform. I figured out something.

So there is sits a bit forlorn waiting for its headphones.

My wife asked what is that and why. Explaining that it is for headphones so I will not disturb her, she took the opportunity to point out I was inconsiderate to turn the music up without her permission. I did not reply. It aint worth it.

Wife Acceptance Factor 8/10

#Wife acceptance factor #schiit vali 2+ #GE5670W vacuum tube #Headphones

[audio-luddite]

When is worse better?

As part of the program of beating things to death is the following.

There is a really cheap low power tube amplifier on the market. They have it at the place I often buy preamp tubes. It is called the Tube Cube.

Photo from the tube depot website.

It is small and simple and maybe 7 Watts on a good day. One package can be bought with two small speakers for the whole "tube experience." There are a few people who sing its praises as warm and friendly and creating space in playing music. As part of the listen with ears and not measurements thing it is Good.

Problem is it is poor in almost every measurable way. The frequency response starts to drop around 2000 hz. It is 3 db down by 10,000 hz. Any decent unit would measure out many times better. That is the treble that is missing there. Even old man ears can hear it is missing a lot of information. At a blistering 1 Watt of power it has 2% distortion or worse. The trick is the type of distortion is the kind that adds a reverb effect with 2nd harmonics. It is like sugar in coffee. You may like it, but it hides the taste of the coffee and it is bad for you. Oh and for any speakers worth the name not enough power.

It is cheap. Cheap to buy, cheap to build, cheap to sell. And you get what you pay for. Cheap sound.

As I said there are people who like it. They like it for other reasons than good sound. Ya its funky and glows. They describe the sound with all the usual tube sound adjectives like liquid and warm. But it is not a good unit.

It is only 3.5 Watts per channel with an optimum impedance load, which is adequate for headphones I guess. My Schiit Vali 2 will put a whole one Watt per channel into my headphones. It has a tube, and that is why I bought it. It has 200 times less distortion. It has a bandwith out to 1,000,000 hz for 3 db down. Oh and it costs less.

The tube cube is cute, it is a novelty product. It is not for people who enjoy good music presented well.

So worse is never better just in case you wondered.

If you want decent entry level tube sound its gonna cost you. Playing in the mud gets you dirty.

#tube cube amp #cheap audiophile #cheap tube amp

[audio-luddite]

Dolby Atmos.

I was flipping through Apple Music and found a thing called spatial audio or atmospheric sound or something like that. WTF? So I dig into it a bit. Apparently a similar thing to Qsound and Ambisound and other 3D simulation stuff. In full on movie tracks it has up to hundreds of speakers and can mix them to do weird things on the fly.

In the Apple thing they say it can simulate binaural sounds in headphones. Hey I have headphones.

So I find a playlist of nice symphonic ditties like Albinoni's Adagio in G and well lots of stuff like that. All done in Atmos they say.

So I fire up the CD player with the dual Burr Brown decoders and fancy stuff that the Iphone can talk too. I set the beast to lossless Atmos ON and all that. I fire up the Schiit Vali-2+ and plug in the phones and head for the leather couch.

The advertised experience is that "you are there" which is not quite what happened. There was an orchestra. The violins were on the left and the brass on the right and all that. There was a sense of space, but not a full on virtual reality thing or close to that. Again my fireplace has a better illusion.

I was impressed with the first cut. Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss. AKA the 2001 Space theme. There was BASS. There is a low pedal organ note (double low C) thrumming in the back and it was a holy shit (schiit) moment. It was not body shaking, but hell these are headphones. I guess they are coming on a bit.

The album or list or whatever you call it is called "the immersive experience" London Philharmonic recorded at Abbey Road Studios. It was a digital stream. I had it set for lossless. It had problems. The lower registers of the instruments were really nice. But the highs were rough, even distorted. Violins are really hard to get right. And I have old man hearing.

It was not the CD player. I have played symphonies through it a few times. It was not the Schiit Vali as I have listened to CD and vinyl without this digital mosquito noise. (ok, yes it was subtle but there) It may have been the iPhone, but it is just sending bits and digital streams of data do not distort. I figure it was the source. Just not a very good recording?

I suppose I should say that I have heard much better. I have a good Recording of Albinoni and of Samuel Barbers Adagio for Strings on LP. Both DG if I recall. I think it was a digital artifact. Could it be the Atmos process? No idea.

I will listen more tonight. The missus is watching tennis on TV so the speakers must stay off. These headphones are doing the job.

#dolby atmos #london philharmonic orchestra #Grado headphones

[audio-luddite]

One day early.

The headphones arrived a day early. So after dinner I dove in.

