spritzer

I this case it just means that these are fine headphones but poor value since you can get this level of performance elsewhere for less. Nothing new though since to me all Sennheiser's are poor value, save for the HD580. The Stax Omegas are a faithful representation of what you feed them so in effect nothing special. Both the SR-Omega and SR-007Mk2/A add a little bit of color, each in their own way, but the phones are essentially devoid of colorations. This is what I listen to every day and the HD800 doesn't come close, far too colored. It isn't a bad effect though if you are into that kind of sound. The wow factor can be very misleading and is often why people choose MP3's over lossless encoders as the MP3 isn't as linear and can be "impressive". Aside from the soundstage the HD800 isn't impressive so that might be why they fell out of favor so quickly.

The 404LE has the wide PC-OCC cable and thus the largest cable Stax uses. Same as the Omegas, Signature models, 4070 and the extension cables.

Yeah the plug didn't fit in my BH, no matter what I tried. Not happy about that... Aside from major hurdle it was the soundstage that annoyed me the most. I guess I'm rather sensitive to this whole diffused thing but there are ways to get a great soundstage and not have it sound like that, the SR-Sigma for instance.

Raising planar's off the ground helps a lot with any bass abnormalities. The manufacturers won't build the speakers like this since they are tall enough already but roughly 20-30cm will give a lot of improvements.

Indeed.

Ahh ok. Never had a EL34 give up the ghost completely...

Did you break one of the EL34's or something?

Guess I'll have to sleep with a knife under my pillow now. Stupid gun laws...

Woot!!!

Happy Birthday!!!

It is possible to reseal the drivers but it's far from easy. You need to strip them down and get rid of all the old glue residue and then assemble them again with polyurethane glue.

I'd open up the housings and see if the drivers are not coming apart. That can happen with some of the older phones. They should be firmly glued shut. Also look for any gaps in the mylar dustcover on the front or the one on the back.

Clearly bias related but what exactly is going on is hard to say. Could be that the phones have arced and there is some residue on the diaphragm causing it to act up. No way to open up the drivers to check though.

Tell me about it, plenty of projects to finish and I have to find a SR-007A to mod...

There are many variables at play here, the breakup frequency of the drivers being the number one culprit. Power isn't really a factor here as that is more dependent on damping and the electrical characteristics of the driver which change very little as you alter the tension. Even though the mylar is "loose" it doesn't move a whole lot, rather it vibrates.

My guess is a different driver (mylar tension that is) but the only way to confirm this would be to get our hands on replacement drive units as they would be clearly marked. As for the cryo, I'd file that under marketing and nothing else.

Yup, it's a part of the whole rape and pillage thing we do so well.

Flipping

The small ones usually don't have a split volume know but some do have a built in balance control. What we could use are detailed pics of the circuit to see if you can take some measurements to see what's going on.

The cable has a copper core but a thick layer of silver on top of that, similar to what APS and others are doing. It's probably a fine cable but I don't buy into that it has changed the sound this much. I'd rather say that the SR-404LE uses the same drivers as the SR-SC1 and thus sounds more like the older phones. The thinner pads might make a difference but on the SR-404 I modded I also used the newer, thinner pads and they sounded pretty much the same. I would like to try the cable on a SR-007 though...

Happy Birthday!!!

DIY time!!!!

1K$ worth of transformers...

Well that and we just eat fast food most of the time. There are 12 Subway's in Reykjavik, 4 KFC, 7 Domino's, 3 Pizza Hut and the list goes on and on in a city of 200.000. That's not a bad piece but it reflects the atmosphere of the time it was written in. After a year of what could best be described as parts of Orwell's Animal Farm things have moved on a bit.

I was thinking more about sugar glazed...