spritzer

Very few of the European manufacturers have balanced connectors on their gear and if they do, they are SE. Naim is special though since they believe the RCA connector to be evil...

You know my take on these phones and that was with the old BH which is more or less the same. It is hard to blame the amp for making the phones bright though when it is essentially dead neutral. The ES-1 as Mikhail built it is duller then a stack of wet towels and I'm sure Justin went a similar way with the Aristaeus as Senn did with the HEV90, tone it down a bit to make it sound beautiful but not true. When I moved from the SR-007 to the SR-404LE on the T2 it was clearly too bright but that's because the phones are on the brighter side of neutral. This is with the APL as a source which has a transformer coupled tube output, nothing like the slightly sterile and bright Esoteric sound. I loved the SR-Omega from my old BH but the upper midrange/treble issues were still there. The amp didn't try to hide them in any way but other parts of spectrum were good enough for me to ignore it. That said you could be happier with an AC coupled amp. I would also look into different cables, ones that aren't trying to sound impressive.

Well the F5 is nearing completion so it shouldn't be long. I made some progress on it today but I still have to fire it up. Given the level of incompetence involved with stuffing the boards I'm expecting to have some issues... That would be my guess since Stax has this "newer is better" mentality.

The Lundahl's are still sitting on a shelf, waiting patiently.

This is sadly the norm for Stax. Don't even try to ask for Gamma/Alpha pads...

Woot on the F5!!! I'm getting close after a small package from Texas arrived here on Thursday...

I never found the old BH to be bright but most electrostatics are on the bright side of normal. I also agree about the Esoteric sound. Great build quality but I couldn't own a stock unit... \

Damn that sucks Doug but if you've got a full refund then that is great. There is no excuse for packaging something this hefty in a small box and hope for the best. I do have fond memories of seeing the staff at the post office trying to handle the DAS-R1 I sold you.

I think it is time to stock up on those HV parts... \

It's easier then you think. Simple enough to do with relay switched voltage dividers and something to control them.

Nahhh... some 845's would come in handy but I do think SS is the future.

Nahhh, you're still of some use to us... The BH could use a bit more power though and that's where SS steps in.

Happy Birthday SinglePower Repair, West Coast branch...

Happy Birthday Santa!!

Ouch!! I thought the ML SummitX was bad with a dip to 0.4ohm at 18kHz...

More like DIYA....

Cables make or break the SR-007 (price has no bearing here, just quality) so change cables ASAP.

I wasn't there so I don't have any but it was covered by all the newspapers so I should have a link in the morning.

I worked on transforming an old chassis to fit the BH while my brother won cake of the year contest on behalf of the bakery. It was a large contest with 42 entries but we won it by a mile. The judges even ate the second cake which was only meant for the photo shoot. It's good to win since a lot of work went into this. We set out to make a very complicated cake on purpose to try and make up for the lack of professionalism running rampant these last few years and it worked. Last years winner was a direct copy from a Valrhona brochure with nothing changed. The recipe for our cake is 7 pages long with every last bit made from scratch so no corners were cut. Needless to say it was fucking awesome...

Sitting here listening to T2/007, "Indeed"

They really are something else, one of my favorite Stax headphones. Yup, I'm done collecting headphones. I really only need a couple of SR-007's and a SR-003 for testing amps.

Small "misunderstanding" when wiring up the delay line in the BH PSU. I really should know better then to be working on this stuff after a long day at work but... Luckily the heater transformer and the delay board were the only things connected so no harm done.

That's why KG is working on SS amps to rival the BH. They won't run cool by any means but even high bias solid state runs cooler then the tube amps.

I'm good though my DIY spirit is a bit rattled after creative wiring today resulted in live mains shorting out with the resulting kaboom and lights out. Should be back to normal in the morning.

That would be a soldering station then...?