spritzer

Ehhh that's Demograph selling them so no thanks.

No, it is just the SRM-600 that used these resistors. I've never seen a failed TDK resistor which is in everything from the T1 (well T2 aswell for that matter), T1S, 006t, 006tA/II, 006tS and the new 500T. I've also never had a failed Vishay 7W resistor as used in the 007t and later variants.

A bit of a PSA here, I pulled a SRM-600 off the shelf to CCS modify it and I decided to check the AMRG Amtrans resistors before tossing them into the recycling. These should be 30K 1% but out of the eight units... none were in spec. Three units were 10% off at 32-33K, one was at 38K, one was at 85K and three were open circuit. One can only hope that they fail like this by going up in resistance and don't go short circuit but still, I wouldn't turn one of these on at this point without replacing the resistors.

I came across this today, the official Hifiman ebay link for the mini Shangri-la: https://www.ebay.com/itm/256540370549?mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&campid=5338421059&toolid=10001&customid=293851de-2ee5-11ef-b8e1-663930326538 What is interesting is the main graphic as it shows the internals of the amp: Now here are the pics I took of the Jade II amp... it's the same amp

This shows a bit of what has happened to the town: There has been a second eruption since that was filmed but the town was protected by the earthworks. Iceland is generally out to get us though so I snapped this picture last week while in the north west town of Flateyri. It shows the memorial for the people lost there in an avalanche in 1995 and the massive earthworks above the town designed to try and project it from happening again. It's the dull A shape you can see at the bottom of the slope. The earthworks proved their worth in 2020 when it mostly protected the town but it will be upgraded again to fix issues that popped up. Also in 1995 another small town was hit earlier in the year killing even more people.

Yup, that's real and the famous Blue Lagoon is about 3000m to the right of that picture. It is open now as the protective barriers that have been erected are managing to hold back the flow of the lava.

Could be an internal short in the transformer too on the heater windings.

I really like those headphones you have there... Magnets are a nice way to do this and can allow for easy reposition of the earpads as well. Shame that on the Statex they are so weak so with the Ether pads I have on them now... they barely hang on.

I'm sure the Mini Shangri-la is just a rehashed Jade II as they never sold in the quantities Hifiman wanted. I'm getting one though so I can laugh at hifiman some more. The Perun stuff is mehhhh at best.

I would have put 1, 2, 3...11 instead of min max...

Those earpads had to go and they have a pretty clever magnet system for them: Just now I noticed the R laser etched into the mini XLR plug so there is some indication. The earpads pull off and have a metal ring in them that is easily removed. The pads are 110mm so a lot of aftermarket stuff will work here. I replaced them with some Kennerton pads I had sitting next to my desk and I much prefer the fit. Now the issue is that the earpads barely hang on as the magnets are so weak with the thicker leather of the Kennerton pads

They are more like the new Stax stuff. Way too early for that.

Well these have landed about 10 minutes ago: They came in a huge cardboard box with a custom cut insert and two cables were included. This is SR-003 level of thin and very much made in the Hifiman way with mini XLR's on the headphones. There is no L or R indication anywhere so I just picked where the cable wouldn't rub on my shoulders (as the phones are not fully symmetrical in the cable entry) and did a quick continuity check to see which side was which. A small red band on the cable or just a dot somewhere wouldn't go amiss here. They They are a bit bulky but nicely made, that is real wood and leather in the headband and everything feels solid. The 3D printed parts are very nice with that textured finish. I really like the "Audeze" style metal grills but I do wonder if they provide a bit too much damping. One thing I really don't like though are the earpads... super cheap fake leather with no contouring at all. They make the fit rather odd as they don't clamp all that much, so in 10 minutes they have almost fallen off my head twice. They are also stiff so the headphones just sit there, not uncomfortable but this is where some money should have been spent. As for sound, there is some damping going on here so they are rather mellow and laid back. Inoffensive springs to mind with ok bass, extended but not in your face highs and a nice midrange. I have a feeling they might improve quite a bit with better earpads and a nicer, low C cable so that's something I'll look into.

I've been spending some time with them and yeah, that overblown mid-bass is starting to annoy me a little bit. It works with some material but can be too much of a good thing on others. It comes at the expense of actual bass depth so... not really a trade I'm interested in. Still as offensive traits go for recent Stax sets... this is pretty fucking mild and I do enjoy them quite a bit. Not replacing my 207's though... So I had make a comparison for fun. I had probably the last ever B-stock Koss ESP/9X5's sitting in a box here so why not compare them against the Stax. Similar price category but the Koss build quality is nowhere near what Stax are doing. So the Koss needed some mods, gone is the cable and they now sport the setup from a King Sound KS-H4 (so removable cable as well) and those leather earpads you can get on Aliexpress. All of the stock damping material, which was minimized on these anyway, as well. Fits like a glove and it's fun to compare these two, as aside from the HE60, these are some of the lightest and easiest headphones to plop on the head and enjoy. I've always liked the Koss as it always stood toe to toe against the Lambdas and this time it is no exception. It is more neutral and laid back, a bit more relaxed than the X1 but with better bass response. Larger drivers so it has more presence to it, more space around voices etc. Speaking of the Koss though, I wanted to sit down a try the Massdrop setup directly out of the box and holy hell... what were they thinking with those earpads. I plugged them into my test setup and on the first song, "ehh where is the all the sub-bass?" Yeah, this didn't help with the BS that electrostatics lack bass...

So true!!!

