spritzer

I've been listening to the SR-404's for a few hours now with two layers of this paper-like material on the front of the drivers and tow different layers of felt on the back and there is no more midrange hump. In it's place is a strange "thwack" coloration but it's rare and not overwhelming in any way. This does point to me having gone too far with the damping so I'll try some different materials and see if they work better. The bass has suffered though and lacks both extension and depth so I have to find a way to increase its depth.

There are things to make your life easier, switch out the ECC83's for some other similar tubes and install loctal sockets in your amps so that you can use 7n7's instead of 6SN7's. I wouldn't even consider putting octal sockets for the two first stages on the ES-1/2.

I only watched the first season and had to struggle to finish it. Last thing I watched was Krod Mandoon and it wasn't bad. Not great by any means but better then many "comedies".

Most of the time, yes. Our proffered way of cooling bear at parties is to simply store it outside. Good point but it's nothing which hasn't happened before. I wouldn't call 2

You should try and spend a summer up here someday. Bottom of the freezer definitely applies...

pffft, they are too cold and drink too much, even by our standards.

It's no wonder the vikings were moar awesome then anybody else due to the constant cryo treatment up here.

That's what I thought. It will also be interesting to see if the bias voltages and ballast resistors are correct for the Stax and He90 outputs... I've gotten more PM's then you then.

Was that before or after he was desperately searching for the Stax wiring and even sending out his shills to try and get the info from us (which a 10 second Google search would locate)?

I don't think so, no. You can try asking KuboTen or Yama's though. The new pads come in a swanky box now with instructions and everything (though very Engrish at times). I must say I preferred the plastic bag with a label on it...

The lower price to get the hype flowing is nothing new but it has never been a secret AFAIK.

I guess those guys are looking forward to being carpet bombed then...

500$ USB cable on a 500$ amp makes perfect sense to me. Is this supposed to be ironic?

I thought that was just me...?

It turns out I was onto something by damping the front of the drivers and not just the back. I went out and bought a bunch of different cleaning cloths today and placed the thinnest one (made of paper-like material and almost see through) underneath the pads which has flattened the peak a bit and made it less noticeable and made it more recording dependent. The bass is also a bit overblown but very tuneful and responsive so I can live with that compromise. I will have to try a lot of materials though to see how far I can push this and if the damping in the back is even necessary. What makes all damping on the front of the drivers quite a bit easier are the new Lambda pads with the cloth dust cover. The old pads had the foam sown in on the sides but the new ones have "pocket" underneath the pads where the cloth cover is put. That is mounted on a disk so you can easily remove it from the pads. Good move Stax.

He expects perfection and we all know that the BH is far from good enough and will not hold it's value compared to the sheer awesomeness of the A-10. Who needs those huge heatsinks to provide ample current at any voltage when you have a SRPP output stage which isn't even linear into a capacitive load.

These aren't going to beat a SR-007 anytime soon. The Lambdas will always be more forward but if the midrange peak can be contained then that makes the phones a good choice for their given price range. ...wouldn't be the first time. These will be sold though as the only use I would have for a Lambda is for testing amps and I already have two other sets for that.

I just saw the link but didn't DL it. BSG was dead to me a long time ago so I'm not going to bother with this just yet.

Which is already on the net... At least the pilot is.

With two layers of felt (one more dense then the other) on the back of the drivers there is some improvement but the midrange peak still shines through. \ I'll have to find some suitable foam tomorrow and I'll also try to damp the phones next to the ear.

That's exactly what I'm after. The soundstage on the Lambdas is huge when called for so it can afford to be trimmed down a bit. We'll see if some extra foam does the trick.

Now you only need to give him some electrostatics...

That sounds about right. Allowing the bread to sit in a bath of steam for the first minute and then straying it will increase the crust for extra crunchy goodness. Bingo. The white marking beneath the earpiece is a dead giveaway.

Thanks and I need all the luck I can get since this won't be easy. Back to the salt mines...

I've held off fixing the drivers permanently to the baffles so that I could play with damping a bit. I have a pretty good idea what the better glue will give me (deeper more controlled bass) so that can wait but the biggest issue is the upper midrange/lower treble peak. The etch involved has mostly gone but the drivers were obviously made to sound like this and the only way I can change it is to crack them open and change the diaphragm. Not going to happen though as that would make this a one off and I don't want all the PM's asking me to do this "mod" to some other sets. What I can do is to try and damp it away but that's not easy either as damping always affects some other parts of the spectrum, most notably the bass. I've never been happy with the Lambda bass (overblown and lacks precession) so I really don't want to boost that area at all. I could also put in a port to raise the midbass which should balance out the sound a bit but that requires precision drilling at an odd angle into the baffle and that would be a last resort. I had two types of felt at hand (which I got from Eric with the 120ohm SFI drivers) and they do boost the bass a bit and also tame the bump but not enough. Looks like I will have to go to the arts and crafts store after the weekend and buy samples of everything they have.