I have no idea if you are supposed to let them break in or whatever you want to call it. I had them and the new Schiit Vali to use for the first time. They may change a bit over time. I will see.

I have first impressions and I think those are valuable. It has been a long time since I used headphones. I have those stupid Iphone earbuds, but those are not in the game at all. Last serious set I had were some Koss noise canceling beasts for air travel and for the noisy open office I worked in. They were to keep stuff out. This Grado SR 125x is to enjoy music. That part works pretty good.

So the basic headphone experience is new to me. Lets get this out of the way then. It is in every way inferior to real speakers in a room. Except for the wife disturbance thing.

First and most noticeable is the Bass. Bass in a room from speakers is felt in your chest and sometimes your whole body. Headphones aint going to do that, the physics are impossible. You could exaggerate the bass to trick the ear, but that is not the real experience. I am not surprised, but now that I hear it, oh well. The headphones have OK Bass as far as feeding my ear holes. Maybe they will loosen up and get deeper after a few hours. But chest crushing bass is not possible.

The next thing is the simulation of a space or a performance venue. My speakers stretch an image across the room usually beyond the width they are positioned. All the recordings I tried last night do this. Headphones not so much. That too may be an effect of the new Schiit and with its newish tube not broken in. Nevertheless I played recordings that give me huge sense of room and volume in the main system. Headphones nope. There was an almost...

I have both the original CD and the 180 gram double LP set of Trinity Sessions. I played both last night. They both contain an amazing sense of space from the Trinity Church in Toronto. I could almost hear that with the headphones. You could hear the reverb in the room. There was a slight echo from Margo's vocal, but a real sense of space and illusion of volume no.

That said I have heard it in headphones years ago. My brother and I made a binaural recording set up with a dummy head (mom's wig holder) and a pair of condenser mikes. We recorded it into a reel to reel recorder then played it back into a set of sennheiser headphones and it was spooky. But these albums were not binaural.

Actually last night was a lot of comparing CDs and LPs of the same album. Trinity Sessions and Paul Simon's Graceland. The LPs came through 3 preamp phono tubes into the Vali 2 by way of the tape output of the preamp. The CD came out of the Yamaha CD-S300 via the tape monitor circuit (no tubes just switches) and into the Vali. The Vali is I think FET op amps and a Tube. That was interesting.

Overall there was gobs of detail and all that geek stuff. Yes the AC vent was rattling in the Trinity Sessions first track. You can clearly hear the vocals and the backups and the timbre of the instruments. Surface noise on LPs was more prominent. I guess room noise masks it in the big system. I just don't notice it on the speakers.

One preliminary conclusion is that the CDs and LPs have a very similar sound. That is how it is supposed to be. The cartridge was the Grado Opus3 to keep it in the family. If grados have a voice it is not a bad one. As the CD was so similar you may even have to admit the Grado Opus 3 is accurate, heavens!

I also played some usual suspect LPs. First up was Famous Blue Raincoat. All the sounds were there, but illusion of space no. You can hear the added reverb as it is just a bit off. Lead and background vocals are clear and separate. This is probably the first time I heard this album in headphones. There is some great Bass and I missed that, but see my comments above.

I also threw Emmylou at them. Quarter Moon in a Ten cent town. Wanna torture your cartridge this is the one. It made the Shure V15 III run and hide. Here I found that complaint about Grados having rough treble as having some merit. Emmylou's sibilance was almost too much. It was accentuated let's say. I have old man ears and highs are not what they used to be. This is the only recording I noticed anything like that and only on one track. I played all of side one and the first three tracks of side two. Again vocals are detailed and lovely. You can clearly identify each singer and their unique tone.

All that is the first few hours of listening. Things may change.

My goal is to listen to things with some privacy and to not bother she who must be obeyed. That is met. I will see if other recordings promise better illusions of space. It is an illusion and that is made by the way the recording is done. I will see if the Grados and the Vali break in or mature like a fine wine thing. It may happen

Regardless I have a good listening option I did not before. All I need now is the cable extension which will arrive next week. Then I can rest on the couch with my tunes.

I have one complaint though. The Headphones came with a 1/8" plug with an attached 1/4" adapter. I wasted some money buying a 1/4" to 1/8" adapter. For Tablet use. I did not notice anywhere in the Grado literature they did that. The adapter I got was a Grado as well so why do they even sell it? My best guess is it is a bit flexible and Ipads and tablets and Laptops have relatively fragile audio sockets and that may help. But that was a few bucks I did not need to spend.

#Grado opus 3 #Grado SR125x #CD vs LP #cheap audiophile