spritzer

I haven't had much time for DIY headphones recently but I just sent for some parts to be made and one might be a truly unique stator principle. More on that later but I've been using these lately and finally post about them after seeing that SJY pile of fail: I found this Hifiman Edition X for next to nothing as the pads were trashed and both drivers were blown. Gotta love that Hifiman build quality... Anyway, the plan was to design some drivers for this shell and then make my own version of the Shangri-la as the stock ones are frankly utter crap. Given the complex shape of the baffle in these I put it off for months but finally got off my ass and made these: This is the same piece but reversible for each side. There is just enough space in the housing to cram Stax Lambda drivers in there and I just happen to have quite a few in stock... shocker. Then we ended up with this: The back grill was glued into place but with the driver glued to the baffle, it holds it all in place as there is no extra room in there. I added the coarse foam to back to make them look more stock as I didn't have any of that black cover Hifiman uses. The baffle uses the stock neoprene gaskets from the planar drivers and it's okey for the seal but not quite perfect. The drivers in these are Lambda Signature units (no real reason I chose those, just what came to hand) and the cable is a Stax extension cable. I added the strain reliefs to the housing and the cable is so tight in there that it doesn't need any more fixing in place. Then they were finished off with some sheepskin earpads off Aliexpress as the stock Hifiman units are trash. These are the drivers with the protective mesh in place (just as they were in a Lambda/Sigma) but I also ordered some baffles with slots cut in them so I could put in thinner drivers to have a bit more space behind the drivers.

So a new electrostatic seems to be incoming: https://apos.audio/products/sjy-argos-electrostatic-headphones?utm_campaign=hyperfuse_last_day%20%2801KZW4554JVNW58G1HET4TN43W%29&utm_medium=email&utm_source=alex_nongdpr_never_subbed_active_180&_kx=cd77Rbf3yu6_OAujM-M4VU1ihuQFsjtyVcb-jl8r-OKxvi62Czezy2yxdLQUUnAj.Ldk8SW I've been keeping an eye on them for a while, no idea what that company is but hey, more the merrier and all that. I just saw the new updated page for these and it is just what the fuck, are they retarded? First off, "fully vented drivers" being spun as something that is positive. Hello, what is the number one rule of planar design? Something about an infinite baffle? No? Anybody here have any fucking clue what they are doing? No? Let's spin our engineering ineptitude as a positive Yes, that is what the drivers need, room to breathe. A common problem with all planar drivers is that they are just being suffocated. What a novel idea and people making planars for 70+ years have clearly all been wrong. Seriously, who thinks the actual reason is that the drivers are horribly unstable so the extra pressure from a sealed baffle would knock them out of balance. So instead of fixing that, let's just employ marketing wank. Then we have the cable... what the actual fuck. Just look at this thing: Anybody who makes a braided cable for electrostatics needs to be taken out back and beaten repeatedly with a copy of the Art of Electronics. The whole point of the fucking cable is to minimize capacitance... not add to it!! Now this looks like the cheap crappy headphone cables coming out of China so I very much doubt it's high voltage credentials. I also love the Y split on a commercial set of headphones... a piece of clear heatshrink. It's also 1.5meters in length, probably to cut down on the pile of extra capacitance this turd adds to the load. Then you can get a proper extension cable and have the headphones reach anything as these are hardly portable.

Of course, it should be in this thread when ever they came out. It is essentially just the 252S with some weird stuff added to it.

I don't think they ever hid that they were made in China but they are great transformers. Very consistent in quality which is hard to come by these days. Plus they oversize all of the cores so they run cooler and with less chance of any nasty behavior. As somebody that has ordered transformers in bulk from China, they stop being cheap very quickly once you ask for some proper specs or even worse... actual bloody copper in them.

I'm looking forward to those as I'm slowly working on my own version just for me, i.e. fixing how they sound. :) I got these recently: https://poloyoaudio.store/products/hongshu-eh1 It is my third one of these as they design has been maturing over the years. I'm waiting on a replacement set as mine had some noise issues in one driver so I'll do a proper write up as they arrive but I do like them a lot. The earpads are crap but there is a lot of potential there.

Shit that's bad. I'm sure all those 10% carbon comp resistors add a magical tone...

Found some more pics of the Viva STX which I'm okey borrrowing knowing how much this guy has taken from here. Seriously, this thing is so fucking bad. I think this might be the same unit as was posted before, very similar burn marks on that electrolytic cap... which is always a sign of quality. Rifa caps and all that but that switch floating on some hot glue. Yup... pure quality for only 12k$.

Which has probably been bounced back as that is not my domain name.

What the actual fuck is this? How is posting in an open forum "reaching out to me"? Copied from the Audioretards forum: Did you send me a PM or an email? No... so how did you reach out to me? Go ask the retard in chief over there on how to test electrostatic amps... as he did such a good job last time. Wasn't the quote something like, how can anybody listen to this as it measures so badly? Yeah... stellar work there.

Well ASR is beyond retarded... so take that with a tonne of salt. I have the Drop version and they are fine... nothing special but well worth the 100$ they sold at there.

It should work, the ratio is a bit higher than the Stax ones. Ultimately it's not about power but voltage in the system or voltage swing rather.

2-3W or so? That is very much on the low side but it always depends on overall system gain and how loud you listen. A Stax SRD-7 Mk2 should work as the ratio on those is on the high side.

Good transformers are a great way to do that and are definitely getting more popular.

With no inside pics it is hard to tell but I had the Mk1 and it was utter trash and dangerous to the end user. There are pics here somewhere of that but yeah, utter garbage

Ouch, that's really sad as the Z10e is pretty much the bottom of the barrel when it comes to electrostatic amps.