spritzer

I use the AudioZone because it was cheap, sounds great and it is small enough to fit on top of the Stax amp. There are a lot of alternatives out there and since I've never heard the Stello so I can't help you there.

There is no added benefit of using a balanced dac with the T1S unless you really have to. The amp is balanced so you only gain about 3dB worth of volume and not much else. The quality of the dac is much more important then the connection it uses.

That's the the best review of any audio gear ever written IMO so you should be impressed. Here is another one of his, SR-Ω vs SR-007. Truly epic stuff.

Damn!!!!

The 007t has never done much for me with any of the Stax headphones and it cripples the SR-007. Switching to 6S4A output tubes could help but that requires major surgery. Good IC's do help making the combo sound less dark but it's like a band-aid on a bullet wound. A better amp wakes them up and shows what they really can do so I think you should try to audition the BHSE and a SR-007 Mk1 as well. Transformers are also an option but it doesn't matter how much power to try to use with the Stax boxes, it won't do much good. The transformers are tiny (fit in the palm of you hand) and simply aren't designed for anything close to the load of the SR-007 and thus can't pass the power needed. Even a low wattage output transformer is much larger then the Stax units which are nothing more then reversed output trafos so they can't take a lot of current. A simple solution would be to buy the cheapest Hammond push-pull output trafos and wire them up backwards with a bias supply but this hasn't been tried AFAIK. I've wanted to try this for a long time but shipping dead weight via Fedex over the pond isn't a wise investment...

So a bit like the HE90 then...crap!!!! I'll get to the hear the Jade sometime in the new year but this isn't promising since this is an aspect of the He90 which I hated. I assume open mic is where the mics are suspended above the performers so that they pick up the sound of the room as well as the performance. That makes life harder for the transducers.

The 1.3 was an epic fugly beast. So Mr. Doctor man... how do they compare?

Since Iceland has been officially bailed out of the financial crises I'll be able to continue buying stuff from abroad which will include the Jade. The whole customs deal will be a problem though. In theory I should be able to get a refund but it can take months and be a lot of trouble. The FOTM is definitely strong with this one and we will see a lot of "reviews" from owners with no clear point of reference to the other ESP's in the same price range. I do have an inkling that my impressions may clash with those of other owners based on my hyper critical nature. \ The lack of bass is really my only complain and I compensate for it by using the SR-Ω and SR-Ω/007 hybrid since their bass is a bit looser. Oh and the 717 is far from small. It's a huge brute compared to the SRA-3S.

Just to clarify, since the WA6 has output transformers the impedance switch is used to switch between two different windings to provide a better match to the load.

Any one of these will work and the BHSE will ship with the Mullard reproductions which are supposed to be one of the best new production tubes. I've only tried ones from the first production run and I liked the SED "Winged C" better but that's supposed to have changed now. You don't need a matched quad (only matched pairs) but the quad won't hurt. I personally wouldn't pay that much for the RFT tubes since they are good but not miles better then the new stuff. The Mullard XF3's are much better let alone the XF2's and XF1's which are the golden standard. If you like big, bloated bass then the GE and Sylvania (Phillips later on) would do it for you but they don't work well with the Omegas.

Happy birthday!!

Of course there isn't... what a silly thing to speculate about... honest...

They must all be cleansed with fire!!!

The HE adapter was modeled after the Stax jacks which can accept the longer pins but the WPI jacks used by everybody now are the original Amphenol design so shorter. There are quite a few HE90's there in So-Cal so you should be able to get one on loan if Reks's offer doesn't pan out...

So besides Beeeleee being an idiot I'd be careful with those WPI Stax sockets as they can fracture with very little force. The Stax units can do that as well so some support for the double Neutrik plugs would be a good idea.

Seems like I forgot to replay this morning but thanks a lot for the writeup Mike. I'm not a fan of the He90 but if Mr. He managed to fix what I didn't like and build on its strengths then the Jade would be a very good headphone and offer an alternative to the SR-007. I must admit that I'd like a bigger soundstage sometimes which is why I use the SR-Omega/SR-007 hybrid so much, all the precision of the SR-007 but with a slightly more forgiving soundstage and woolly bass. Btw. Have you tried any other tubes in the BH besides the Electro Harmonix?

I must admit that I'm most tempted to open it up and see if I can give Mr. He any feedback. As for the sub 1k$ amp, you can't really go wrong with the SRM-717. I didn't really care for it when I had the BH (didn't really give it a chance) but I've grown quite fond of it in the recent months. It has enough power to hint at the SR-007's greatness and yet imposes very little on the sound.

The Jade looks a bit bigger then the 1.2b but do the drivers look the same? I'm a bit tempted to order one and see if I like it...

The heat output of a tube amp has often very little to do with what ever class it is in since the filaments soak up so much power. A small tube consumes a few watts just for the filament and most of that power is converted to heat.

I demand detailed impressions with the BH!!!

I would stay away from DIYFS units unless they take the original design and build on it, with better parts and execution. With this you have no guaranty of getting something even resembling the quality of the Pass stuff and with no after market value to boot.

I have an APL as well (so does tkam) and I can confirm that is doesn't sound like the quintessential tube output stage at all. The ECC99 used is a very linear tube and there are no nasty caps in the signal path.

Here is how my DAC1 looks on the inside: The other one is due to some idiot wanting a balanced DAC for some peculiar reason. To do so you have to double up almost everything inside the small chassis hence the mess. I do like the DAC in my computer setup both because it is small )fits on top of the Stax amp) and it also sounds great. It may not be the last word in detail (the APL is tough to beat but at more then 10x the price) and the bass could be more authoritative and reach deeper but these are small sins of omission that are easy to live with.

Like Kevin said they are 6 pin low bias but many amps made before August 2003 will have a normal bias socket along with the Pro so look for a SRM-1, SRM-313 and all the smaller tube amps.

Happy birthday Vincent!!