spritzer

All new earpads come with the cloth insert, any earpads with the foam are old stock. It's also not easy to compare this as the new earpads have a different shape to the older ones (more like the original prototype Lambdas). I for one have compared them and I can't hear any difference at all, ditto on the Omegas which use the same cloth inside the pads.

The fail is quite strong in that one... Hifi News have been going on about that the data on the files may be identical but how the software decodes it may alter the sound. They also did some measurements but never posted the hard data that I'm aware of.

Yup, they are WW non-inductive.

I can donate some Kimber cables for testing if somebody is up for it. I'm going to rip a KS3033 apart tonight to make some truly insane interconnects...

Like I just told Kevin, sometimes I really glad that a good part of the northern Atlantic sits between us. I'd live in constant fear of crazy shit like this showing up...

Try to remove the bottom panel.... Then you can pull out the plug and turn it to what even voltage you want.

It's strange you got such a high voltage across R12. I don't remember something like that on either of the two channels in mine. Have you measured the pots? They could be damaged and it would be well worth the time to do a diode test on the mosfets, just to see of they have shorted. One more thing, I don't recommend prolonged use of the F5 with a low ratio Stax transformer at loud levels. It got, very, very toasty...

It's Yahoo! Japan aka Japanese Ebay...

Yup, all of the Lambdas until this latest series had the drivers glues to the baffle.

When I get my hands on another Mk2/A I plan to see if there is a middle ground where air can escape but not utterly fuck up the sound at the same time. No port on the SR-5N in this sense but the drivers aren't properly secured to the baffle and the earpads do not seal completely. My SR-1 farts like crazy when fitted with SR-007 Mk1 earpads but the drivers are also glued to the baffle.

Yup, changing the angle of the arc on the headphones and finding the correct earpad angle also helps but the port is the biggest offender here.

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...