spritzer

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...

So I've officially fallen off the wagon again as I got one of these just now. I swore I was done buying headphones but clearly not... So I just put them on my head so listening impressions will come later but first some over all impressions. Now the case...the case is super retarded whoever came up with should be patted on the back for being super "special". It's pretty much Head-fi in a case form, has wank factor off the scale but is utterly useless. Way, way too heavy too. Now the cable, from the outside it looks well enough made but I will open it up to see what's inside. The pins on the plug were all bent and it looks like the whole front of the plug has bent inwards as it is now concave. Not sure if it was supposed to be like that but it has clearly deformed a bit. I needed to bend the pins to get them to fit in our custom made sockets so something is off. Now this is a used set so I don't know what abomination it was plugged into... The rest of the cable is ok, I like the small splitter piece but the cable is way too microphonic for my taste. Even the smallest tap is transmitted straight to the cups. Now the actual connectors for the cups...again we reach one of those "special" design choices. So it looks like a DB9 plug (smaller though) but the actual contacts are tiny PCB mount parts so it is all for show. I'll take some pics later but this is super stupid. I'll also run some HV tests on it and see how it holds up as I zap it with some KV's. Now the actual phones, I like that they say "FLOW" on the headband which I presume is some other model. Too costly clearly to make a new molding for this... The earcups feel solid but those earpads are just crap. They are pretty badly made and the opening is far too large. They will be the first thing I'm going to tamper with. Then we have the circa 3mm thick dense foam on the face of the driver...in 2018!! Now this used to be the norm (though never for Stax) and the Koss ESP950 still has this but that's only because they haven't changed in nearly 30 years. I'll try them first fully stock and then start to mess with them. Pics will come later as I start to take them apart too but first some listening...

Indeed, the headphones are setup for constant charge so when you pull the power source the charge is still present. It will then slowly dissipate over 20-30 minutes or so and the sound will become softer and softer.

They are ODU parts, not LEMO. Can't remember the part number but you can find it on HF. Senn is using similar parts for the HE-1 connectors. As for the fake Lemo, I used something like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/1Set-2Pin-Push-Pull-Circular-Aviation-Connector-Compatible-LEMO-0B-FGG-EGG-Serie/171989556108?hash=item280b605b8c:g:Z48AAOSwhcJWOhal:rk:1:pf:1&frcectupt=true Standard 0B series but they might be a bit long.

The amount of fail in that one is strong. It's clear that they are using an older version of the KGSSHV boards and it was suggested to me that they took apart one of my first mini's, which was in no way optimized for this role, and copied all the stuff I later revised to make it work better in this chassis. That's the issue with a copycat, zero clue as to why things were done that way.

They are made by ODU I believe, same as the HE-1 connectors. As for cheaper options, what about the fake Lemo stuff from China? They are very well made and pretty cheap...

All of the Lambdas going back to the first set all have some bass limitations. I wouldn't say they roll off all that much though...

Wasn't that the pile of shit Ray did?

No, the opa is an IC, not the transistors Kevin referred to.

Yes, they have been closed down last I heard.

The links above are the official Stax store so they have them in stock.

So they managed to find a new box of these or something? The SR-80 pads were out of stock for years and years...

Fitting that's a cRaptor...

They do manage large savings across the board by basically using the same chassis design for almost 40 years with minimal changes but they also really lag behind in modernizing how this stuff is built. Now full SMD is tricky at these voltage levels but system integration and having less wiring will make a real difference to the assembly time for each unit. As for the circuits, they could build a variation of the Carbon but they have a real reluctance to use certain parts or for the amps to weigh too much. Both would apply to the Carbon as it needs large heatsinks to function properly. Now you could scale back the power but sort of defeats the point of all of this...

Yup, that is a real issue if we were to make adapters for the Shure to drive other designs but I still have to try the phones on some normal bias stuff.

I seem to remember there being a lip on these but I'm not sure. It's been a long time since I've taken apart SR-80's... No but it's not a gem either, it uses HV opamps and some really nasty parts as well. This compared to the Shure KSE1500 amp which is really, really nice.

Sure looks like it and let's just bask in the glory of the M-03...

It looks really flimsy to me and now that Massdrop is selling the ESP950, it is a much cheaper alternative. I also wonder if that thing is really an amp or just a passive adapter. Easy enough to build tiny transformers with high ratio so you can use it with normal headphone amps but without pretty much any pictures...hard to tell.

It is a very different animal to design something with whatever parts we want or making something in the hundreds or thousands with a reliable supply of parts. That being said, Stax does do a lot of stupid shit and they seem to be getting worse. Bad decisions galore and with the new stuff made in China, assembly has gone down the drain.

Fucking hell... I'll buy one. How bad can it be...famous last words.. Funny how they can do a proper 6 core flat ribbon cable at this price but Hifiman can't do it on a 50k$ product...