spritzer

The proper version of the ES-1/2 (i.e. what I built in my ESX), with a few cool twists, which fits in the same chassis as the T2. The PSU is 100% that of the T2 and it uses the same compliment of 4 noval tubes (12AT7's for lowest distortion) and four EL34's.

As many of you know, APL is being flaky as ever so I might as well keep my 3910 since it works well for my needs and sounds pretty good. I do have two major problems with it though, first of it is 117V only and the second, it is not silver. The solution for the latter is pretty simple, I just bought a Japanese 3910 for very little money (which are champagne colored) so I'll just move all the trim parts over and gain a replacement drive too boot. That player hasn't arrived yet so I'll tackle it at a later date. As for the issue of 117V, well an outside step down transformer is just a pain so why not try to mount one internally? Since I was ordering some transformers from SumR I asked Richard what was the smallest 100VA unit he could build for me and as it turns out, he could make one that fits. Cheap too for a custom transformer. It is a very tight fit and I had to get a bit creative with some of the regulators and caps on the board. Now the old IEC inlet has to go and since I can't remove the back panel (relays and other circuitry is glued to it) I might just use a Powerkon instead. It can be mounted behind the panel for a clean look and it is a far better connector then the IEC. I'm not particularly proud of that "metal working" but since it is covered by the top cover I don't mind it. Now here is the "ohhh snap!!!" moment though, this little sticker was resting on the bottom of the chassis right where the transformer sits. Holy crap, I own something which has been cryo treated by Jena Labs!!! I need to shower in a super hot geyser now to try and get rid of the shame...

Since I've compared my DIY BH to the real T2 I can safely say the T2 didn't better it in any way. The new PSU will be a large improvement but you can also strap that to the BH so in comparisons it shouldn't be a factor. Now once this project is done we need to pickup where we left off with the new SS designs...

Perhaps I could "borrow" the ship they used to sail to the US back in 2000? I don't think it is being used at all these days...

First one but probably not the last.

Happy Birthday Woody!

I finally booked my flight today. The evening of the 2nd of June I'll fly to Boston and stay there for the night, then a morning flight to Chicago so I should be there before noon. On the 7th it's back the same way again except I can take the night flight back home.

Have a great day Colin.

Happy Birthday HC!!!!

The ones I use (I linked to them above) slice through Teflon like buttah. In fact I just finished some IC's made from Kimber TC wire and it stripped that teflon easily. Same goes for the Belden/Navship stuff. The last thing I bought would be some Neutrik XLR's for the aforementioned IC's plus some generic XLR's and a cheap microphone cable for a ghetto AES/EBU cable.

Direct translation is translation "Bun Day". Tomorrow we have "Eat until you burst day", when it is customary to eat salted meat until you can't possibly eat any more, and on Wednesday it is "Ash Day" where kids dress up in costumes and sing for people in exchange for candy.

Spent the entire weekend working 16+ hours a day making cr

20 extra volts will not damage the SR-007 or any Stax headphone. 700+ and they will start complaining...

Yeah, it wasn't much to write home about. Still if you have no amp then it is better then nothing.

We've found proof in the glaciers up here that the temperature has fluctuated a lot in the last 1000 years so perhaps this could be normal. Things certainly took a turn for the worse up here after 1350 with temperatures plummeting and we are finally seeing the end of that mini "iceage" now.

Those are the jumpers and you need to solder in some new ones, i.e. move the wiring from parallel to series on the primaries.

Now if Rudi released a 1k$ headphone that wasn't utter crap then he could get somewhere but odds are that it will be 6k$ and badly made. I sure hope not since graphite is a very bad choice for diaphragm coating (it absorbs moisture and is far from stable) but I just chalked this up to Fang trying to peddle his overpriced crap. One can just imagine how little the Jades cost to produce given the very cheap labor... You aren't too far off... My hands are certainly larger then average but removing the earcups from the forks was made even harder due to the crappy screws used. I had to drill out two of them...

Naaman's set was the one that went of the tour of HC, right? Did anybody like that headphone, the Texas crowd sure didn't. To me they sound nothing like the Omegas, just bad copies of the HE90. I remember seeing the 1.3 for the first time and thinking they were nuts for releasing something which was clearly fucking with the backwave. Surprise, surprise that they apparently sounded like crap. Perhaps there wasn't enough of that magic pixie dust in the drivers to make them sound MOAR better...?

I just watched it again and I love their bewilderment about the audiophile power cords and filters. I must say though that, while clearly nuts along with 1000 hour burn-in for CDP's, there is a lot of junk on the mains today. Have any of you looked inside the chargers/power bricks inside the various appliances or just ripped apart one of those "green" light bulbs? Truly nasty stuff there...

Ahh the ET1000, certainly one of my favorites. As for the Jade, one has to hold it to truly appreciate just how badly made they are. The wood is thin which would be fine if it was something like the wood used on the Orpheus (very dense stuff,milled to perfection and much thicker then on the Jade) but making the forks out of wood is utter madness. Now I normally don't care what something costs (as can be seen by my stubbornness to praise the Mk1 even when facing much more expensive transducers ) but value is always a factor for me. The Jade would make sense in a way if it cost 300$ but at 1800$ (hmm back to 1500$ now) it is just the same crap as Ray pricing the A-10 up there with the BHSE and WES so that is appears to be of the same quality.

I just measured the stock Stax headphone plug and they are 20mm across so the cable can't be much bigger then that. I'm in a similar situation since I'm dealing with a 10mm front panel...

I've never bought replacement wool but there isn't supposed to be any paper attached to it.

Those EAR amps are built to order and very rare. There are also some other direct drive amp from Germany but I forget what it was called. Also some from Holland too... The Quads like good, clean power. Class A monsters will work well give how immune they are to the load. It's not a good idea though to use an old ESL57 with a 25w+ amp if they aren't fitted with the clamp boards (which work in a similar fashion to the zener's Stax used on the transformer boxes). Old school Krell did sound very nice on some ESL63's and even a rebuilt 303 did a good job with ESL57's.

Nope, EAR made (makes?) a direct drive amp which is attached to the back of the speakers.

You do know that the ESL57's can be made active...