spritzer

Some small transformers for a new project, what's the smallest Stax amp I can possibly build. Has to be tubes and fully balanced. As if I needed any more projects...

Needing to turn down the volume regularly has become annoying (even though I have a remote control for it now) so I do think Stax took the voicing too far on the 009. I'm a huge fan of the over all design but thicker diaphragm material/less diaphragm tension would have made this the ultimate transducer. Still there are rumors about a SR-011 so I might just get what I want there... Still the SR-009 does a lot of things right but it's hard for me to overlook the fact that it costs twice as much as any other headphone Stax have ever made. They can be a bit edgy at times but it is much less of an issue with a Blue Hawaii etc. driving them. It's not due to the voicing though but rather the driver outputting too much energy which the chassis can't handle. The big sound is very much thanks for the external screen. Let's just say it's not there just for decoration. Do not remove it and try to use the headphones since it holds the whole assembly together...

I just got a crazy idea, how about cramming some Stax drivers in the LCD-2 housing... Has anybody disassembled one of these with full internal pics?

It's been a while since I read the Art but is the chapter on how capacitors magically change after 100 hours of use? That would be quite handy for the audiophiles... I remember some Esoteric owners claiming their players needed 1200 hours to "settle in". I'm sure that has nothing to do with the crappy opamp phase splitter used to driver the balanced outputs on top of the shoddy outputstage...

Thanks for that, I'll check it out.

I've been using the 009 a lot lately and most of the time it is great but sometimes I get quite frustrated with them. I think Stax messed up the voicing (as they did with the SZ3 007's, SR-404 etc.) so the sound becomes strident when you start to push them. The SR-Omega and 007Mk1's are simply smoother sounding so more forgiving of louder volume levels and non-sanctioned music choices... The 009 will stay put though since I don't need the money and they are very comfy, perfect for playing games for hours on end. I do have one card yet to play but it won't be cheap, build a 009 type chassis for my SR-Omega drivers. PEEK surround milled to perfection which would then be clamped between two aluminum slabs...

I use a FM transmitter (Logic3 I think) and it works just fine in my VW Passat. The noise floor is pretty high but that's given with these things.

That's indeed one of the reasons why I'm selling off all of my Mk2/A and just keeping my trusted old Mk1 around. Bloody thing fits my head perfectly.

Something like this then: I drew this back when the T2 project started but never made any...

The elastic on the new ones is much stronger and they have this new material underneath the headpad but I for one prefer the Mk1 fit over the long run. I'm a proud member of team melon-head though...

Holy crap that BHKE looks stunning!

They are similar but not the same. The Mk2/A part should fit perfectly though.

Happy Birthday!!!

Yeah, I learned that lesson a few years ago, never trust cheap meters when working on HV. I only buy the V99's for the probes though...

Hi-fi News have been doing some work on this very issue and indeed exposing "mislabled" releases left and right. They had to develop their own software to see this which I believe was offered as a free download. I never cared enough to search for... As for Rumors, I have the DVD-A rip and it sounds stunning.

The BH is non-inverting so something is up...

Somebody really should write a practical electronics book for audiophiles....

The case was custom made from custom extrusions. This can't be bought anywhere.

Well it's critical since things don't work well without them. The whole fuse BS reminds me of when people were comparing the sound of outlets and the plates around them...

I just checked the SRM-717, 007t, T1, and T2 schematics (I'm nothing if not thorough... ) and the pinout we use is indeed correct. L+ on the top pin, R+ to the right of it seen from the front. Sennheiser uses the service manual when rebuilding these things and it doesn't cover just how important it is to seat the o-rings properly. I'd guess that one doesn't sit correctly in the grove or the driver is just out of spec. The dust barrier on the back of the drivers isn't a solid plastic sheet but rather woven nylon. It can let small dust particles through which are large enough to cause issues.

Ahh but here you get a new fuse which will make all the difference in the world...

That's how the Stax are wired too, + signal goes to the stator closest to the ear. The Sigma has this flipped but then again the signal is reflected 90° inside the earcup.

Yup. It could be something as simple as the o-ring not seated properly. Wouldn't surprise me given the sub-par service Sennheiser has in the US.

They throttle it down a bit since I can only download 120gb a month but here is a test I just did: Pretty nice for about 55$ a month.

I just bought a Stax SRA-12S to settle once and for all that it is the same amp as the SRA-10S. Yeah... I am indeed nuts. I also bought some basic components to build a new file server. AMD 3300 CPU, 4GB ram, Gigabyte mobo and 1TB drive. HDD's are all but impossible to buy here now (due to the crisis in Thailand) so I'll have to hold off loading it with extra drives. Still it's better than the old box which has eight 320GB drives, two PSU's and has been running the same boot drive since 2004 powered on 24/7. The boot drive is too slow to handle my 100mbit fiber connection so everything bogs down once I start downloading.