spritzer

Happy to help.

The component will only use as much current as it needs but higher voltage can overload internal parts. The rub here though is that if you have a say 12V/1.5A wallwart but the component draws only 300mA then the voltage the wallwart outputs will be higher than the rated 12V. The voltage output is at the rated current draw so it rises with less current demand.

Most of the stat's are like that for me. This is the main reason why I despise steppers since they never have the correct setting...

You really need to make it to Mafia sanctioned meet.

I bought something similar a while back and I have no complaints. My Exstata uses these almost exclusively with no issues. Beats the hell out of paying 15cents for one generic resistor at the local store...

Indeed...

Buy one I believe was the exact phrase...

They haven't been released so I don't have a set. KG has heard them though but no price has been set yet. I'd venture a guess and say they will be close to 400KYen...

No, we are the Stax Mafia...

No ground in electrostatics which is why Stax made a virtual ground in the SR-Omega for safety reasons. I must say the 507 is growing on me with the APL/BHSE setup. It's no Omega in terms of soundstage, bass, midrange presence or detail retrieval but for the price it eats a HD800 for dinner and stands up to the HE60. Now the real test will be moving back to "budget amps" such as the 717, KGSS and SRM-1 Mk2. Hell I'll throw in the SRM-T1 and the small portables to the mix...

Those outer holes are probably there to secure the insulation and the diaphragm mounting to the stators. Stax have taken the necessary lessons from their errors with the SR-Omega where the whole housing would loosen up with time and cause driver issues. Most users don't realize that the hex bolts at the back (well 3 of them at least) are there to secure the resin shell and the 4 screws underneath the earpads do the same plus keeping the whole driver assembly under tension. Making sure these are properly fixed should keep the phones running for decades. As for the stators, it is all about having a non resonant structure. With the He90 (the HE60 used molded plastic with conductive paint) Sennheiser used etched glass panels for stiff and well damped stators but since the technology to do this was in its infancy in the early 90's, rejection rate was very high. That is probably why no two HE90's sound the same since no two drivers are identical. Since day one Stax have used solid brass plates for stators, mostly uncoated. The only exception was the SR-X Mk1 which used mesh electrodes but since I've never owned one, I don't know why they discontinued that model so quickly. These brass plates are set in a plastic frame which provides insulation and also sets the correct diaphragm/stator distance. All of the phones made prior to 1993 were like that but the SR-Omega and the Nova series changed things. I covered the Omega driver above but the Nova models (well the Classic and the Signature, Basic still used the old stator design) moved to a coated metal stators to eliminate arcing and to damp the metal plates. The SR-007 is different since its drivers are dirt cheap to make using PCB material but the money is spent elsewhere. PCB's are actually a good choice since they are naturally insulated, very strong, stiff and dirt cheap to make in massive numbers. As for the arc, it looks very odd indeed. I can't but cringe a bit when I catch my reflection wearing the 507...

It is certainly dedicated to them.

The T2 could be made a whole lot simpler with modern sand and a different take on the design but then you'd just end up with the BH. It will never be a cheap option but Stax are ok with making less profit from the amps then the headphones so they could do something cool...

I knew these weren't going to be cheap... Goes off to hatch an evil plan to drive the market value of the Yen down to sane levels....

It's more a matter of a crappy store charging too much for crap rather then prices being excessively inflated. The tax and highest VAT in the world doesn't help but some people do try to be competitive. That store in particular is just the worst of the worst. I hadn't gone there for 10 years after they tried to sell me RCA plugs as banana's but a recent trip to buy a Tivoli radio for my mom there showed it is still run by the same idiots. I guess they would be pretty pissed if they knew how many people I've persuaded over the years not to do business with them... They don't weigh much? I do quite like the pink driver model which used to be here in the sense that I also like the HD600. I wouldn't like to own one but I can stand to use them for short periods...

Ohhh I am not. The local Senn rep asked me about the RA-1 for customer and with Stuart popping by the bakery for lunch 10 minutes later I asked if I could borrow his. The plan is to bring it by to let them try the HD800 on it vs. the SPL Auditor which costs about the same here...

Have a great day little guy.

