spritzer

This has been a killer of a week for me so I'm late with the impressions. Then all of sudden we had a holiday today so I finally have some free time. I'm too lazy to find my camera so I'll take some pics later. First off, this is set nr.4 so I very much view it as a "work in progress" but...they are pretty awesome. From the first impressions and until now they keep reminding me of the SR-007. Clearly power hogs (I measured the system with stock cable at 160pf) too and a bit dark sounding. Now in my book this is a welcome reprise from all the bright models out there now. Doesn't mean the treble is subdued or anything like that, it is just not as apparent as with the L700 or 009's for instance. This also gives it a fuller sound and well...that bass. The cups are ported so the bass could have been compromised due to that but not so here, it's deep, tight and tuneful. It doesn't match a closed SR-007 but I frankly don't mind that...I can always grab my 007's if I want to listen to them. These are a bit more tuneful with more presence higher up. One of the first tracks I tried on them is the one which 009, 009S and 009BK all fail miserably at, but no issues here. They replicate the snare drum perfectly and same goes for everything else I've thrown at them. The midrange is perfectly fine and really showcases the difference in mastering on some tracks. The soundstage is just about perfect, follows what the tracks should sound like and doesn't pull a HE90 on us. Not quite up to the layering of the 007's but then again...that is the gold standard. Overall they are very neutral and do what any transducer should do, get out of the way. For me the biggest compliment to any headphones is me willing to listen to them as well, I have a lot of headphones at hand. I've used these almost exclusively since I got them, only swapping out to do comparisons. Now for fit and finish, I have no complaints. The headband is very sturdy with nice spring steel for the main span and they fit my head nicely. A bit snug but then again, I have a melon for a head. I did bend the arc a bit and now I can use them for hours at a time. The housing is attached to the earcups with a single M4 bolt and I did experience some rubbing there. This joint wasn't really supposed to move but for my use, they fit better that way so I place a nylon washer between the two parts and that has fixed this. I've already relayed this to Aumkar who should be arriving back home soon. The only major issue I've had is with the cable or rather one of the connectors. One channel started to drop out and after some troubleshooting this was traced to the mini XLR plug. I bought some new ones and made a quick replacement cable this morning and now it works perfectly. To keep the cost down the mini XLR does work for this but yeah... I'd like something better but given the cost constraints I get why they use it. Same for the cable, getting anything which works for this is difficult and costly. The cable is still better than what Hifiman are using so yeah... I'm not too worried about that. So over all, I'm very, very impressed and I will be working with Aumkar to see if we can't improve on these small issues.

It was awesome meeting you and getting the headphones hand-delivered. My impressions will be coming soon but a small sneak preview after a very limited time with them (aka I couldn't help myself), don't let the price fool you to think these are budget headphones...they don't sound like that.

Indeed and the basis for one of the most expensive electrostatic amps...the MSB

I never found any way to properly fix them. Changing the pads made some minor changes but I just gave up and moved on. It would be worth it for the Black Gates alone and easy enough to fix.

Looks brilliant!! ...so when can I order one?

I don't have a soft spot for what was a compromise from the start. The chassis they ended up with was not what they wanted to do as the tubes were supposed to be in chimneys to take away a lot of the heat but it was probably too expensive. The stuff on the input tubes are shields to try and keep crap out of them. They used nice caps but no audiophile BS.

It's a feature that it can cook eggs on the top panel... Kinda funny when the only option in Iceland is to take off the top panel and have a fan close by to cool it.

I sold it back in 2010 as it makes no sense to keep it. It doesn't sound as good as people think it does and the hum bothered me a lot. Well that and it was doomed to fail so I just recapped it and moved it on.

Done and some nostalgia as it's been a decade since this was going on...

If those resistors blow, there has to be a short in the output stage. See the schematic:

I will be getting a set as well. The L700's have potential but this is modern Stax so fuckup is a 50/50 tossup...

I'd start there but it might be a good idea to go even lower.

That does look like a nice solution for a detachable cable but they did say somewhere it was the first time... ehhh no... SR-Omega...

Well you need to look at the system as a whole and HE90's at pro bias is a really, really bad idea. Ideally you should go even lower down than 500V as the D/S gap in them is so small. Well that and uneven stators but that's a known issue. So with the HEV90, the max voltage swing is just about 1100Vppss on a good day so they can get away with that. Now plug this into a Carbon or a T2 and... well... that's not a good idea really. It is so easy for the amps to overdrive the headphones so I'd personally scale down the bias even further.

I never messed with the earpads on the ECR-500 as it was really before all that started....

60-70$ or so. Not bad for the quality you get.

You can also just use the extension cable that came in the box. Also the angled earpads were a custom order from Vesper Audio. Fong carries the normal flat pads but it is easy enough to order the custom ones from Belarus.

I prefer the newer 007 pads and they last a lot longer than the old ones.

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.