spritzer

First off, there is no speculation on my part as I've ripped apart plenty of SR-007 pads and I know that they are made of real natural leather just like it says in the link Deepak posted. I got that directly from the Stax service manager back in 2003 (Mr. Suzuki if I remember correctly) so you can doubt its authenticity all you want but that is the SR-007 owners manual, the one that shipped with the phones. Those that are claiming the pads to be pleather have never disassembled one and are speculating based on a PDF from Stax. Good for them but look at the pics I posted and tell me that the material looks like any vinyl you've seen. Better yet, open up a set of pads and take a look for yourself. There is way too much misinformation out there about Stax so I don't see any sense in adding to it with baseless speculation.

I would take them off, clean the leather with a good leather cleaner and deal with the foam separately. Foam and the wool used on old Stax phones can soak up a lot of smoke so I usually place them in small bag, spray some auto interior shampoo (designed to get rid of smoke odor) into the bag and then seal it. Then place it under a lamp or something for a few hours to increase the internal temp in the bag and after a while you get a nasty brown liquid accumulating at the bottom of the bag. I do this a few times until it is clean. You could also just wash the foam but this is the only way to clean something like the Sigma wool.

Happy birthday and demand more presents!!

They usually run for about 100-250$ depending on what they are bundled with and their condition. The earpads are still available so no worries there but the SR-X Mk3 has the annoying tendency to develop a channel imbalance so that's something to look for. The sound is great but these are monitor headphones so it's very clean and precise with a rolled off bass.

It was different which is good. It's all drying out nicely and should be ok but it looks like I'll spend most of the weekend throwing out stuff.

Yesterday was a strange Christmas Eve. Woke up at 2AM with no power due to it raining horizontally and spent the next two hours figuring out where the system was compromised. Once fixed I went to work and tried to explain to people that I couldn't whisk up a 5 pound Danish Rye bread in 30 minutes or other such stupid nonsense. Had an uneventful Christmas dinner with my parents until their power went out as well. Turns out that a water hose in the garage had burst and showered the whole room with water for at least an hour. To make matters even worse the car parked inside had an open window, directly in the waters path, so the car was soaked with 10cm of water on the floor. Should fine after a couple of days though and nothing but crap was damaged but it was a pain to clean up.

Isn't that called "The Head-fi"?

Happy birthday!!

It's hard work I tell ya!!!

I could do a torrent or upload them here but it's something I'll do when I have time. Check with me in mid 2009...

I do have the files here but they are nearly 400meg in the current .wav format so sharing them isn't easy.

Please forgive me for I have sinned. I've now sold off 95% of my wast Stax collection so unknowing, innocent souls, infecting them with the need, no craving, for electrostatic goodness that knows no bounds. This is the most heinous of acts as it may lead to financial ruin and countless hours spent checking Y!JP for rare models to pop up. :'(

Now we finally have confirmation of what we have thought for a long time, Elephas is indeed sniffing glue!!! Finding that the SR-404 pads are the same as Mk1 pads... Buy a set of Mk1 pads, smell them and don't do drugs!!! All of the Lambdas (except for the SR-202) use the same type of pads, featuring the same breathable faux leather. That includes the SR-303 (different color), SR-404, SR-SC1 and the 4070. It's a more advanced version of the material used on the Lambda Nova series which simply didn't stand the test of time and disintegrated. I have destroyed a few of these pads over the years (and the horrible sticky glue used to put them on) and the material has nothing in common with the leather on the Mk1. Cut open those 404 pads and check inside. The SR-202 pads do use some variation of the material used on the original Lambdas. Now I have no idea what pads Larry used on your bastard L-Pro's but they could just be normal SR-202 pads. The older Lambda pads are smoother with no texture and use a slightly thicker vinyl covering. Now there is a third version of the Lambda pads but I've only seen one picture of it so I presume it is the prototype Stax used. They've been known to use final prototypes for picture ops (as they did with the SR-Omega with the different cable entries) but these pads were made like the Omega pads i.e. each part sown together and not stretching the vinyl over the foam. Should be very comfy...

I know. Gotta love local shops...

Couple of ECC99's, a 4A/6.3v filament transformer and some 2SK389/2SJ109's for pennies.

For a speaker cable you only need two wires to each but you can parallel connect conductors as you want. Just make sure you don't connect the wrong ones...

Cat5 (or 6 which is shielded if I remember correctly) does make for cheap and easy cables.

Damn you!!!!

ERS paper and tinfoil!! In all seriousness you can get copper braiding to pull over the cable but it might just be cheaper to try some CAT5 wire.

I never had any problems with the new pads in terms of seal, even with a brand new set out of the box. In other Stax news, I did some further testing on the Egmont today and swapped out the ECC83's for some ECC99's with good results. Even running at just +/-260v there is plenty of grunt for Lambda Pro's. The reason for changing the tubes was to make the amp simpler to build since the ECC99 can run on 300v+ like the 6S4A's requiring me to cram only one PSU in the chassis. How high I'll go depends on what transformer I'll use. I have some 265-0-265 transformers on the way that were very cheap but also a large 340-0 transformer which may end up in my new BH. Time will only tell how far I'm willing to push this crappy design. *Smacks Michael again* Thanks for reminding me that I scratched my SR-Omega/007 yesterday...

It does seal better. Just ask the US Airforce...

Ahh that would explain things.

Am I missing something?

The SR-003 off the BH is a sobering experience to say the least. *Reaches through monitor and smacks Michael on the head* Leather can be made in any way the customer wants so it doesn't have to breath. The lamb leather in the Mk2 pads is much coarser (which no doubt leads to moar bass) then what is used on the Mk1 pads. You want the pads to seal as much is possible to create the illusion of an infinite baffle. I'm no leather expert but the fine grain and the back could mean that the Mk1 pads are some strange leather such as Antelope or something like that. It's also very thin, much thinner then what little leather there is on the Mk2 pads.

There is that... I do think that the pot is the most often overlooked part of any "pre amp" which is why I admire companies like Spectral which used the RK40 and Accuphase, Denon, Sony and etc. which used the RK50.