Tarzan

That my friend, is a ripper

I didn't read all of the other reply's, I'm too lazy. I find tubes are responsible for hum, can you isolate 1 channel and swap out the tubes to the other side? I'm not familiar with this amp but that's how I find the problem tube. I have heard of grounding issues for some tube amps but I haven't found that to be the problem for me.

Thank you for the photos. Appreciate the time taken.

ugh, of all the Saturdays, I have to go to the inlaws

WOW! Big grats Neil, well deserved too I think. You give a lot of great advice to many on SNA including myself. Enjoy this great early Christmas pressie

What a beauty.

Totally agree

At least you don't need to worry about room treatments with headphones, I believe this is the true advantage over speakers. That and you don't get the complaints mostly, my girl complains with my open backs late at night but that's minor compared to cranking my speakers.

I think the Focal sounds very realistic, but again this all depends on system synergy, and folks who know what musical instruments are meant to sound like can be the worst to satisfy. I pick the Focals as I like acoustic strings and have a little back ground in guitar and live music. Blues and rock were my main go to until I found my current system. Now I search for more acoustic music. Good luck with your choice, will be interesting to hear what she thinks.

Beautiful dac with beautiful sound. Easily compares to Chord TT2 WITH the Mscaler, as I and other have compared. Totally worth this price. I love mine

I have one, great highs, super defined.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I use Qobuz and the only issue is the limited music, not too bad but some albums are not available that are on Tidal.

Best home office chair is a leather XL Lazyboy

This is one hell of a sub, I have one and its more than enough. GLWTS mate

I'm holding of as well in case there is an update

I'll have to have a read, thanks for sharing I can suffer from it, bouncing in a club and not wearing ear plugs for some time really didn't help issues I already had.

Great idea for a thread, will generate some good discussion I think. I could not agree more with the Focal Elegia's. A few on the forums suggested them and I'm glad I got them. Only use at work or late night but very good.

I had @Bill125812 make me a pair of his hybrid solid RCA to XLR cable. This went from a Chord Qutest DAC to WA22. Prior I was using a high end rca to rca. There was an immediate sound stage improvement and after run in I'm super happy.

I've never really been a believer in MQA or software in general but more the DAC. Hell I used wav files till I started a sub with Tidal and more for their library and user interface than anything else. I was using Amazon but the interface is such super PITA that I switched back to Tidal, that and a few months free.... As for Goldensound,, wants to be too much like Zeos who I'm also not a big fan of. Seriously take the cam of ya head mate. TBH Passion for sound is my go to for info. And probably more so @BlueOceanBoy but he don't make vids at present.

I can't hear anything from mine? Had mine for years

@M.R I would pass the knowledge based questions to @BlueOceanBoy TBH. He has much more experience and great in flight etiquette. Mind you If I was to roll again with gear this would likely be my set up: https://indiehifi.com.au/collections/tube-headphone-amps/products/euforia-otl-tube-headphone-amp https://indiehifi.com.au/collections/dacs/products/qutest Focal Utopias

Don't worry, my wallet took off a few months ago now. Haven't sent it since. Probably seeing the same therapist as @BlueOceanBoy's wallet by now. I wasn't certain of tubes either, but my wonderful fiance bought me a tube amp as a gift. Then instead of rolling tubes and burning money I just bought what everyone thought were the best. Easy really, not cheap, but easy. IMO solid state can't get the tonal richness or real decay that tubes can. But of course depends on what you listen to and what your experience is. If you've been a bit of a "muso" you'll know how things are meant to sound and may end up chasing it. Once you get close to it you try to get a little closer, then a little closer again, and then your living in the streets with all the other "muso"s.

Keep the headphones and buy some tubes mate, you'll never look back... @Indie Hi-Fi can hook you up with some great tube amps. I'm sitting here "working from home" Listening to John Lee Hooker on a simple pair of Focal Elex headphones, but man the tubes can make em sing.

Nice, those ZMF's will pair well with the Bottlehead. You don't want to make the stretch to the Bifrost Multibit? It would stack nicely with the Asgard 3 and would be a good SS amp to back up the Bottlehead. It may give you better value in the long term as well. Or a Qutest if your not needing the balanced connections and can make the stretch.

I wish my desktop looked like that. My girl would stop annoying me about filing all the paperwork on it. What DAC are you using mate?