In the headphone camp, I discovered four exciting new and semi-new items, two of them commercially available without any problems, two likely requiring just a bit (or a lot) of resourcefulness to obtain. Let's start with the latter. If we were going by the usual "Best Sound of Show" standards and concentrated purely on the sound rather than attributes like impact, displacement, soundstaging, scale and weight which require free-air in-room speakers, Doc B. would have won, hands-down and with no possible disagreements. That's because he used master tapes, with the more expensive setup run at 15ips off a Nagra and powered by a custom tubed headphone amp made for Paul Stubblebine's recording studio and on brief loan for the show, with Sennheiser HD-600s doing the dynamic air-pulsing honors strapped to the amp via a length of Dan Schmalle's own headphone cable. Incidentally, Doc isn't called the first Bottlehead because he washes bottles but because he cooks up aural sex with 'em. Below the good doctor enjoys a moment of respite on one of his own tube amps configured for headphone use (the little-bit-of-resourcefulness contender to obtain for your own pleasure - just give the man a call).

If you wanted to go really deep, you moved over one station and tapped into Stubblebine's customary setup for the closest thing to hard-wired music the show had to offer.

Dan Schmalle didn't just look good to the ears either. Trading photographic duties on each other, he turned out to be a far more photogenic subject than yours truly as the following shot courtesy of Dan will prove. Hey, what I was really looking at was one very hot lady sashaying past - my wife. She just left me speechless, Doc - I'm okay now.

This rig is the need-the-right-juice-to-obtain contender. After all, we're talking about Paul Stubblebine's personal headphone amp. Would Doc. B have the time to make another one? How much would it cost? That's for you to find out. It could be bad for your real sex life though if you spent them long nights on this thing instead of with your beloved.


For less financial but more electrical juice, Brian Cherry of DIY HiFi Supply [above] has revisited his Chazz headphone amp we previously reviewed [$679 assembled, far less as kit) to now be mujo copasetico with the AKG K-1000s. When he got a pair to experiment with, he realized what the Austrian cans wanted to see in the juice department and beefed up the amp to give it to them. For US sales of the assembled amp, contact Los Angelite Kevin Haskins of DIY Cable.

For $779, you could also purchase the new Lehmann Audio Black Cube Linear Class A headphone amplifier with built-in power supply, zero global feedback, Class A output stage, two parallel headphone sockets, externally adjustable 0db/10db/20dB gain switch and single-source i/o ports for minimal preamp duties.


As of February this year, Tom Hills of Hudson Audio Technology [left with ca. $1,450/pr fj Zwerg speaker] has been the Lehmann distributor and, as of October 1, has also signed on with the German fj speaker line we had covered with a lot of excitement in our CES 2004 report.


For you vinyl fanatics, the current pricing on the Lehmann phono stage lineup is as follows: $459 for the Black Cube; $289 for the PWX power supply; $689 for the SE version of the Black Cube; $989 for the Twin Phono Black Cube; and $2,900 for the Silver Cube.
And while we're at phono and new distribution deals, Klaus Bunge of Odyssey Audio just signed with Van den Hul and significantly dropped the previous Stanalog pricing scheme. How about the MC10 Special for $850, the MC One Special for $950 or the famous Frog for $1,750 - $1,950 (Stanalog wanted $3,000)? The Grashopper IV dropped by $1,500 to now $3,500 (ditto for the Black Beauty) while the excessive $6,000 price tag of the famed Colibri is now $3,950. Is it just me or did Stan the Man sleep through math class? Perhaps even hotter news is Bunge's new retipping service for any Van den Hul stylus ever made: $300 for retipping, $200 to rebuild the cantilever with all-new rubber mounts and $200 for coil repairs.
What with all the faceplate color choices Klaus offers for his own electronics, I'd hoped to turn him into one of those multi-headed Hindu deities, with perhaps some corny byline "there's a color and mood for every day of the week" - but my Photoshop skills are too marginal for such trickery. This hokey collage will have to do. Anything but hokey was the performance in his rooms, with the $1,500 system (speakers, preamp, amp and cabling) now shipping and soon to be in the hands of our own Paul Candy for a formal review.


I've gone on record for many shows now that if you're cash-strapped or simply multi-hobbied, Odyssey Audio is the best bang-for-the-buck I can think of - even if you could spend significantly more. Always on the hunt for the latest stories, reporters have notorious short-term memories. What was great and mahvelous yesterday is an old hat today. Well, not. Good value in these times of escalating prices is a long-term constant that mandates mention no matter how often it might have been said before. I'm not sure exactly how Klaus Bunge pulls of his pricing stunts safe to say that he does and that, many years later, he's still in business and smiling as though to say: "This is way stupid."

And yes, this is the 21 lbs. Etesian active/passive preamp for $350 (remote optional) and the 32 lbs Khartago 2 x 110w Class A/AB amplifier (bridgeable to 160 watts) with 60,000uF of capacitive storage, bandwidth to 400kHz and a price tag of $775. Who says style always must equate unaffordable? How very un-Germanic of you, Klaus Bunge!