spritzer

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...

I guess that would be the final push I need to turn off PM's over there. I swear if I get one more PM asking me about the price of some random Stax item...

That is pretty cool.

There will be a BOM but I for one will probably never follow it. It's just not what I do...

For you Marc, I'll send you a special modded version. I may look like a SR-507 which I'm asking 4K$ for but I assure you it is not...

There will be no toroid group buy and any form of kits done by me aren't likely to happen.

Happy Birthday!!!

WTF indeed. I just love stuff like this, no idea how bloody well designed the original was but this guy could clearly do better....

I'd have to see the SR-003 up close but the plug works well so I don't see any need to change it. There are also not that many options in such a tiny system...

My condolences Shelly. It always sucks to loose a pet...

This is indeed a new, more expensive Omega. It's not a replacement for the SR-007.

Happy Birthday gents!!!

It's the same design as this one. Far cry from the BH/T2's of this world...

Yet another crappy day at work but at least the phone and internet works now so that's something. To make up for the crappy week I paid a visit to Stuart at his photo lab for a great discussion about pretty much everything.

Vintage Lambdas FTMFW!!!

Aside from the large number of small caps (49 I think) it is pretty easy to swap them out. There are also only two values used in the DAC, large 2200uf caps in the PSU and small (10uf?) elsewhere.

You know Mike, the clarinet guy...