Silver is the only way. This was very interesting though, plenty of data on how they are made. So they have the old PC-OCC cable (silver stipes) and not the new 6N silver plated unit. That is the stator he's holding through most of the interview and it looks like an aluminum frame with either a mesh or very finely etched electrode. This means a very strong driver so here hoping they stick with SR-007 engineering to anchor the driver into the housing. The SR-507 certainly points to Stax taking that route in general... The SR-Omega driver is 90mm across (about 80mm of usable diaphragm space) so it's not surprising. The SR-Omega driver is a resin frame which has the cartwheel supports and then a gold plated copper mesh was glued to that. There were then brass rings which held the diaphragm in place and the dust covers and the whole assembly was stacked inside a resin framework inside the cups. The actual metal is only about 1mm thick which is why I just call them the tin-can...

They are doing well and there is also the small matter of this being a rather expensive headphone... The stack is held firmly in place by the silicone o-ring so there will be no baffle leak. The diaphragm is fixed exactly like it is done on all the other Lambdas so it will not loose tension. On a normal Lambda the stators are just glued to the brass rings so the odds of a baffle leak is higher here since the glue does fail with age. I've split enough drivers in my day... The arc now has fixed clicks and it is designed differently so instead of the headpad being in a C shape over the head and pushing towards the arc when worn, the new one has the headpad under more tension so it is almost flat. At the biggest setting there are about 30mm from the top of the headpad to the arc so it looks just a bit odd when worn... It isn't exactly fair to compare the fit of my well worn SR-404's or let alone my highly customized SR-007 but I do feel the SR-507 at all times. This might get better with more use or it might continue to annoy me. Well it is a Lambda so the bass is slightly boomy, they are forward (though the BHSE does tame them a bit), the soundstage is a bit hazy and they present a bit of false detail which should be buried in the mix but isn't. As it stands now they are a good Lambda but without having a SR-SC1, 404LE or a LNS here it is hard to say whether it is the best Lambda ever made. The brightness off the KGSS (with a rather dull source) does count against them but the lack of excessive bass boom is a welcome thing.

That's not something that has ever been a problem for me. When I was waiting for the 507 to be delivered I was using a Grado RS-1/RA-1 combo which isn't exactly shy about presenting the upper registers...

We all knew this was going to happen but I've taken the SR-507 I got less than 24 hours ago apart. Stax does warn about any and all tampering voiding the warranty so don't try this at home kids. First off, lets remove those driver housings from the arc assembly (they just pull out like on the two other Lambda designs). Here are the 507 name plates: Now lest lift up the four corners of the earpads and remove the screws which fix the baffle to the back grill. The baffle just pulls out and we are greeted with this: Now this is very different from the other Lambdas, gone is the aluminum baffle with the driver glued onto it and now we have a molded plastic baffle with a cradle for the driver to sit in. I'm not sure what plastic it is but it is very stiff. Like I said above, Stax warns about the warranty being void if one tries to tamper with the headphones which would explain this: Now this just confirms what I thought as soon as I opened up the headphones, the drivers are not glued together but rather just stacked together inside the shell. This is how the SR-Omega is assembled, also the SR-007 and the SR-003. Throwing caution to the wind I remove those 4 screws: Here we can see the silicone o-ring used to seal the back of the driver and the new chrome look of the metal plate used to hold the dust cover in place. Now it's time to put my hunch to the test and see if the dust cover is glued to the stator: Indeed it is not though there is some compound used between them. This gives us a direct view of the stators which appear to be coated metal plates, similar to the newer stator design introduced in 1994 with the Lambda Nova Signature. Since I don't happen to have a clean room to do stuff like this I tried to keep the drivers uncovered for as short a time as possible. There are glue pads on the end of the driver so I decided not to mess with them and try my luck exposing the diaphragm. From the side view offered where the connections the diaphragm is still mounted to two solid brass rings like on all the other Lambdas. Now we take a look on the other side of the driver. With the new earpad design this is quite simple, just use a knife to lift up the cloth cover and you can see the protective mesh: This is the same silver colored material found on the post 2004 models. The arc is also new and very substantial if a bit uncomfortable for somebody with a gigantic head like me. They need a lot of parts to make this one work and plenty of screws. None of the cost cutting seen in the post 1994 arc assembly here. Now they are back together and needless to say, they work perfectly.

Don't know about that but these are very forward sounding, enough to annoy me. The pads are very nice and the ability to twist the arc assembly is pretty odd...

Ok, these a silly sensitive. The specs say they are only 1dB over the SR-404 but the combination of a slightly forward nature makes it more pronounced.

Ok, SR-507's sitting on my head. First impressions are a lovely smell of leather, the new arc assembly is very substantial but it isn't very comfy for my gigantic head and it makes the headphones rather heavy. As for the sound, I'm on my second song so nothing solid yet but no real issues either.

Ok, now I'm off to sharpen the axe...