Smack sold out for now

[Doc B]

We have decided to stop production of Smack for a while. I honestly and fervently believe that it was the best sounding of the headphone amp kits we made, and one sits on my desk for my daily use with my HD-800s. But we seem to have made two kits too close together in terms of price, and with S.E.X. being more well established Smack just didn't seem to get enough traction to allow us to order parts in the quantities that allowed us to hold the price point.

That's not to say that we are killing the design altogether. I have a hunch that with some more exotic parts the design could really dominate in the high end headphone amp world. So there just might be a Big Smack in the future - stay tuned.

 

[grufti]

Oh good, one temptation that I won't have to deal with ... until Smack2 shows up as a product, if it does.

I had been tempted, but distractions distracted me enough. More money in the bank. What is happening with Crack2?

 

[keto]

I hope there's another run of the Smack. Its 5vrms @ 128-ohms output would make it the PERFECT preamp for my system, which includes about a 300-ohms per-side input load from the power amps. Big Smack? Woohoo, sounds great!

 

[Armaegis]

Oh good, one temptation that I won't have to deal with ... until Smack2 shows up as a product, if it does.

I vote for calling it the "Smackdown"  ;D

 

[grufti]

Smackdown is a much better name than Smack2. Let's root for the new queen of headphone land.

 

[keto]

I was lucky and picked up Jim's spare Smack kit. Thanks, Jim!

 

[Douger]

I am very happy that the Smack might come back in some iteration. It took me a while to realize the quality of mine, and at first I had my doubts about its price/value ratio.
However, with a lot of experience with it now, and having seen how awesome it is with my Grado PS500's, and having been to CanJam 2012 to listen to all the heavy-hitting combinations there, I realize that my combination does not give anything up to them! My ears are not golden, but musically well-trained and critical, and once the Smack is run-in, and then played for 20 minutes, it scales the heights every time and becomes utterly entrancing!

 

[Chris]

Yeah an 'ultimate' smack would be superb.... a reference headphone specific amp that is capable of down to 32 ohms... heck even the new AKG K550 headphone is 32 ohm now....

 

[albertoduarte]

Hey,
sad to see that the smack was discontinued for a while, but....
any chance to get just one smack?
the best for you

 

[Doc B]

Sorry, there are no more Smack kits. We're kicking around ideas for some kind of super headphone amp to be developed next year.

 

[Chris]

That would be fantastic...  maybe a 2a3 type scenario or something like that?

 

[ditdah]

...sigh...I only have so much desk space!  ...but for a "super headphone amp"...maybe I could retire some stuff?  >_<

 

[adamct]

+1 for a Crack2.  I would love to see a super high-end OTL amp. Although the number of high-impedance headphones is shrinking (basically just Sennheiser and Beyers), I still think that is where tube amps shine, and in my limited experience with OTL amps (basically just the Crack), they compete very favorably even with WOT amps costing 5x the price. I have a Woo Audio WA6 and a $1900 Woo Audio WA22 (fully balanced with $500-600 worth of tubes). The Crack + Speedball with stock tubes goes toe-to-toe.

Best regards,
Adam

 

[Frank Mena]

One of these please ( I've always drooled over this pic)......http://db.audioasylum.com/mhtml/m.html?forum=magnequest&n=2217&highlight=tl404&r=&search_url=%2Fcgi%2Fsearch.mpl%3Fforum%3Dmagnequest%26searchtext%3Dtl404

Maybe Mike could be convinced to make a new batch of the TL404 if there is enough interest?

Sigh...
Cheers
Frank M