spritzer

That was indeed my point. Btw. Here are the switches in question: http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/508476101/LA19_AJS_LED_illuminated_switch_push.html http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/485100004/IP65_Waterproof_Black_metal_Push_button.html

Ahh the joy of dealing with Yama's directly, a company mostly known for not picking up the telephone... ever!

Pile of parts from PCX. Bloody discount offers get me every time...

This a while back but the prices weren't so bad. Same goes for the other dual Toshiba's they had in stock.

About 10 or so.

I don't think anybody reads the spec sheets on those sites but these switches are indeed rated for 250VAC/3-5A. I own a bunch of those you linked to and if they were rated at 250VDC then they wouldn't have stood up to years of use at 230VAC...

Yup...

These are back amongst the living...

I got mine from FrozenCPU (it's a latching unit since I'm going to run the 230VAC directly to it) but these are just cheap Chinese switches these guys repackage. You can find them on Alibaba for around 60$ for 100 units which isn't a bad deal IMO. They are pretty cheaply made but easy enough to replace should I ever need to do so. Thanks, I'm really happy with it. Especially now that I've fitted everything to it and that brilliant Headamp volume knob.

Yup which was supposed to spark and shoot lightnings...

This one will certainly be sold some day since I'm going to build at least four of these... Which one I'll keep I don't know but I think I've cracked how to make the smallest offboard amp possible so that one will probably win out. It will require custom PSU PCB's but I have an "in" with the designer so I'm fairly sure that can be arranged... Indeed.

No idea what that is...

Front panel back from laser engraving. Still need to do some machining on it to get the volume pot to fit but it came out ok.

The IRC RC55LF's at Mouser could work for through hole resistors. I'm sure some Vishay's will work as well. Crazy audiophiles may think Neutrik isn't the best but they are just idiots.

In

Yup, they had them. I never pay list though... They also had a bag of J109's...

All these do is ground pin 3 so custom cables are easy to make. I made one for the T2 before I went and defiled the chassis with a range of connectors and a switch...

The 4CP TKD pots aren't that expensive and there is always the Alpha.

A certain set of LCD-2's...

I bought some 3675's locally that looked very strange to say the least but they do test like the real thing.

I have opened up some 10 units that have passed through here but I have a folder which I've stored photos of every individual unit I've come across for sale. There I put the date and location of the sale and how much it sold for. These are about 115 units or so dating back 8 years. The serial numbers were naturally logged since they mean something with the SR-Omega. As for seeing whether they are original or not, a picture of the side is all I need.

I've been keeping a rather close eye on the global SR-Ω market for 8 years now and I can safely say that very few units have had the drivers replaced, quite a bit less than 5% of the 600 or so units made. As for there being some design failure that will cause all units to be fubar at some time is just utter BS. Stax did change the cartwheel design to etched aluminum but only once production had ceased. The cartwheel is the most fragile part of the driver so if a violent shock breaks or even distorts it slightly then the drivers are toast. Makes sense to strengthen that part but the resin version is by no means defective. What we have to look at is the reason why Stax swaps out drivers. Channel imbalance being the main reason but they never look into what's causing it, they just scrap the drivers on the spot and use what ever current replacements they may have. Most of the time the channel imbalance is just temporary and will go away with use or just a change in the weather. Now a tiny amount of drivers have suffered permanent damage due to arcing or from amps where the builder didn't know how to do bias supplies, i.e. Ciuffoli and Rudistor.

Are you working on that atomic bomb again Kevin?

The fatal flaw has never been proved to exist but I do have an idea what it might be. Couple of candidates really, the whole housing becoming loose with time which means the drivers aren't aligned properly and that dinky little bias connector is bound to loose contact on some sets. Other than that I can see no obvious issues with the design.

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...