ktm

Yeah, I know. Stupid is spreading accross the tv dial. Good morning America turns my stomach. The evening news is all fluff. I miss Walter Cronkite. You forget "ancient aliens". Because if you're a moron, eveything looks like alien technology. Check out the guy with the Don King hairdo.

Maybe it's time to sell my tv. I can only assume it's thinly disguised fiction. I know those towing tv shows are all recreations. I'll stick to the history channel and animal planet.

Comfort? Poor. I had my 650's, a pair of 700's, and 800's at a mini meet..Hard to believe the 700's were built by Sennheiser. Sound wise both the 700's and 800's are a whole different sound form the 6x0 series. I prefer the 800 to 700. But I'm not sure I'd spend the $$ for the 800's. At this point, the Stax 202's are hanging around for a while. I liked the 800's, but not $1499 of like. The 800's are the most comfortable of any cans ever on my head.

The other problem is that some amps have a bit of background hum thats hard to notice with speakers, but really is noticable with a transformer box. My ARC vt60 (tubes) has this issue. 20 year old tube amps would take a lot of work to rid yourself of any hum. I have since splurged for some Stax energizers. Problem solved. I had an old H/K receiver from about 1980 that worked great, also used a Rotel rb980 SS amp that worked well.

That would be like having a conversation with a model. Past the good looks, the rest would be a let down.

I've done pretty well with used. Most people who trade Stax stuff are pretty decent to deal with at the audio sites. The bad news is all things Stax have been shooting up in price the last couple of years. I've seen starter rigs like sr-40's going for higher and higher amounts. Take a look at the EBAY stax stuff right now, and there's a number of things listed at insane prices. And the people selling them there don't know crap, and throw around phrases like "untested" or "worked last time I used them 5 years ago" and the every popular "returns not accepted". Stay clear of EBAY, and you'll be a lot happier in the long run.

Buy used and the money goes further, and you lose less on reselling what you don't like. Headphone wise, there isn't much 30 day trial going on. Many people wouldn't ever want used headphones, so it's a short list of dealers who would do a trial on headphones.

I've got a Exstata hybrid I rotate in and out of my system. Sound? Pretty good with sr202's. The tubes seem to mix well with the Lambda series. I have a re-capped srm1 MKII that also sounds good, but different. The mid range is more pronounced with the Stax amp. The power supply worries me in the Exstata, and and some point I need to build a bit more robust one from other designs. I have heard KGSS and BH at meets and certainly could find no fault with them other than cost, and if I ever get around to DIYing one, finding parts is a chore. As fun as it is to throw rocks, I am content to just judge gear on it's merits and leave people out it. If I want conflict, all I have to do is go to work. 60 hours a week of that crap is more than enough for me.

Maybe it's time for the new management to offer Web-direct. Given the fact that they completely gutted out North America's dealers in the last two years, this would be a good time to offer this for at least this region.

That's common on just about everything made lately.. One board=cheaper to build. And makes it a paper cup. Use it once and throw it away.

The Chinese could ride out the current product line for 5 years. They don't need R&D anytime soon. They could just be getting the rights to make the gear in the current product line and run with it, and just cut costs. Then take the Stax name and hang it on to whatever new product line they have sitting out there, even traditional headphones. Stax dynamics? Most likely going to happen.

Let's hope that Yama's is the first thing they fix when they take over.

You have a PM. The Pico is a pretty good bang for the buck DAC. If i hadn't of gotten a steal on the NFB3, it would still be in use. I just had a conversation at the Club Polk website about DACS. It's hard to choose one anymore with all the new ones coming out. The reality of the DAC world is higher priced ones sound better(with a few exceptions). You have to just stop when the money runs out!

DMCS414, where are you in the DFW area? If you would like to test out a couple of cheap USB DACs, I've got a Pico DAC only and a Monica USB. I also have an Audio-gd NFB3 that's my prime DAC now. If I ever get off my butt and order a couple parts, I've got most of a pair of Bantams ready to go as well.

