spritzer

It's a good circuit for sure and it will be interesting so see how it behaves with the SR-007.

Your probably right. We need some internal pics though...

It looks good but I'm not sure about those "glass" shields to be honest. I do wonder what circuit they are using for the fully balanced operation. The GES circuit would need more tubes so is this a Stax SRX? Do you want to see some flames?

The 727 but I don't like how it sounds. It has the ability to push the SR-007 adds too much of it's own onto the music. They do show up from time to time in Japan but often bundled with an Omega.

We need a video to go with the unpacking. Doug, the trend setter, has spoiled us.

From your pics it uses a Neutrik PowerCon which is a very nice, 3 pole connector.

I could use a T1 (or any of the variants) in a pinch but the 717 is as low as you should go.

Simply laughing at somebodies inferior dynamic phones is most often enough to earn some "cred".

Safety would be my main concern and IEC's are a pain to work with. There are plenty of cheap 3 pin connectors out there that won't risk burning up the amp. If you need wire for the umbilical then you can just raid some old computer PSU for 16AWG/300v copper wire. I would also shield it with some copper mesh but it's not really needed.

Like others have said, the DAC chip is only a small part of the puzzle. With the APL players, the choice of output tubes/transformers probably had a bigger impact on the over all sound then the chips. I for one didn't buy an APL player due to the 32bit crap but rather the features. There aren't many players that will play all the audio formats, have a built in volume control and a digital input. I must say I liked the ECC99 tube too since even the premium version is dirt cheap.

You should have received a piece of paper with the transformer to note which wire is which. If you didn't get one then the datasheet should be online.

Win!!! Smeggy needs some Molex connectors then to make the build ultra clean and easy troubleshooting.

I like the whole "minimal lighting for dramatic effect" thing you've got going on.

Do you know if the large sub-board is included which was designed for the 3 channel amp? That makes wiring a lot easier and much neater. As for testing the amp, always start off with the PSU without anything connected to it.

Is it SE or balanced and have the boards been tested? If they are all functional then there isn't much to wiring it up but it is better to know which wire goes where.

Now we all know that Ray's an idiot but this is just too much. Why on earth did he turn the drivers around when they are dipoles? If he wanted to run them out of phase he only had to switch the + and - wires. It may even be worse then that (I'm going from memory here) but the HE60 has slots on the back of the driver which is where the rubber o-ring sits which seals the baffle. I'm not sure the front piece has those same slots so there could be massive baffle leak i.e. no wonder the He60 didn't compare well to the He90.

There are some pics of the A-10 in the Detroit impressions thread and amongst those a picture of the amp section with no tubes. It appears that Ray is using the same sockets as I'm using in the Warthog (PoorMan) which were the cheapest ones I could find.

For all the AC wiring you should use 300v rated wire but since the rest is all low voltage stuff you can use pretty much any wire you like, given that it can handle the current. 16-18AWG is plenty for anything this amp can dish out and 20AWG could even be enough. For the input wiring you can even use 30AWG or smaller but stick with 22-24AWG since they are easier to work with. As for the insulation, teflon has the extra benefit of not melting and thus not potentially contaminating the solder joints.

That's why I would never own a stock Esoteric machine. \ It's the same deal with a lot of headphones too.

I did it to let the bass breath just a bit. The housing presses the felt close to the drivers at the back and there is a 4mm or so gap to the front of the headphones.

Here are the pictures I promised I would upload yesterday. Anyway here are the earpads with the front damping material. I take one sheet of the damping paper, break it in half and then iron in nice and flat. The dustcover is upside down in all of these pictures and should have the plastic rings facing towards the ears. In the second picture you can see the "pocket" which is on the new Lambda pads. This makes installing the damping sheets far easier and has allowed me to use only minimal amount of double sided adhesive to secure the pads for testing. Next up are the drivers permanently mounted to the baffles with polyurethane glue. If somebody reading this is crazy enough to do this, please use as little of the stuff as you can and let it cure for 12+ hours. The drivers are wired and ready to go in the second pic. The Lambda drivers are always wired in phase (the wire with the stripe on it is connected to the front stator) but this isn't the rule with all Stax headphones. Some of the SR-1,3 and 5 units were wired out of phase and the Sigmas are all wired out of phase. Here is the back damping layer. This felt is called craft felt by the ortho crowd, is 1005 polyester and of lowish density. The part numbers can be found in the massive ortho thread over on HF but I'm sure most types of felt would give an acceptable result and the same goes for medium density foam. Finally here are all the parts need for assembly (minus the screws and the glue for the earpads). I'll probably try a few different materials for damping the backwave but I'm rather happy with how this configuration sounds. I've accomplished what I set out to do, tame the damn midrange peak. Now when damping one can't have his cake and eat it too and when damping the midrange there will be consequences elsewhere. The top end is dulled a bit (a good thing to my ears) and the bass isn't as quick as it is on the stock cans. There is also a hint of edginess from time to time but I can live with it.

Stax did change out the elastic on the Mk2/A's for a stronger material but my O2's have been on a stand every day since 2003 and the elastic isn't loose in any way, even in comparison to the new sets which I've bought over the years. Still it wouldn't hurt to use the arc's to support them.

I blame it on ape's doing the soldering as by the same reasoning the Stax drivers should never even be touched with a soldering iron. With the Lambda drivers you are soldering directly to the brass rings which clamp the diaphragm in place or directly to the stator plates which are held in place by small plastic bits which could easily melt.

I'm thinking about using an old IBM PC case for the Warthog with wood front and rear panels. This is meant to be cheap and cheerful but I'm still debating whether it should be SE or balanced....