spritzer

The US prices are meaningless when it comes to Stax. The only real reference point is the Japanese price which remains stable for years on end. The SR-Omega debuted at 180k Yen back in 1993 and the SR-007 cost the same. The A increased slightly in prices to 190K.

I've never had any issues with removing soldered heat sinks but it is a good idea to just solder one of the pins until you are sure the bloody thing works. Also screws facing in opposite directions is sound advice.

Fear the Stax Mafia...

I just checked the Box and the 1080p version they have is the transport stream so it is basically the raw data. Other then that there is only the normal 1080i version...

I would have to say the amp is pretty much flat, as much as it can be into the SR-007 load. You won't ever get the bass performance of the Blue Hawaii but it is a far cry from clearly colored amps like the Rudistor Egmont and the Exstata. As with any planar transducer, baffle leak will alter response quite a bit. The port is just there to eliminate the noises the drivers make because they are virtually airtight. Ditto for the increased earpad height as some users had ears that protruded too much. The spring isn't really a problem. You just set it in place (there are flanges inside the earpads where the spring sits) and you plug it into the rubber grommet in the center of the protective plate. Then you just grab the edge of the pads and feed it into the slot it sits in, while keeping one end firmly in place. Once you are done you rotate the pads a few times to make sure they sit properly. That Moritite might work but I haven't tried it. I like Blutac for this as it leaves no residue and you can find it anywhere.

I've never heard about any issues with excessive gain on the KGSS. It is in the same ballpark as the Stax amps and the pot is always in the 11 to 1 o'clock position for me. As for the FR response of the amp, you are really starting on the wrong end since the SR-007Mk2 is the culprit here. They are very non linear but read the last few pages of the Stax thread about how you can fix that.

There was this theory floating around that these sets already had the ports closed but I take it that it isn't true. What Stax might have done is alter the spring inside the earpads to have them sit closer to the drivers and they protruded quite a bit on the first sets.

I did some tests yesterday of this thing (the large one): A bit of back story first, this is the Mk2 version of my TinyTransformer which gives you the ability to use Stax sets with pretty much any good headphone amp and being completely self contained so no external PSU. Now the small one uses transformers pulled from a Philips N6325 with a virtual center tap and a rather crude self biasing circuit. Now this one works but the transformers are tiny and the ratio is too low. Wanting to keep this as cheap as possible I went to the local store but they had no suitable audio transformers but plenty of cheap power transformers. I picked some suitable units and clobbered it together a few months ago. The only thing I heard was distortion so I though "bloody things can't handle the FR range needed" so I just put it on a shelf. Fast forward to last week and I took the small transformer with me on my weekly mini-meet with Stuart to mess with him a little bit. I plugged my iphone into his Grado RA-1 and the small transformer into that, which in turn was driving the SR-507. With the RA-1 at max volume the sound was loud enough, with plenty of bass and sounded bloody good. This peeked my interest in the large one again so I opened it up and I saw immediately what was wrong, I had forgotten to solder one of the diodes in the multiplier so no wonder it didn't work... A quick test on my Cmoy showed that it did indeed work but yesterday it was pretty much stunning from a Shanling A80 integrated amp. The headphone output on that one is taken from the main amps and fed through resistors so plenty of power on tap. Much louder than the small box and no distortion I could detect. Not bad for about 35$ in parts... So here is how this works: The large transformers are for the audio with virtual center taps, The input is via the black wires on the left and the output is via the black and purple wires on the right. These go directly to the Stax socket but they are also connected to the small transformer on the right. That one steps up the audio signal (which is just AC) even further and then feeds the bias supply. The bias supply is fitted with a 150V transient suppressor (so that the input voltage will never be higher than 150V) and then fed through a voltage quadrupler to give a ~600V bias. The goal here is to always have enough voltage on tap for the bias supply so you don't experience diminished output during quiet passages. Here is a better picture of the bias supply: I'm going to build one more of these with proper audio transformers and if that works ok, design a PCB for it. This is the perfect tool to mess with people at meets... I think it is a combination of raising the height of the earpads and the port that creates that midrange coloration. Does your SR-007Mk2 have a serial number that starts with SZ3?

I just hate it when stuff like this happens. What the hell did I just DO!!! So how do you like them after the port mod?

It is very fast indeed. I'm getting about 7.5MB/sec for torrent downloading and it isn't maxed out... If you change the pads, do go for the Mk2 earpads. I for one wouldn't go back to the Mk1's even though I have quite a few sets.

Adjustment is the same as with the KGSS. Insert the probes into the + and - outputs for each channel and adjust the balance for 0VDC. Then remove the - probe and ground it and adjust the offset for 0VDC. Repeat as is necessary. The RV2 sets the balance between the two sides and the RV1 sets the DC offset. If your source doesn't output any DC (which none should do) then having it connected wouldn't have any effect on the measurements. Ditto on the volume pot.

I haven't heard anything about a limited edition and Stax normally doesn't go down that road. The 404LE was supposed to be made in enough quantity to last a long time but they underestimated the demand.

Duke 3D was epic.

They just slid on. It is certainly easier then to install the same pads on a SR-007... The comfort is excellent but it might alter the sound too much for your liking. They also fart now. Damn I love my new fiber connection for uploading pics. Going from 1mbit to 65mbits is quite a step...

Turns out they are even better with SR-007 earpads. The brown pads also match perfectly with the tan plastic...

Did somebody say Mafia...?

Happy Birthday Mike!!!

A week probably. Depends on how much he's had to drink and how many mushrooms he's eaten...

I just wanted to chime in and say just how bloody awesome the SR-1 is. This headphone is at least 45 years old (probably a few years older than that even though it isn't the first version) yet after sitting for at least a year untouched the drivers came up to song is a few seconds and with no channel imbalance. The sound is nothing short of stunning with ample bass and treble. The sound field isn't as expansive as with the modern Stax sets but this can still embarrass quite a few modern dynamics.

There is a nice stretch of the Atlantic between us so at least 2.5 hours in a plane. Only a few days on a well built viking ship though...

The price is from Stax and there is no other info available on it in terms of when it will be released etc. The hair could short out the driver so that could be it. You are a fully fledged DIY'er now so break out that DMM and measure continuity from the plug to the terminals on the drivers. The one closest to the ear is +, the one in the middle is the bias and the back is - So it is still open. Very odd... Do the phones fart if you press down on the earpieces while they are on your head?

I spent the morning replacing all the wheels under the large baking racks in the bakery. These go through multiple 24°C->230°C->24°C cycles every day so after a few years the wheels are toast and it was no fun removing all of them with all of the bolts seized up. After that is was time to prebake 250 new baking plates to remove all the residue from them and to feed them through a machine which polishes and oils them. The upside was a visit from Norway in the afternoon. I was selling my T1 amp on HF and this guy asked if he could just pick it up in person. He had some friends here so why not save on the shipping. I knew he would arrive here yesterday but we hadn't set any specific time to meet up. I told him where the bakery is so he just showed up there and we had a lovely chat.

Same here but I wouldn't say I was working at 100%...

I would have loved to see that dust cover disappear into the vacuum... The only way to remove the dust is to open up the driver and hope you can clear it out without adding some more dust. If the phones still have warranty left then Stax will exchange the drivers since this shouldn't happen at all. The drivers are assembled in a clean room just to make sure of that.

Tube amps are indeed the name of the game here or very well designed SS amps. Sunlight will kill most plastics, let alone those that are 3.5um thick so I'd try to block it out as much as you can.