Why? Is it silver (it looks like silver)?

If the Brimar CV455 is wrong--I don't want to be right.

Beautiful setup! That amp sure looks familiar. Really nice headphone cable--who made it?

Years ago I was in sales. One day I had to call a company customer named Richard Head. The other people I sat next to were all cracking up, because "Dick" is the short form of Richard (who knows why). Everybody knew I absolutely could not call this man "Dick." I dial the guy, he answers, and I...

I'm desperately trying not to think about how all these tube variants might boost the already amazing sound of this amp....

I had to google around to find the translation. Pretty strange name for an amp!

At first I didn't. I used the XLR output on the medium impedance setting & never varied. But after 3 days of that, when Keenan kindly explained the differences between the 1/4" & XLR outputs, and the customization potential of the impedance switch, everything changed. Now I prefer the sound 1/4"...

It's not going to be easy to explain why it's so special, even though my ears clearly tell me it is. We talk about the benefits & shortcomings of tubes vs SS. But the more I listen to the Aegis, the less all that applies. Example: the bass reproduction of the Aegis is exceptional. The "pretty...

+1!!

I'm tube-rolling the loaner Aegis today. I have an unused, matched pair of Siemens EL-34s that have to be 45 years old. After letting them burn-in 5 or 6 hours, I'm listening right now. They sound different from the stock EL-34s, but it's pretty subtle. The Siemens are a bit sharper on...

chatoyance!! (beautiful wood)

I'm no electronics expert. I just do things that seem to work (and have worked before). For me, burning in the Reissue would be leaving it on for 150 hours at medium volume with a headphone attached. I usually start out with brownian & gaussian noise files (day-1), then progress to different...

Several people have asked me this. The URL below links to my answer from the other day. My Reissue just finished burning in, but I'm so busy with multiple review loaners that I might not get to a head-to-head of OG vs Reissue for another week or so...

I always found that any good tube amp will put me in an alpha state: calm, focused, thinking magic carpet thoughts. Very few SS amps do this. But my OG V281 is one that usually does. The whole warm/cold sound dichotomy fails to explain this. The V281 has a soothing, chill vibe, yet is dynamic...

I only heard the Ether 2 a couple times at shows. I remember this planar design being compact, attractive, and very light on my head. But hearing accurately during show conditions is impossible. Never had this headphone in my system or powered by the V281. But ... I currently own 3 wonderful...

(Pharmaboy blankly studies these words)

I suspect (hope) there's a hot tube time machine in there somewhere--you know, go back to Tuesday and do a couple hours listening (even though there was no time for that in the first go-round. (hey, it makes sense to me)

Interesting to see this. I just read an interview with Christine Applegate. She said that it was nearly impossible for her and David Space not to "break character" (ie, pee your pants laughing) when Chris Farley bursts onto the set like an atomic bomb going off. They felt pretty bad about it...

These cables are beautiful! Bevin is a real artist...

There sure is! There is also magic with pretty much any headphone and the Aegis.

This is 100% true. I'm hard pressed to remember any headphone that didn't sound at least very good on the V281. And a number of them sound their absolute best on the V281.

I see what you did there, Wes....

At the risk of "burying the lead" on my upcoming review of the Aegis (not really -- the review will about way more than Aegis vs HP8), both amps please my ears to no end. After >1 hr of head-to-head listening on my best headphones, a few perceptions: Not surprisingly, the Aegis pulls ahead...

That works for me all day in the HP8... Hope the new/old power tubes rock your world.

You have a number of balls in the air here. I'll try to simplify: The choice of DAC (specifically, multibit vs NOS/multibit vs delta-sigma) definitely influences the sound, but not exactly (usually) in the manner of 3D/holographic imaging, the province of tubes But there are definite benefits...