spritzer

They do have an alarming trend to return defective gear from servicing. I also love that they use just any resistors when doing repairs, even nasty 5% carbon crap.

I paid a shop to remove the tires on my VW and check the brake pads which the computer insists are busted. Plenty of life left in them yet it still gives me an error message... Ohh and some moar powdercoating though does paying with cakes and baked goods count? The SRM-Xh balanced amp will be rather pretty...

That's pretty epic...

My ESX was built using the final ES-1 schematic and it works like a charm. The only change I made was to wire a 100K resistor to ground from between the 100uf caps in the first stage but that is only to increase their life. With four 7n7's (6SN7's) the amp biases perfectly but if I put in some 7f7's (6SL7's) then I can't quite get half the B+ for the first stage but the output stage is AC coupled so it remains unaffected. To get rid of the offset before I rebuilt the thing, I just had to rewire the output stage according to KG's schematic and add new pots since the stock ones are crap. Then I connected three 9V batteries in series with the - rail of the PSU to generate the C-supply (with a nice sign "do not ever touch these batteries since they sit at 400V" ) and the amp worked just fine like that.

The Good Guys pilot. I quite liked it but it's on Fox so the odds of it surviving past 5 episodes are slim at best.

We can hardly invade something we discovered but didn't want...

Happy Birthday!!!

Those cases can be made quite nice now that they are available as 100% aluminum. It can handle the heat of the BH so the KGSSHV would be a good fit.

In electronics, the term jumper is often used to mean a short length of wire. For instance if you are going to run a balanced amp with RCA inputs you have to install a jumper in the XLR input to short pin 1 and pin 3. The jumper is just a short length of wire. While the EHT supply stores very little energy the high voltage means you would get a nasty shock from it should you come into contact with the circuit even after the speaker has been turned off. The fix does make perfect sense and shouldn't be too hard with a soldering iron and some soldering wick/desoldering pump to clear off the old solder from the holes in the board.

Applied for my US visa

How about those small and cheap Hammond input transformers? Not ideal but it gives the option of a SE input... I could but it requires milling and all I have is a drill press. I did find a place locally which could help me with that and the KGSSHV would be a good choice as any for them to make a chassis for me. There is also the option to just mount the connectors to the chassis as we usually do. Since I use SE inputs exclusively that is almost given with any amps I build. You wouldn't be the first. n3rdling IIRC bought his first Stax setup from me and now I'm racing to finish my old BH for him...

6mm for the back plate, that's about the max most RCA's will fit. I'd probably wire most of the stuff off the board which leads to the next PM...

You can expect one massive beast (10mm panels) featuring these boards ASAP being built up here.

Happy Birthday guys!!!

Yeah, any CEO should know exactly what is going on at any time let alone when you are going to release something which can make or break the company. Now if PJW had just stayed on for a couple of years and finished those sphere speakers...

Yup, but they won't work in my KGSS chassis. The problem is the thick aluminum I used for the front panel (10mm+4mm spacer) so the pots just aren't long enough to mount a knob to them. I might modify the front panel by cutting out a 45mm hole in the front panel but with such a thick panel it isn't an easy thing to do (plus the center hole is too large for the center drill of the cutting bit). I did fit one of the Alpha pots instead of the RK27 and it was a pleasant upgrade. One of the smaller TKD's has been fitted in the Stax SRM-Xh as I'm making the amp fully balanced and I'm upgrading the PSU. Tiny, fully balanced, fully discrete electrostatic amp FTMFW!!

+/-350V being considdered boring just shows how utterly bonkers we really are...

You could post the instructions here along with some internal pics and we can perhaps guide you along... Thanks for sharing that and the Quad design is just too cool. It's a shame PJW retired and didn't carry on like his contemporary in Japan.

Nobody here has compared them head to head that I'm aware of. From memory they sound pretty similar to me but that is all but worthless...

Here is the TKD and here is the Alpha.

The RK27 is a dreadful pot so either those pots which you should receive soon or the TKD 4CP-601. The TKD is tiny so perhaps better for a tiny balanced desktop amp?

Given how well the 404LE sold I do doubt they are having any trouble selling everything they make. Also look at the saturation of Stax in the UK and they must be selling a bunch over there. I think the real problem is Yama's wasn't up to the task. There were plenty of dealers but when they called Yama's to order nobody answered the phone. Stax has had endless trouble with the US distributors which is why the market has never been as strong as for instance Germany.

I aim to please... If you get a good deal on ESL988's then go for it but they are the same speaker as the 63...

Running it open would be the main issue here. "No touching of the pretty LEDs!!!!!!!!!!!" Having the heatsinks on either side is a neat idea and would look great with the amp placed on a single shelf instead of being stacked.

Dual box but then you already knew that...