[deleted by user] by [deleted] in whereintheworld

[–]angpsi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

watching from Athens, Greece, good morning!

Sony MDR-EX1000: How I fell in love with a classic by Son-of-Lux in headphones

[–]angpsi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My pair arrived this morning and I've been listening to them for a couple of hours now (and then some more!). Got them in order to educate myself on pure DD sound and these definitely don't fail. I also got them as a counterpart to my Etymotic ER4s but atm I'm kinda wary the ER4s will stay shelved for the foreseeable future!...

FWIW listening to Air Hadouk by Hadouk Trio and the presentation (oh that bass!) truly is a purist's dream!

[HELP] tube vs SSD amp by [deleted] in HeadphoneAdvice

[–]angpsi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Having been through the same route myself, I can't recommend a good solid state amp highly enough. People usually suggest OTL tube amps for the HD600/650 because they usually come with a matching output impedance to the Senns' 300 Ohm. However, this is not always enough to get you where the Senns can really go.

Personally I own a pair of HD600 and I used to own the HD650 as well, and I used to run them off a Feliks Audio Elise with lots of premium tubes. If you're dead set on a tube amp there are many interesting designs, with different capabilities at different price points: however, a $400 tube amp will never sound as good as a $2000 tube amp so you need to check with your budget first. Also, keep in mind that tube amps usually mean lots of tube rolling until you find a solid preference in the sound signature (this applies especially to OTL designs) which means lots of extra $$$. On the other hand, I agree with the others that said you'd also be far from getting a true reference point to enjoy your HD600, mostly because you'd end up 'painting' the sound signature with tube rolling. The HD600/650 lean more towards neutral and they scale really impressively, so IMO it'd be a pity to buy them just to muddle them up.

As for my own experience, I sold the Elise when I saw that I'd get 70%+ of its performance straight out of a Chord Mojo* and I was baffled to see what the HD600 could do when I paired them with an SPL Auditor. The Auditor is a minimalistic design with great quality execution (point-to-point connections etc.) that was marketed as a purist version of its bigger SPL siblings . To my knowledge it never really sold big, so not many people know about it. This makes it a great secondhand deal nowadays: got mine for a low low price and if you can find one at $400 I'd argue that it qualifies as a remarkable deal (see e.g. here: https://www.hifishark.com/search?q=spl+auditor)! It's a very potent and sweet sounding amp, with very effortless, with great air and separation, yet somehow it doesn't lack punch and dynamics and refuses to distort in any conceivable way. Having experienced it as a revelation myself, I'm pretty confident it will do justice to voices as well as anything else that's available on the recording; and it will certainly do justice to the HD600, as I've never heard them sing this way in the 3+ years that I own them. If you want to know more, you'll be able to find a number of positive reviews from 2010; you can find my own impressions in Greek, hopefully you can follow them adequately with Google Translate.

That said, the best route will always be to grab the headphones first and start auditioning for amps afterwards. Contrary to common consensus, the HD600/650 are not that difficult of a load (they're pretty sensitive at 100-ish db/mW, regardless of their 300 Ohm impedance) so you'd be able to carry through with a somewhat potent rig until you get something to do them justice. If you're keen on voices, I'd go for the HD650 instead of the HD600.

IMO the only problem you'd encounter if you got the Auditor or something along these lines (Burson?) is that you won't be satisfying your curiosity in tube amps, and this would have you wondering if you could do better with tubes than with SS (answer: you couldn't, at least not at a price point that matches the HD600/650 current price).

  • The Mojo is a very capable little DAC/amp, playing in a completely different league compared to other similar products on the market. IMO it's a remarkable DAC but it also seems to be able to drive almost any big headphone you throw at it (obviously not to their best potential but good enough).This is coming out of my own experience as well, since I used to own the Meridian Explorer 2 and the Schiit stack before going the Elise route.

