spritzer

No. Given the simple physics that the force of an electrostatic field falls with the square of the distance, it quickly vanishes into background noise before even reaching the skin. An amp like this would never be run at full tilt, not into Stax compatible drivers at least. Well past 120dB so permanent hearing damage until they simply burn up. That means the field is even weaker than that in reality. Ideally you'd never want to run the headphones above say 1200-1400Vppss (which is already crazy loud) as depending on the air parameters around you, is could destroy the headphone drivers. Now there are a lot of variables at play here but a rule of thumb says insulation of air is 3kV/mm and we are running at 0.5mm spacing so 1500V. I go a bit lower as humidity is a huge factor here and the new Stax drivers appear to be anything but stable so I'd err on the side of caution with them. I've noticed some very alarming behavior from the X9000 and the 007S so yeah... Stax will never side with you if you have driver damage.

They are just floating around on the Chinese market, there is no one seller doing this AFAIK. The one I bought for myself and the one I gave to Kevin are not from the same seller and used different Stax plugs. Btw. they all come with 5 pin plugs but should never be plugged into Pro bias, 200V max bias for these.

Yes, it should have no problem with that. The only issue might be gain and bias but easy to solve.

I'm slowly working on replacements but nothing that is ready for release yet. The Dekoni pads are well made but I wouldn't pick those as they are too big and I'd never use fenestrated pads due to the air leaks. You'd ideally want 105mm pads with a fairly large opening and there aren't all that many out there off the shelf.

CRCW's should be just fine so something else might be drifting there.

There were indeed no tubes in the electrostatic output, it was all ultra cheap high voltage opamps. Output power is roughly that of the cheapest Stax amp with worse quality.

Given that Woo Audio makes nothing but utter trash... odds are that this one is even worse than the old one. There are no specifics though but this one might actually be a tube amp...

What resistors are people using on this? I did it all through hole so 50ppm but I've never had real drift issues with 1206 and 2010 parts before.

This has to be the week of stupid mods, cue this 727 in for full surgery and mods. Nothing abnormal on top but below I find this: Hmmm not quite stock that input wiring In and output wires from the volume pot were simply cut and this new monstrosity was sliced into ends. The plan was clearly to bypass the volume control but this is a 727... which has a switch to turn off the volume control and bypass it!! Just flip the switch the volume control does nothing... fucking hell... One more thing, can anybody make heads or tales of this monstrosity? That's two three conductor cables, basic mic cable would do the job but why set it up like this? Each conductor is screened and they are bridging it ever 10cm or so for moar cancellation? Ground for your ground... for your ground? Also, I'm not truly prepared for the 727 to be almost 20 years old at this point. The caps in this one had a date code from early 2007.

Viva are indeed a special kind of stupid as well. I think they use felt adhesive pads for furniture (to protect hardwood floors) to help their crap circuits filled with some of the worst parts available sound better? Yup makes sense.... Seriously, they use those Rifa PSU caps that are known to crack and short circuit in the audio path. If only there were any better parts out there... 🙄

This is something special as none of this actually does anything. Ferrites work at certain frequencies but the wire has to pass through it... not just have it vaguely in the same area. Lumps of aluminum tape and felt on the cables... yeah nothing at all. It seems like a bad DIY project but I have a sneaking suspicion that somebody is doing this as a service and charging a boatload for it.

I wasn't sure where to put this but this is a PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC so might as well be here. Found this thing dirt cheap in Japan, clearly modded and thought... why not. Might be fun... but boy ohh boy this is utter insanity. It was showed as up and running by the seller so I needed to go in and see how I could change the voltage on it. I didn't snap any pics of it when it arrived but here is one once the felt strips had been pulled off... yeah felt strips: That's the bottom so it was covered in these strips. Now I dug deeper: So there was this layer of aluminum tape that was painted and sealed on the edges with this rather coarse paint, almost like the stuff you'd use to make chalkboard finish. Then underneath there was come copper tape and the adhesive on this was nasty shit. I attacked it with IPA, acetone and adhesive cleaner (mineral spirit) and now it is mostly off the outside. I had to use plastic scrapers to get it off and machine polish the top over (due to all the small scratches from cleaning it) but it looks okey. Now I had yet to open it as the top cover is pushed up through the bottom and you need 4-40# screws to do that... something that is impossible to get here. Two weeks ago I found myself in Chicago on my annual visit and Kevin hooked me up with some that did the trick and here is what I found: Now one starts to wonder about sanity and what hose clamps have to do with audio quality but yeah... this is the most insane shit I've ever seen. This is the top cover and here is this paint the whole unit is covered in. No idea what it is but it is rather inert and I had to scrape it off the top and bottom panels. Seriously... hose clamps. This is so retarded it isn't even funny. A few things to note, see those felt strips, same as were on the outside of the unit and those ferrite beads and rods are all over it. Now to switch things up a bit, here is what looks like a brillo pad around the transformer. It's not steel wool and it was around it all. Here is another shot of the steel what ever and those rods glued to the bottom of the chassis. Also see the silver bits attached to the cables... yeah more on that later. Here it is with the cotton? pulled out of it showing what I've stepped into. How many hours did this take? Our lovely hose clamps again but look at that transformer. It is wound in aluminum tape, then the felt, then some rod, then more aluminum tape... Then those rods on the bottom of the chassis... I've started to peel stuff off and it is like an onion Main transformer and in the bottom right hand corner are all the cable ties holding those silver bits on the cables. Yeah, that is about 10 layers of aluminum plus some small ferrites and rods... Why? Fuck knows... Main transformer peeking through the madness as I need to get to it and read its markings to covert it to 230V. I'll have to do some more cleaning but this was just too good not to post...

I like them a lot and they are technically proficient but lately I've been a bit off on ported designs as they lack involvement to me. Not enough engagement compared to the greats but, not nearly as bad as the Hifiman Shangri-la mini where the sound just hangs there. I've been meaning to make a proper review of them but this year as a whole has just sucked.

I got a bag of sockets from Germany (which I suspect are originally from Audio Valve) and they use the Neutrik contacts. Work just fine and I'll be using them in an upcoming project.

The Hifiman plug has to be treated with the same number of fucks they usually give any of the products... fuck all. They are still using that fucking spacer as the pins are too long even on the Shagri-la mini... it would probably completely bankrupt Hifiman if they had to pay for a single new mold and find some new pins... The real measurement might be on the original SR1, SR2 and SR3 plugs as I believe they are the originals off the shelf part from Sato Parts that Stax simply bought in.