My recently finished reference headphone amplifier

looks absolutely amazing sachi! way to go!

could you elaborate on what ortho headphones are? completely clueless.

regards
 
Ohh, Come on. Welcome me to your ortho club. Sell one to me or just loan me one to get the taste of orthos.
If I keep reading about them, I am bound to hurt my wallet.:mad:

Nevar!!! Everytime I try to sell one of my orthos i make the mistake of listening to it before putting up the ad and sigh..the result is they go back into the storage box. FOr the price I'd sell them , they sound too darn good. I had this happen to me just yesterday when I was contemplating putting my third and last pair of Yamaha HP-50 for sale. But the time spent in perfecting the damping, the recabling, its just not worth selling it. ANd did I mention they sound awesome!! :yahoo:

Well, I am about to welcome yet another ortho into my inventory..This time its yet another thunderpants...Kingwood cups, with removable baffle so should be interesting modding this particular thunderpants.
Considering that among the 5 headphones, I use my thunderpants the most, can't wait to welcome this newest thunderpants into the fold :eek:hyeah:
 
Ohh, Come on. Welcome me to your ortho club. Sell one to me or just loan me one to get the taste of orthos.
If I keep reading about them, I am bound to hurt my wallet.:mad:

bah..so ended up purging my Yamaha HP-50 and Fostex T10 with the arrival of the newest Fostex thunderpants.

Also bought another ortho, the Head-Direct HE-5.
Should have that by the end of the week.
Can't wait to compare my TPs to the HE-5...no holds barred cage match between arguably the two best sounding orthos I have heard to date.
 
^^I have purchased a fostex T20v2. Waiting for it to arrive.Have you tried that. Its stock & I would have to dampen them.I need some advice on materials for that.

BTW, are the "thunderpants" the one made by Smeggy. I am very interested in its comparison with HE-5
 
^^I have purchased a fostex T20v2. Waiting for it to arrive.Have you tried that. Its stock & I would have to dampen them.I need some advice on materials for that.

BTW, are the "thunderpants" the one made by Smeggy. I am very interested in its comparison with HE-5

Congrats on the purchase of the T20s.

Personally, i've never heard the T20..and had the chance to buy one on the cheap, but passed on it recently. None of the vintage ones measure up to my current reference headphones which is the Tunderpants..and yes they were made by Smeggy. Both of them. One was made for me and the other (darker wood) was made for kabeer. I bought kabeer's from him as he wasn't liking it as much.
The darker ones are currently on loan to my good friend Donald (dBel84) here in Portland. He is listening to it on my EHHA (loaned it as well to him) and only says if i ever want to sell them he'll buy the TPs from me :lol:

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I had owned the HE-5 previously for about 3 weeks gurubhai, i liked it immensely. However i believe the thunderpants outclass them , but that's the reason i kinda re-bought the HE-5..to vindicate my gut feeling that the thunderpants trumps the HE-5. Will have to wait and see how true that is. WIll update when i have impressions...
 
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looking forward for your comparison.

well ..i received the HE-5s a couple of days ago and so far I am unimpressed.
I prefer the Wharfedale Isodynamic (ID1) over the HE5. The HE5 is more refined, better extension and details, but it misses to hit the mark. The bass feels flat. The Wharfie just sounds right to my ears music involvement wise.

Compared to the thunderpants,
the HE5 have more forward vocals,like the artist is right next to you,

there is more treble energy than even the TP, sibilance is still present but not to the extent that it was in the previous pair,

the music feels thin on account of being an open design. Just feels like it lacks the weight in the music.

The bottom end has a hint of bloat and can get annoyingly flat/monotonic. It doesn't hit as low as the thunderpants naturally.

The one area the He5 outshines the thunderpants is instrument separation. Being open in design, they have better instrument placement.

The exaggerated highs really gets on my nerves, gives a false sense of greater details when in fact it seems to cloud the top end of the freq spectrum(for instance when the hi-hat and/or top cymbals come on, the tone lacks distinction between beats, the fading shimmer effect is lost).

I am really impressed with the Thunderpants..and even more impressed with the wharfedale. For a 40 year old pair of headphones, the first ever commercial ortho, they totally rock and now have me contemplating pulling my ebay ad and keeping them while sending the HE-5 on its way.
:Correction: the HE5s will definitely be sold.
 
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thanks Sachi.
IMHO the vintage orthos are the best bargains of entire audio industry.
One does need a decent amp though.

How is the soundstage on your orthos, this is one aspect where mine are at a handicap.
 
6 hours got me this far today..
Need to make a couple of DC heater supplies on perfboard to get all the blocks together before I test and then case it up.

4 x EHHA amp boards, 2 x AMB S22 dual rail supplies.

ehhaz.jpg
 
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That's one serious looking rig!

thanks..as much as i would like to make a bad ass balanced EHHA out of it, it is instead going to be 2 Stereo passive ground EHHAs with one AMb S22 dual rail supply each.
Should have them both ready and hopefully making sweet music in the next couple of weeks
 
^^ That is so cool !

@ Sachi : Do you have any unused CTH lying around ?
My T20 seem to love power & I was planning on getting this amp.
 
^^ That is so cool !

@ Sachi : Do you have any unused CTH lying around ?
My T20 seem to love power & I was planning on getting this amp.

HI gurubhai,

I don't have any CTH boards left though I have components for a couple more CTH builds.

Kabeer on Head-fi has a CTH that I built for sale.

However, I would suggest you get the Cyrus One amplifier that is on sale here for your T20. Run it straight out of the speaker output.
Orthos do love power like no other conventional headphones.
 
That cyrus amp is a mumbai local sale.
Also, T20v2 has max. input of 200 mW unlike the other orthos like yamaha which have rated max inputs of 2-3 watts.
Would it be safe to use them directly from the speaker out ?
 
Just about getting ready to finish up the most expensive amp i have built thus far..900$ in parts alone.

A bit disappointed with the wiring..I know I could have made it neater if I had taken the time, but it works and I was trying to clear out the projects from my workbench. Too many wires almost made me go half mad making sure everything was supposed to be in its place.

The amp seems to be measuring perfectly but haven't been able to listen to it unfortunately as I sold off all my stat headphones.

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Some final wiring stuff to square away and an LED to be installed.

THis is my 4th successfully built and tested eXStatA. I have one more Solid State version to troubleshoot..really not looking forward to that :sad:
 
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