1st impressions Solo ULD trial

All of Graham's electronics are designed to be powered on 24/7/365 as he is from a broadcast background where this is a necessity. They reach optimum performance after several days or weeks apparently. Never had mine on constantly for longer than a week but that's my loss. PSU1 must be sat on hard floor rather than on carpet so there is no risk of it overheating over time.

Regarding Bitzie vs Bitzie+Solo, I suspect it depends on the drive needs of the headphone being used. My vintage Sennheisers were all very close in needs to Graham's reference HD250 hence why the Solo didn't really give them anything extra compared to just the Bitzie (it already satisfied their particular needs). Not sure if Solo would help to further linearise headphones that have a less even frequency response.

That's helpful again, Ash, thanks.  My arrangement is a work station with the pc, to the right another work station with printer, drawers for components etc, to the left a filing cabinet whose top is level with the pc desktop, and on the surface of the latter sits the PSU1, where it seems to be happy.  (It's only about 3 inches from the router and I hope they don't get electronically entangled.  I can't hear any fights or anything.)

tg wrote: Just adding my  $0.2 here Brian, you will not hear the best of the Solo (IMO) until it has been powered on for more than a day (same goes for the phono preamps IME). So for best performance do not power down except perhaps on occasion of electrical storms. Like Mick my kit with 4 x PSU1 has not been turned off for years bar a couple of blackouts when the entire suburb was out. As for the comparisons, rather than driving yourself to distraction with quick swapping, just listen to the Solo output for whatever music you like for say 10 days, then switch back to the Bitzie direct and play some of the that music over again and see if there seems to be something missing.

Fatmangolf wrote: The Powerfire