spritzer

One can always hope... springs eternal and all that. The WES is a particular clusterfuck though as it didn't work on so many levels. It's a collection of 4 mono phase amps really so you need the super noisy phase splitter to the circuit for it to work with RCA inputs and then we have the inductor output loads which simply don't work. Add to that a really, really crappy power supply and all the usual Woo audio safety concerns. So back in the day, for those that are unfamiliar, there was some discussion that they were just doing the best they can or some such BS so I said...can I do better? I set some rules, same power supply voltages, same tubes naturally (though not the rectifiers as they are just stupid) and as similar a parts count and general topology as possible. So output caps like in the original, inter stage caps etc. Throw it all in a spare box and here it is: The massive tower was just something I had and as you can see... it is pretty much empty: The chassis was reused from a dac project our resident "circular hole cutter tech" did so extra holes galore and then it was powder coated to look nice. That's why it has only XLR loop outputs on the back. So here is the money shot... Sooooo...this is a small DC supply to run the heaters of the tubes and my SSPS (simple stacked PS) feeding +300/+600 plus bias to the amp. The amp it self is a combination of a modified SRX front end with a new grounded cathode output stage. That pic is from the first testing so there were some changes done later on but it worked well enough and about 1/4th the size of a WES...

No pics of the new one that I'm aware of and no real impressions either. This being Woo I'm expecting the worst but it would be nice to be pleasantly surprised once in a while... ?

...and redo the input stage as it is idiotic. The one I did with all the same tubes and simple resistor load for the outputs was quite good for a low cost project...

This 130V zener works just fine: 863-1N5952BRLG You can use this 833-2KBP06-BP instead of the 3N254 562R10TSD10 will be just fine.

Yup, they are great on flights though a bit bulky. Crazy sensitive to the tips though...

The comfort is excellent and the sound is also excellent if just a tad too bright. Easy enough to fix with the KSE1500 EQ... Much better than the Stax stuff but at a hefty premium.

KSE1500's...

We could do a portable amp but there are some issues there such as the PSU, custom chassis perhaps and stuff like that. I'm not really interested in portable amps as I find them a silly novelty for open phones that bleed as much as Stax do but we could do something for the Shure's. The stock amps are pretty good but could be improved upon...

Isn't everybody glad that I'm crazy enough to buy this stuff and have Kevin rip it apart?

Turns out the amp is a clone of the SRM-001 with some issues so yeah... not ideal. This is a schematic I found in my archives so no idea where it came from. Kevin also notest that the player didn't have a high enough output to properly drive them so something is wonky.

We are working on completely reverse engineering it.

Halo products are great...if they are actually great. The issue now is that looks and useless crap matter more than anything else.

Wow, just wow....

Yeah, which points to a headphone amp being used to drive this. Also the limited voltage swing is of concern...

In other news, the Monolith Electrostatics from Monoprice are now available and a set is already on its way to Kevin for a full dissection. While we wait, we finally have some specs: Now I have some doubts about some of this, the capacitance is probably just the drivers and not the cable included as it is really low. Now the cable is pretty short but still, 60pf is not probable. The drivers are also quite small so comparable to the old Stax designs (SR-5 etc.) which are about 120pf so yeah...half of that is not probable. Now the only thing that makes me pause is the amp...let's look at the specs: For first off, no volume control so one wonders what is going on in that small box. It has a battery which powers something for some 5 hours but why no volume control? It is just odd... Now to further add to the mix, I found this on ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/223221739939?ul_noapp=true Now here they are for a lot more money with no markings at all. I looked at what other items the seller has and it is a lot of monoprice stuff for a lot more money. Very odd...

The T8000 reeks of desperation to me more than anything. For them, there were no HV transistors left and no dual fet inputs so they needed to work around that. They did it badly and it is in no way a high end amp.

So true and as I'm routinely zapped by bias supplies...they do pack a punch.

That is it plus any energy storage in the bias supply in general is a poor idea. It has to be a super high impedance supply from a performance and safety perspective so storing anything after the ballast resistor is just poor engineering. If one was going to do that (no idea why though) you would need a rather high value series resistor to negate the effect of the charge on the diaphragm.

No, I don't.

I haven't had enough time to spend on this but I did throw on the EP-007 pads and the results weren't great. The sound was improved over all, better bass and the rough treble smoothed out but the imaging is still crap. Then I got a crazy idea, what about turning these into pretty much large SR-X's....? Well I had some ATH-2002 pads (I think, had them for well over a decade) and they are completely flat and pretty thin. Now this means the pads will give zero aide for the imaging but it has done wonders for the rough top end and made the bass a bit too flat. Still an interesting experiment and I'll keep them like this for a while as they are quite comfy with these pads.

