spritzer

Yeah, that is a large handicap...

That might work for a short test but I might just as well swap them out. I did find some good candidates here so I'll try it first on the old 009's.

The main reason why I bought a first production unit now was the L300 and zero issues with that run. Figured I'd give them another chance not to fuck this up. Any driver worth its salt will be run for a large number of hours before it ever sees an enclosure. Then run in again in the enclosure but none of this is done to loosen it up or anything like that. It is simply done to prevent and sort out any defective or marginal units. To think that adding some hours on top of that will change anything is pretty preposterous. So let's say this is real and if the drivers are matched into pairs after 50 hours and continue to change...wouldn't they have to be matched again? To think this is some linear change is irrational at its core so anything matched during production would have to be matched again. Now back to impressions, over all the 009S is a nice improvement over the 009. That bass issue bothers me but I also don't want to rip them off my head anytime something remotely bright pops up. They just lack the impact and power of the SR-Omega and 007's. The sound is more ethereal and not as grounded. I don't really want to rip these apart to change the earpads but I might take my regular 009's apart and try some new pads on them.

Nothing is going to change in either speakers or preamps. The drivers have been run for a few hours at the factory and so has the preamp so if anything changes...something is wrong. I just changed my mind.

I'll get the Voce soon but I've spent a bit on headphones recently. Shangri-la jr, L700, two L300 LE, 009S and KSE1500.... The Voce has been getting horrendous impressions from actual users so I'm not optimistic. Plenty of positive "reviews" from the fluffers but we all know it is bullshit. There is no such thing and break in, burn in or run in. Anybody who claims such things are real needs to have their head checked and taught some basic physics. What is real is would be amplifier warmup and our crappy hearing/brain which is really slow to pickup some things. Our impressions change as our senses are slow, it's not the electronics which are somehow magically changing. As for them being a disappointment... not quite the T8000 level but Stax had the chance here to create something spectacular. There are a lot of mehhh products out there, the Shangri-la, HE-1 spring to mind as something you walk away from very unimpressed. I like the Shangri-la Jr's but they don't do anything new, one walks away fairly unimpressed which is really not an option at this price point. Here I think the earpads are the issue. There is a lot of open area in them and that is death to electrostatics. It creates all kind of weird artifacts but I'm not sure if I have some other earpads in stock which could work as replacements. One other thing, the headphones smell in a bad way. It's not the nice smell of leather one would expect but some weird small. Seems to come from the earpads but I'm not sure.

...in other news I have the SR-009S sitting on my head. This is one of the very first sets shipped out and I only plugged them in just over an hour ago so first impressions only. It's funny to see what is essentially SR-007's parts on them and they do look very nice. Those stators always should have been gold plated as it looks so much better. In terms of sound my reaction is more mixed. Now the good...that horrible forward balance on the old 009's is gone. The treble is extended but well controlled, more like a refined version of the L700's without their slight bright nature. This is a massive change to the better. Now for the less great part...the bass suckout which is present in a part of the spectrum. When I got them I just plugged them into my office system (regular Carbon fed by a Denafrips Ares) and put the player on random. Don Henley - The boys of summer came on (fitting given the lack of a summer here) and the track just sounded thin and distant. I also tried one popular Icelandic song which starts with all the focus on the snare drum (Das Capital - Blindsker in case it is online) and it just sounds weird. They should sound powerful and heavy but on the 009S it is weak and distant sounding. I need to do some digging as to what is causing this but two things spring to mind, a port hidden in there or those awful earpads. The 009 earpads are a terrible design so that will probably be my first stop. I will need to do a bunch more listening but I'm a bit disappointed now...

That's too funny as they certainly have gold plated pins and sockets. I've already cut some up to use in headphones...

All of the PC-OCC cables have gold plated connectors dating back to 1987.

The extension cables are still the same wide pc-occ with the white line despite that they updated them to 725H The 007's should see an update soon as it is the oldest model still in production.

Also the 212 has already been used.

Kickstarter has made some moves to try and curb this as they demand functioning prototypes but it is in no way a sure thing. Indigogo is just the home of scammers with too many to list.

Happy Birthday grandpa....

Who doesn't have a stand...or thirty...

My GF is going crazy over this but here I was...soldering all day.

Can we ban this retard already? Sure swap a PNP for an NPN, that will go great. So a bit of backstory for people, see this: https://jr2035.taobao.com/?spm=2013.1.1000126.3.7fbc42fdhqzkTt He runs this an sure, he's down to just one picture of my amps but he's also apparently Kerry too. You can thank this person (and others) for why I've stopped releasing all the new designs being worked on.

Aww it is my biggest fan!!

Neato!!!

Well they are in bed with Cavalli so what else could be expected... ?

Nice!! I love a good dumpster fire!!

Speaking of the devil... https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-x-airist-audio-r-2r-dac

They don't mention any difference and knowing Stax, they would if there was any. They talked enough about the feet on the T8000...

All of the Lambda's are reasonably close in performance but I feel the L700 is better but I'd have to compare them all side by side and play with the earpads too to get a proper picture of it all. Just don't have the time for that now.

Nope, it was just the only one I had available at the time. I later sent Bob a new one when he wanted to buy it and this amp ended up as a gift to Dr. Gilmore. I don't really do special amps for myself any more, that amp was replaced with another Carbon in my system which has been there ever since.

If the seal is intact then the effect should minimal.

Yup the L300LE uses the L500 pads. I don't really like them compared to the L700 pads, this new pleather stuff Stax are using just doesn't work for me.