spritzer

Cheap and Stax parts don't go together. The issue is more "can I even get that?"

Why on earth would I do that? I don't think I even own anything that uses opamps unless you are counting servo's.

Cap tolerance is often in pF for low value caps or precision ones but there are none here. The pinout is standard for a dual opamp and the cap is 118nf measured between V+ and V-. That's all the "magic" here. Edit: Yeah no resistors or anything like that. I also like the "custom pins" they tout as they are just the normal sockets turned upside down...

I don't think anything is going to fail but things to look out for, noise in the headphones with nothing playing, bad connection where the cable meets the earcups as that is a known failure spot on the early Mk1's and the condition of the earpads and the headpads as the earpads wear out and on the really early Mk1's the headpad disintegrates. As for the amp, take the top off and look at the silver getters on the tubes, if they aren't nice and silver I'd swap out the tubes and if one is milky white...you need new tubes. I would also blow all the dust out of the amp as it can short out the amp but that's about it.

....so I bought one of these. They popped up on Massdrop while I was talking to Kevin who immediately called BS on this. My curiosity peaked, I had to get one. Here is the product page: https://www.bursonaudio.com/products/supreme-sound-opamp-v5i/ BS meter is tingling so I waited for it to arrive: Nice enough box and here are the internals: I forgot to take a picture of the top but it looks exactly as it did on the page. Here is the bottom though: The potting compound is pretty soft so here is what I found: So... the only thing in there is an opamp with the top markings sanded off and one small cap. There is nothing on the bottom, just this. We have no idea what opamp that is but it would be pretty simple to dissolve the resin and look at the die. I very much doubt this is some custom one off unit, why would they sand off the top if it was some custom device? Also, why is that cap there? I mean this is a dual opamp so two channels and two power rails...why one cap? This reminds me of the Single Power tube adapters, they had parts for just one section of the dual triodes...why I just don't know.

I'm running mine right now off a Carbon so no issues.

Hifi+ and Absolute sound, same company and the same level of utter garbage. I buy them from time to time just to laugh at all the inaccurate shit they print. They don't check anything so they might as well be the PR agents for the manufacturers.

Yes, I think that was the first one. I can't find the schematic with a quick search but it should be here somewhere. Then we had the SRM-1 Mk2 first version in 1982 but in reality, most of that improvement had already been done to the later SRM-1 amps. It's fun to open those up... you never know what you are going to find.

Well it is a Hifiplus review so not even useful as toilet paper...

Other than laughing at his badly made crap for years, nope. I was the first one to take the original Jade apart and reveal the crap it was but that hardly counts as it was over a decade ago. Funny enough, the cable used on the original Jade is superior to the one they use now, gotta love "progress".

You can't look at the bias in a vacuum as it's the max potential of the entire system. Here, there is a certain range but it always depends on the drive voltages. If they go to high, you will arc the system. You can tell in the extreme cases but not really. Maybe with an electron microscope or something like that...

Shit... it's close to a decade... The imbalance on those sets is usually just due to the age of the phones and/or possible damage over the years from the SRD boxes. Basically, the normal bias sets could be easily overloaded by the transformers which caused arcing. Also sunshine is ultimate enemy of electrostatics as it breaks down the diaphragms over time.

They are ok and pretty well built. You can easily use them with an adapter though the cable is pretty short as they foresaw some sort of portable usage I suppose. The bass is pretty limited due to the small drivers. If you are keen on one, I have mine for sale on my site with a Stax adapter... Shameless plug but my better half really wants me to have a "sane" number of headphones...what ever that is.

I do wonder how many of these would be plugged into normal amps and short them out if they hadn't reversed the plugs...

It just means Stax are sneaky fuckers...

Happy to help.

I have a rather large oak bookshelf modified for audio use (i.e. liberal cutting of holes in the back) but I've used some Ikea ones in the past. They all seem to be out of production though...

What a hackjob of a cable!! Anyway... attached is the correct wiring from Sennheiser with one caveat, they wired them backwards with the - to the front stators. Stax do it the other way around. With a Stax cable, the line is the + pin, the middle wire is the bias and the last one is the -. So what I would do is take the line to the front stator (closer to the ear). Middle is the middle one and then the last one. he60pinout.pdf

That looks a lot like Ikea stuff to me....

Is tomato8 coming out of the woodwork? Clearly some shilling is needing to be done! Not a problem. I'll ask Kevin if he wants to rip this one apart...

I spot a Terminator dac...

I also don't think Fang really understands what is going to happen now. I'm going to track down a Shangri-la jr. amp no matter the cost just to rip it apart.

Lol!! Does he seriously think it works like that? Wow...just wow...

It's on Head-fi so I don't care

It's 100% stock and they are very bass light and diffuse sounding. I still like them though but I do wonder about the new Dekoni earpads for the HD series. Those might help but I haven't picked up a set yet.