Janeb, you should stop fooling people. Trying to impress people with a non existing audio system is rather foolish and a waste of time for all the serious audiophiles that responded including me. Before I placed my remark that your system is non existing I checked with Marten in Sweden. I know the Olofsson brother personaly as I visited them in Sweden in order to listen to the coltrane supremes in their Marten center and Leif Olofsson visited me twice listening to the coltrane supremes in my listening room. All this can be checked easily by everyone by contacting Marten in Sweden. Lastly, it is a rather cheap debating trick trying to disqualify me only by saying that I have not listed my system. As everybody will understand, not listing a system has nothing to do with my remark that we should no attention to your false claims.
Audiocrack, your responses are very interesting, especially since you haven't even posted a system yourself. IMHO, that leads no credibility to you. Karelfd, at the time of my purchase of the MF headphone amp, it was supposedly the best available. ( Yes at a price of $450- but I see very little as how this has anything to do with it) According to the review that I read from ST this was the cats meow. I realize now that the price is probably commensurate with the quality but this wasn't taken into consideration at the time. I was obviously mistakenly under the impression that this headphone amp could compete with or maybe better the Stax or any other equipment due to my reliance on this review. I haven't heard the Stax pieces, so presumably they are as you say. If we had a bigger interest in headphone usage, we would probably look more into what really is better; just at this time, my husband and I don't. BTW, the Odins do dual duty with this usage and in my husband's system.
Sadly, I have to agree with Audiocrack. If Janeb has not posted pictures after several requests during the last nine months, I have to believe that this system doesn't even exist. Maybe it does exist, and she is a housekeeper for the owner, and she gets to dust it.
People, please stop writing. This system only exists in Janeb's mind and is not real. As a Coltrane Supreme owner I checked this: Janeb is not the owner of this beautiful loudspeaker.
I had to read this a few times: you use a $20k pair of interconnects from the DAC to a $450 headphones amp (to make it worse, balanced runs that you need to use adapter plugs with), the quality of which you describe in, erm, excremental terms. Did you deliberately choose to do that for a reason that I admit I can't think of? Sorry if I appear impertinent but this looks like a complete and utter waste.
If you bought one of Stax's top notch earspeaker systems, say the Omega II phones with either the SRM-007 tII (tubes) or SRM-727 II (transistor) energizer, it would set you back $4k, peanuts in the context of this system and you could continue to use your Odins as they were meant to: balanced. Alternatively, since you're using different digital cable anyway, to keep the entire transaction largely neutral even if you lost half of the Odin's retail price, you could sell them and buy a pair of balanced Valhallas to use with the Stax energizer ($6k + $4k).
By the way, you could of course also complete your cable loom with Odin digital cable which have been introduced meanwhile according to this site http://www.highendcable.co.uk/Nordost%20ODIN%20Digital%20interconnect.htm I have no interest in or affiliation with this store but have included the link since on Nordost's own website they are still not in the product descriptions
Slipknot1 Janeb- would it be possible for you to post a photo of the entire system in the context of the room? I would really like to see the entire setup. Thanks.
--Make it 'WE'.. maybe could we learn a thing or two from it. Please share!
Thanks Janeb. In case you're interested in making a change, I recommend checking out the Ray Samuels headphone amps, particularly the B-52 or the A-10.
Bigamp, I'm using a Musical Fidelity X Can V3. Frankly, I think it is a piece of sh't. I bought it without having heard it first ( big mistake) and after reading the review by Sam Tellig in S'phile. All I can say is that IMHO Sam must be a little deaf (ok, maybe a LOT deaf) to recommend this thing. Mind you, I have heard other MF pieces and again IMHO they are all mid-fi at best. Moral of the story, from now on if I can't hear the piece under consideration, I'm simply NOT interested.
May be a picture of you....? I think you have a very nice husband who doesn't mind you have this expensive hobby. Actually I was curious about your system because I own Marten Coltranes fed by Hovland HP200/Stratos amps.
Now you boys have me a little confused, my husband reminded me that the ic from the Transport to the DAC is a Harmonic Tech ic. Do you want me to take a picture of it..:0)
Mu6, you are beginning to annoy me, I NEVER said that we used an Odin cable between the amp for the Supremes and the bass ( spelled bass and NOT base) tower...We don't. The Odin ic cable between the transport and the DAC works fine, maybe you should try one before you speak.( Did I say anywhere it was a digital cable?) BTW, This is my last reply to you, since I don't even know if you own a system.
The Marten Coltrane Supremes include an amp for the base towers in a special confugiration, which requires an extra ic. If you knew, for sure you would mention this. Also digital Odin cables don't exist. Oh oh, you little liar....