The grill pops off and the driver just snaps into place. Its held by fours plastic tabs. So the question becomes, what happened? If it was properly seated, it shouldn't just come loose. The link provided above is a start. Here's another as part of a "de-foaming". http://apuresound.com/hdsennmod.html Hopefully once the grill is removed, the tabs aren't broken. If ok, it should all just snap back together. The whole set of cans is pretty much like that.

Replaced the electrolytics. They tend to be the 1st thing to age in an amp. Higher ESR and drifting values are the result. The elder Stax gurus talk about it. I tried it. It works. They speak the truth!

The Exstata hybrid I built is alright. I like it better than the 313 I have. I've re-capped a SRM1-mkII as well. The Exstata midrange is a bit recessed, but it does kill the "etch". Not too bad of a sound. The sr-313 with 404's and to some extent with 202's is a bit bright, and the "etch" is more pronounced. The re-capped srm1-MKII sounds good all around. The midrange is back, and the sound is good. The 313 is the loser here, with the srm-1 with 202's or the Exstata with the 404's both sounding different, but good. I really need to weed out some stuff and build a KGSS. Overall, a set of 202's with an updated srm-1 MKII would be a very good starting point without breaking the bank. The SRM-1 before the cap update left something to be desired. The sound was very rolled off and a bit lifeless.

There's a lot of fake boobs and tubes in Dallas, along with fake blondes and fake cowboys! There really isn't a lot of good reasons why there would be that many people who didn't open the box, lost the receipt,or got it as a gift. Add to it all the stupid Chinese ads with nonsense wording all going back to the same web site with different names. I flag their ads and sign up their hotmail accounts to porn sites. That should keep them occupied for a while.

The local Craigslist is choke full of "NIB" Beats. Somebody must be bringing in truckloads of Chinese knock-offs. We have had a ton of those white van speakers around here, now these. There must be 20 a day listed. Worthless either way, real or not. Is this the case around the other metro areas around the country?

EQ isn't evil. Just worthless in fixing most flaws in sound. Like you, I have tried this with 404's, and in the end found 202's to just work better. Until I can afford the really good Stax stuff, the 202's will have to do.

Well, sound wise not so good. My guess the drivers have seen better days. Good thing they weren't anything but an add on. The guy just tossed them into the deal. I'm going to have to find a way to open them up for a look see. Or just set them out somewhere for eye candy. Maybe there's a reason you don't see much mention of them on the web.

I was out horse trading some gear and came out of it with a set of JBL L100's and a set of these. Sound md-401b quad headphones. This is a stock photo, but my set looks almost new. I haven't had a chance to fire them up yet. It's going to take some thought as to best do it. I could try using two amps, and reverse the two rear channels, which is supposed to sound ok. I unfortunately no longer have the Marantz quad receiver or other gear around to do this right.

I've had old school Paradigm and newer studio 6o v2. The older ones tended to sound bloated in the low end. Even the newer ones had a mid bass hump. But the studio 60's are a pretty good overall speaker. The later versions improved the sound. My biggest surprise as late is the soon to be released Polk flagships. They had them at the Lone Star Audio Fest. It's been decades since Polk had a really high end speaker, and they looked and sounded great. Here in the States, there are so many great speakers to choose from. Used, there's a great set of speakers up on Dallas craigslist, or an audiogon listing within driving distance all the time. Don't get too hung up on tubes. There's a lot of great SS choices out there. I only went tube because I stumbled into a great deal.

Modern Kef's don't do much for me. Somewhere along the line they started tweaking for HT, and like a lot of other speakers companies, they lost that 2 channel music magic. The only Harbeth dealer close by is 240 miles away. I am a big fan of the British sound. I currently have Proac and Rega. Proac and ARC tube gear have a great sound, somewhat on the warm side with a good soundstage.

Most likey in the cans. The contact point for the pins of cable is a small short spring. If the winding of the spring spreads out a little, you get this. You could of course swap the left and right connectors to verify. There was a thread with pictures showing how to fix this. If I find it later, I'll link it.