Craig Sawyers

That is a massive relief - that could have been really ugly in many different ways.

You've got that right Spritzer - tiredness (and booze) are never good partners to HV work

I've got a BH (not SE) and a T2. Anyone want to buy me a pair of SR009's so I can tell you what they sound like?

Jeez - sorry to hear that. I guess I got lucky with the power supply - it just fired straight up and hasn't missed a beat since. The amp - as most of you know - was a different kettle of fish entirely. It's got to be simple though - if the cap is roasting, and the rectifier bridge is OK - then it has to be the cap. Mislabelled and electrically in backwards. If that is the case, make sure the rectifiers haven't got cooked into the bargain. Try pulling the IXYS current limiters temporarily, and isolate the transformer, bridge and capacitor.

Um - how about filling in your profile so we have some idea who the hell you are?

Hey guys - happy birthday!

Al - have a great day! I'm drinking one for you right now.

In the UK they were call a Flexicurve. Green in colour IIRC. Yup still available - in the UK around £5 depending on length (isn't that true of so many things). But they seem to have changed to blue.

I want to live in Rochester! A fifth of a Gigabit per second - I had no idea that was possible. And "Sadly, most of the time I'm in my dorm on 100mbit ethernet" - well boo hoo.

I wondered too - but his profile says USAF, so it looks like he's at the sharp end.

OMG. I'd better start slowly softening my wife up as a long term strategy. I've just got to have a pair of those.

That is just great - I'll bet that kid is never picked on again! My son (many years ago) did something similar when he got fed up with being bullied and broke the kid's nose.

I decided to run the test at work having just downloaded a 530MB CD ISO image in a bewilderingly, jaw droppingly short time.

Check back through this thread for modifications on the power supply. In fact I think I posted a summary of mods, to wich KG added one or two I had forgotten.

Have a great one

Hear hear!

Given the third world speed I get at home, this is what I get at my desk at Leicester University: Zoom....

I'm not sure how many people have now got these running. Last time a poll was done, the count was 5 out of 22 having completed and were listening. Anyone like to volunteer a current number?

From what I've seen in the pics it is a wonder that this amp works at all!

Looks like it for DC http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/JackHsu.shtml To drive 100mA through the body at 700V rail to rail of a KGSS would need a body resistance of 7k. Typical hand to hand dry skin resistance can be way below that (a k or two) - and working with high voltage usually gives "sweaty palm syndrome", which makes the hazard even worse. Hence the excellent general advice of keeping one hand in the pocket at all times while taking measurements at modest levels.

I've just had a shudder moment. It looks to me like you are completely new to electronics - and the voltage inside any electrostatic amp is quite lethal. If you get it wrong, you can end up with many hundreds of volts with significant current capability from one hand to another - and that has a very high risk of stopping your heart. Please get someone to fix this for you - Justin already offered to do this if you sent it to him.

Anybody been in touch with Stax to see if they are OK there? They aren't too far from Tokyo, so would have been shaken around pretty badly.

Well, here we are in not-quite-in-the-21st-century England. This is 6 miles from Oxford, so hardly hicksville. The excuse is that we are more than 4km from the BT exchange.

Woof woof! That sounds like a serious way of moving a large volume of air. One of my unfinished projects is a pair of dipole sub woofers to reinforce the output of my ESL57's. Used Shiva X2 drivers http://www.diycable.com/main/product_info.php?products_id=693 which have a maximum power handling of 1kW, although they do a very serious 18" or 21" driver - the Maelstrom, which can handle 1.5kW with a peak-peak excursion of 64mm (2.5"). 'Nuff to blow the windows out. Nelson Pass has done some really crazy things with bass drivers - such as the KleinHorn http://www.passdiy.com/pdf/KleinHorn.pdf and El-pipe-O http://www.passdiy.com/pdf/el-pipe-o.pdf

Have a great one!