For earpads I think the Pro AAA or something like that is the modern equivalent.
These headphones used a grounded back stator to diminish the back wave output so you need to start cutting up the drivers. I never had any issues since I never bothered with the original fittings.
Could be quite a few things...
As for the the stock tubes, they were all Golden Aero which was an early 90's rebrand. I did some digging and they appear to have been matched Amperex tubes.
That was the Koss way of "improving" its models, make them ever more complex. The ESP9 is so bloody complex that it is just absurd. It also took them two major revisions (i.e. ESP9B) and countless minor ones to stop using a shared return path for the speaker input. Bye, bye bridged amps...
Nahh, I need moar powah. I'm going to build another F5 just because I have all the parts (integrated this time with a buffer and some gain) but the next large project will be what ever power amp KG comes up with.
See that red jumper wire in the terminal block? I'd say that is the voltage setting and this is picture of a 230V unit. Anybody have a US unit they want to open up?
Switches like these do exist, my Exstata has one and so do my newe transformer boxes. They are rated at 250V/3A and I get them at my local store. Check these out though...
I've got some dodgy C3675's as well but I haven't tested them. They did come from Farnell or rather their distributor here.
Some of us already had a group buy for the now obsolete parts (2SA1968 and 2SC3675) so count me out. I have enough to last me a long, long time.
I'm building a M3 and the first thing I did was to install the jumpers to bypass the bb circuit. Variable gain may be a good idea but you can always put in a switch to do that. Hell wire up a 24V relay directly on top of the board for a short signal path.