Horses for courses. @Torq and I will disagree on this, but I think that the Nagra Classic DAC is one of, if not, the most competitive Delta Sigma offering at street pricing (e.g. $11k and not $15k). It’s a one size fits all solution, mandatory upsampling with low output voltage means that it works great with aggressive power amps.
With the HD DAC you gain a better power stage (two ACPS II’s that isolate the system from the power transformer) and a serviceable tube preamp, which is IMO not worth another $8-10k. I’m off the super DAC train for now and if I decide to go back, it’ll be something like the TT2 that I can pack into a carry-on travel with.
Regarding SR1a on tubes, it’s very doable but extremely pricey. I had a good experience with the hybrid Absolare amp but found cheaper KT88 designs to be lackluster. If you have $20,000 burning a hole in your pocket and must have a tube amp, go for it
Yeah man, I know they wanted separation between this forum and the headphones.com sales pages… but they take care of their customers. Some of the best customer service I’ve received in the audio industry is from them!
I was wondering how the pads are attached? I don’t want to pull on them and do some damage but was curious as to how they get replaced. The phones came with no manual. Thanks.
There are small plastic tabs that slide into the sides of the frame to hold the pad in. If you want to take them off, bow the pad outward and it should just slide out.
For the round ones that are under the headband, they’re attached in the same way as the leather headband piece, with two metal nubs. No tools needed to remove either set.
I just received my pair of SR1a Thursday morning and it has been 3 days of nearly nonstop listening.
Hour 1: Where’s the bass? Why so thin sounding? Hollow sounding comes to mind. (At this point I finally remember to turn off my Roon EQ and headroom adjustment, oops)
Hour 2: Bass dramatically improves in both quality and quantity. Still sounds a bit tinny, but okay yeah they have great highs, mids could be better but I wouldn’t kick them out of my bed, and I’m getting a touch tired and drift off to sleep to some jazz vocal standards.
Hour 4: Wake up to something a bit better sounding, things are blending better between high, mids, and bass. Coherency is becoming more apparent. There’s something very relaxing and right with this sound. Things seem to be opening up a bit
Hour 5-7: Well these are very comfortable to wear because I’ve barely moved much and I’m looking at the time wondering when I should eat something. I leave them playing while I do life affirming chores.
I pretty much listened all day Friday into the evening save for the occasional break to handle life.
Fast forward to Saturday.
I’m starting to question my need for my speakers, anymore.
I’m current-ly driving them with a pair of 60wpc Allnic A6000 Quad Parallel 300bxls SET Monoblocks tube amplifiers and for 90% of what I listen to (Just about everything under the sun, but a lot of Jazz, Blues, and Folk predominantly) I can live with this combo in hell or heaven, for eternity.
Granted, organs, deep house, techno, and kodo drums are not going to reach convincing volume levels without softclipping at higher volume levels, but up to the point of softclipping it’s a magical experience to my ears.
They probably cannot directly state a lower selling price (MAP … Minimum Advertised Pricing).
Dealers do it all the time with “Call for Pricing” offers and other work-arounds.
I think my favorite is the “open box discount”, at least for online vendors. They’d literally slit the seal on the box, claim it was “open box” (with full warranty) and list it for 15-20% less than the MSRP … right next to the full-price unit on the website.
The trick there was that there was, miraculously, ALWAYS an open-box unit available!
While I won’t name names, I know of at least one online dealer that did this enough that it was pretty obvious what was going on. Obvious enough that first one manufacturer pulled their dealer agreement, and shortly after they were out of business entirely (though that part may have been by choice).
That makes sense! I love the “open box” discounts, I’ve scooped several items online under that specific work-around and they were literally brand new items and I was the first owner!