The imaging issue is similar to Kingsound so yeah, quite sterile and unnatural sounding. I'll measure the capacitance and throw some KV at the cable too.

I'm in for the latter, one of the few to get the honor of my ignore list here. I can only take a certain amount of inane ramblings... Now some impressions, system has changed a bit since last time as I got a Denafrips Terminator DAC plus it is now fed by a Kimber KS-2436 silver USB cable...not that it matters and I only got it to prove that point but it's there. Amp is a stock Carbon which does look rather nice with the black aluminum Stax plug on these. They are certainly even more inefficient than the 007's but the Carbon drives them with ease. In fact I'm not even at 12 o'clock so I could easily drive them into arc'ing if I wanted to pull a Ray on this. Other aspects are just fine though, even though I can't stand the earpads the fit is just fine and the headband might work for those with silly large heads. The cutouts in the leather might bother those though without a full head of hair. The drivers are dead silent with no music playing so no dust migration issues. Anyway, I first tried them bone stock and initial impressions were ok. Not great but I first thought "at least they don't do anything seriously wrong", I just pressed random on the playlist and some Thompson Twins came up which was a lucky stroke for them. As soon as something else came up I noticed they just sound odd, the top end is both muffled and peaky at the same time, the midrange sounds distant and hollow and the bass has a very pronounced resonant frequency but limited extension. The soundstage is vague and diffused compared to the better units but far from as bad as say the HE90's. Next step was to remove those foam pads from inside the drivers. Now they are 5mm and not 4mm as I stated before (eyeballing while lifting up one end vs. actually measuring) and super dense. This is nothing like the open cell stuff Stax used in most models from 1977, that presents limited to no restriction on the sound while this foam... it barely lets any light through it so impact on the sound is huge. I'm a bit baffled why anybody would add this as removing it does wonders to the sound. Now where to start, everything is improved and much of the weird sound is gone. The top end is a still peaky and uneven (so much so that I need to turn down the volume often) but far more open. Same goes for the bass, that annoying "thump" is all but gone and the response is flatter and more natural. Extension is still limited compared a properly setup set of 007's but perfectly adequate. There is some of the same uneven bass response as the 009's and 009S's as they have problems with the same test tracks but I can live with it. Now for the all important midrange, yeah you guessed it, more open and "there" right in front of you. Now the soundstage is a bit lost and lacks the layering and depth of the 007's but compared to most out there, perfectly fine. There is still some reverb clearly audible but swapping out the pads should take care of that but we will know for sure soon. So the bottom line is, if you own one of these, remove the fucking foam!! This is a discussion we've been having for decades with the HD580 and all the successors so yeah... adding damping like that is about as retarded as the whole sorbothane BS. Don't try to tune electrostatics like this, it will never work. Change the earpads, change the distance of the drivers to the ears, change how the drivers are built but never, ever throw some foam on there and think you did a good job. Fucking pathetic.... Anyway, sorry for the rant but this bothers me so much as it is just so lazy. Now next step will be to swap out the earpads and I want to stick with something anybody can get so none of my custom made pads are eligible. This might take a while as I need to take stock and see what I currently have...

So here are some pics as I begin to take these apart. My main camera was out of juice so I just grabbed the phone for this. Not perfect but blame Apple then... First off the Stax plug: It's hard to see but the pins are in this concave indent and clearly meant to be like that (see the next pic) but this might be why some of the pins arrived bent. Put on a spare socket and twist to unscrew the metal cover. Bonus shot of the new threaded teflon Stax sockets... I'm glad they put heatshink over it all but it also means I won't remove it until I can completely take the cable apart. To give them a fair shake they have to be as close to stock as possible. The pins appear to be super long though by feeling around underneath it but further research will have to wait. Here are the actual earcup connectors, spaced some 4mm apart according to the Mitutoyo. I need to find out what these were originally used for but they follow the stock Stax wiring (center wire is bias) so they will be easy to convert to Stax wiring. Here is the receiving end which ended up a bit out of focus. I blame my friends at Apple...you know who you are... What this is like on the inside will have to wait a while as too busy to take them apart fully. I did get here though... Pull off the earpad and remove the stupid foam pad to reveal pretty much what is on the outside. The black bit is rubberized so we'll see how the baffle seal on these is.

That's exactly the point, competition is good if people are one-upping each other or even just seeing an opening in the market for a certain product and exploiting it. MEE-TOO!! copies pushed on people by zealots...not so much. People can argue about the tonality of the transducers all week but some traits are not up for discussion, is the product well made, is it safe etc. I'm going to upload some pics now...