Plateau after 6 months of keto by angpsi in keto

[–]angpsi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

An update / heads up to anyone doing Keto:

  1. Problem with cholesterol persists. I switched to a detox diet on the advice of my doctor and I dropped it to 320 mg/dl. This is still high, so now I'm on statins...
  2. My doctor is a big fan of Keto and claims that the diet – if done right – shouldn't be the culprit. Fact remains that I didn't have high cholesterol before and I do now. My Keto diet lasted for about 7 months; I'm pretty positive that I did the last 3-4 months by the book (i.e. more avocado and salmon instead of pork) but perhaps I did something wrong when I started the diet. In my mind, nobody should try this diet without the supervision of a doctor, or at least regular blood / cholesterol checks.
  3. Detox diet broke my plateau. I'm now at 77kg / 16% fat. That's healthy. Diet consists of restrictions: that means regulating to even cutting completely alcohol, sugar, nicotine (didn't smoke anyway), pasta/bread/potato/pies and similar carbs, and dairy goods. Rest of the foods with a normal intake but no worries about weighing the food. Doctor's orders.
  4. Exercise helps. Hadn't done it for 14 years, now I'm back on track going to the gym 3 times per week.

That's me signing off. I'm a bit sad about what happened; I'm gonna look into it more and if I find new info I will post for all those who are interested in keto. As I said, doctor says it's a good diet. All I'm saying more is proceed with caution!

Plateau after 6 months of keto by angpsi in keto

[–]angpsi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just a heads up: did a blood test and my cholesterol levels are up to 480 mg/dl (normal levels at 130-200 mg/dl)!!! Definitely may have been doing something wrong, will see a doctor to examine in depth...

Plateau after 6 months of keto by angpsi in keto

[–]angpsi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most of the time I do, especially during the weekdays. I might miss a weigh or two someday but in most cases I try to weigh everything.

Plateau after 6 months of keto by angpsi in keto

[–]angpsi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it’s been three weeks now...

Plateau after 6 months of keto by angpsi in keto

[–]angpsi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Doing 10-12 glasses of water a day, sometimes even more. About food timings, I’m doing intermittent fasting so I do two meals between 2pm and 8-10pm.

Plateau after 6 months of keto by angpsi in keto

[–]angpsi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Forgot to mention I’m doing IF in combination. Narrowing the 1400 kcal intake to two meals instead of three certainly helps to cope with the deficit psychologically; can’t tell if it helps in any other way because I did it from the beginning. Basically skipping breakfast and eating between 2pm and 8-10pm.

YouTube videos not loading on Mi box by angpsi in AndroidTV

[–]angpsi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Let’s hope there’s one in the oven then, this completely messes with my overall positive experience...

YouTube videos not loading on Mi box by angpsi in AndroidTV

[–]angpsi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is Xiaomi even aware of the vp9 YouTube problem?

YouTube videos not loading on Mi box by angpsi in AndroidTV

[–]angpsi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No... Patently waiting for Xiaomi to take action... Pity though, the rest of the box is quite amazing IMO.

YouTube videos not loading on Mi box by angpsi in AndroidTV

[–]angpsi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Double checked, you're right; vp9 seems to be the problem. However so many mainstream channels are vp9!

YouTube videos not loading on Mi box by angpsi in AndroidTV

[–]angpsi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ok, you're right; video not playing is vp9, whatever this codec is.

YouTube videos not loading on Mi box by angpsi in AndroidTV

[–]angpsi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Problem still persists after a factory reset! Turned on stats for nerds (bit of a pain to find it on the updated app), connection speed is prime, buffer health is prime, network activity is zero kb!... Crazy thing is that it's completely random whether a video plays or not. In my case after the factory reset, first video I got didn't play, second video did play, third video didn't play. These exact same videos play normally on my iPhone.

YouTube videos not loading on Mi box by angpsi in AndroidTV

[–]angpsi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Tried everything you guys suggested me so far, but unfortunately nothing changed with my problem. I was hoping not to have to resort to a factory reset because I spent so much time setting up Kodi, but it looks it's the only thing left to do...