Well the SRS-X1000 just showed up unexpectedly and with all of my cameras out of juice the phone had to do. It really doesn't like the halogen lights in the kitchen... First off, this made me laugh out loud... here is how they came out of the box: Now for anybody familiar with the vintage SR-1/2/3/5 and SR-X series... this is usually how they arrived too with one or both earcups loose from the headband. Packaging is also very reminiscent of the SR-X boxes: I must say though that I fucking despise these new Stax boxes from a graphics design point of view. It looks like any cheap, tacky crap out of China... the older ones were unique and had their own thing going on but this just fucking blows. Now for the headphones it was a quick trip into the office for a listen so no more pics. Usual rig of Denarips Terminator and Carbon CC. They do feel nice in the hand though, very light and the cable actually has copper colored lines/dashes on it, not gold ones as they often looked from the pics. Gone is the blue cable... why they made that I have no idea. The headband has a lot of extension to it so even melon heads can use these. There is no padding on the headband at all but the material is firm here, not loose like on the original SR-X units. Earpads are nice and snug and seem to be nice quality, leagues ahead of the garbage on the L300/L500's. Now for sound... these sound pretty good which is a fun thing to say about a Stax set for a change. They are nice and neutral, not much forward slant here but they are quite extended on top. The bottom end is a bit lacking (smaller drivers and all that) but it is very mid-bass happy so quite fun to listen to. Midrange is a tiny bit closed in at times and the soundstage is quite closed in but it doesn't really bother me. Just that odd moment where something sounds a tad bit off but yeah... these are so much better than the L300... it's not even fucking funny. Might even be able to finally retire my aging fleet of SR-207 test headphones good... we'll see. I'll update more in the coming days but after an hour, yeah get a set. Now for the amp, first thing you notice is that it's a good inch deeper than the 252S and all of the other desktop Stax amps before it. I haven't done any circuit analysis yet but this is clearly just a version of the last 252S circuit and yup... it's still all through hole in 2024. Utterly bizarre... The extra length in the chassis is just there for the fuse and a breakout board for the RCA's. There are clearly spots on the PCB for - inputs so they might make a balanced version of it at some point? Been there, done that and while fun... it adds very little to the performance. Input Jfets are K81's so 2SK2881's and those riser boards seem to be PCB capacitors. I need to take a look at them in more detail but yeah, quite odd as they are numbered from 1 and up to 4.

I dropped them a line to see if I can order a pair of the headphones. Also... it was never going to be just the 007A they would cut. I'm guessing any replacement will be double the price with worse performance.

I've been told by more than one source that they put those "mistakes" in on purpose, same as they always labeled the balance pot "offset" and vice versa.

There has been this push to make the drivers more open when it can work against the overall design. Perhaps it is just fashion/trend or the designers don't understand the air-damping and now to apply it. With Stax looking to the past so much... I feel that they just don't know. I've often used Quad as an example of what happens when the main designer retires and those who come after him... have no fucking clue what they are doing. The ESL2912 is a ESL63 with all of the same issues but extra panels tacked on and higher bias, which makes them fail even more. The panels still de-laminate as they did in 1982, how hard is it to use better materials now.

For me, Stax simply lack focus and I'm not sure how much that is due to the new higher ups or Edifer. I certainly don't agree with the design decisions of the 009, X9000, Lx00 lineup and some just don't make any sense. They are clearly pushing boundaries in some ways with more advanced drivers but major steps backwards with basic stuff like earpad quality. It's not ok that earpads for the L500Mk2 last for a couple of years before they fall apart. Some of the products were just arguably crap, the D50 was so bad it was never sold in Japan. The D10Mk1 was utter trash and I just got a D10Mk2... it's improved in some ways but it still sounds terrible. The SRM-400S is a "what the fuck were they thinking" product and on the whole, they just took the original circuits and doubled the price.

Release date for the SR-X1 is set at May 9th: https://stax.co.jp/product/srs-x1000/ I've already placed a preorder.

Ehhhhhh fuck that guy... Anybody who sells part of a bank to his own father, needs to be taken out back and shot. Icelandic politics are such a cluster fuck right now, we have a major problem of attracting only idiots to power and it is really biting us in the ass now. Then we have the upcoming presidential elections with just one round of voting and 30 people running. It's also held in the middle of summer, 50% turnout would be high so our next president could have 4% of actual support behind him. Yeah no provision to have the two top people duke it out in a second round. Very democratic... On top of that, alleged child molesters and other trash in the running but they are from the artsy elite so nobody does anything. It's a shitshow...

This is funny, I just bought some SRD-7's to use as donors for my own boxes. A SR-Lambda was included with one of those energizers and just look at that serial number... Aside from the foam in the earcups being crusty and the earpads having been replaced at some point, they play perfectly for a 45 year old set.

A lot of money was spent on this and the amp is very nicely made in terms of the chassis design. All of the panels are 8mm thick with very nice machining on them but to take all this effort and waste it on a fundamentally flawed driver design... is just beyond me. The analog inputs go through those four dual opamps per side before it goes to the AKM A/D converter. The Xmos unit handles the USB a sample rate converter after it. The SPDIF input has its own sample rate unit too and all of this feeds into the ESS dacs. I always thought these would have a DSP but it appears to be all analog, unless there is a grunty chip hiding on the back of the board that I can't see. That does me we could make our own amps for these if we just clone the filtering circuit and add some adjustments to it. Not sure if there is any demand for that though.