Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Christmas in August

The brown Santa came today.







New phones next to my 325i's with Sennheiser pads (more comfortable)


This also came today. Sadly, the right channel is out because one of the upgrade boards snapped a wire. I will take it into work tomorrow to solder it back. I jury rigged it for a quick listen and from an initial listen, I'm a Bottlehead fan.

Always fun to get boxes.
BTW, what is that last thing in your pictures? An electronic sandbox? I'm not sure my cat would approve.

It's an unfinished, alder wood box that comes w/ the Bottlehead kit.

http://www.bottlehead.com/store.php?crn=44&rn=433&action=show_detail

Unfortunately, my wiring doesn't even come close to looking like that. Hence, why I didn't post the underside.

I've mentioned once or twice on this board, and have been known to say it in other places too: The even-order distortion of tubes is pleasing to the ear. While modern solid state amps routinely have THD percentages as low as 0.01%; this tube amp is 1000x higher at 10%. Yet people sing the praises of how warm and natural tube amps sound.

I'd definitely be curious to hear one of these. I can't stand headphones though, so it'd have to be powering speakers.

I found this statement rather intriguing, "...the hardcore eXperimenter might even convert it into a 10 watt push pull class AB monoblock amplifier!" That's interesting, two of them paired with some M22s...

Yeah, I try not to get lost in forest of specs, which is easy since I'm an engineer.

W/ this expensive audio hobby, I've learned to let my ears decide. And they've decided that I can hear a difference w/ tubes and it's a difference I like. Colored or not, neutral or not, bright or not, it works for me.

I have tube monoblocks (ASL AV-25's) powering some efficient Von Schweikert VR1's and they sound great. I did run my M22's w/ a Sophia Baby Amp (which is available...) rated at 8W or so, if memory serves me. Sounds VERY good, as long as the room isn't too big. I used my Pio 45TX as the pre-amp.

Looks like ya got the Grado bug real bad. Congrats in the new phones and amp.