spritzer

I was only violated by your words... The Stax connector is pretty crappy and breaks far too easily but I like it more then the WPI unit you have if only for the fact that no builder bothers to plug the 6th opening for Pro sockets which could end pretty badly...

Now that I've had some more time with the player it's clear that this is a very impressive beast. The first thing to stand out is the detail that it pulls out of every silver disk I throw at it as well as the bass control. The sound on the whole is a bit laid back but can be very aggressive if that is called for... like... wait for it.... the SR-007. I've been using my modded Stax SRM-T1 (all wiring replaced with soft silver and with WBT silver RCA sockets) with Toshiba tubes and all the wiring is DIY soft silver. The APL is running of an old step down transformer for now but I'll probably have a 100VA unit custom made and mount it on the back plate of the player. The fewer connectors, the better. Since I haven't hooked it up to a speaker rig yet I won't go into much detail on the imaging but it works very well with the slightly larger then life soundstage of the SR-?. It's wide for headphones but also quite tall. It stretches from ear to ear in a very natural way with no gaps at all. This is largely due to the excelent transducers but they can't reproduce something that isn't there in the first place. Each instrument or over dub has its own space even if they are layered one on top of the other. I will have to try the Sigma Pro 404's soon... Being a child of the digital age the harder sound of digital has never bothered me much and I've always accepted it as a side effect that would always be there. Most designer try to eliminate it by making the players warm but killing the HF response and making the whole sound spectrum muddy as hell. There are a few exceptions to this though such as some good NOS dac's and vintage, TOTL models like the Sony DAS-R1 I own. They all lack detail to some degree and the APL is the first player I've heard which combines the two with the most stunning HF response. There is no doubt in my mind that the transformer coupled tube output is the cause for this lovely natural sound so chalk up yet another win for ancient technology. I also did some mods to one of my computers so that it could output S/PDIF via the built in sound codec. I wanted to see how the player would handle the absolutely worst I could throw at it via crappy MP3's as well as FLAC's. Way too many high end devices only sound good with those select few audiophile recordings and like crap with everything else. All in all the APL 3910 didn't disappoint and dug out as much info as the crap source allowed while never sounding harsh or cold. More later in the week...

No way dude!!! SR-? gets all of my attention today. I'm listening to The Who's -Tommy on SACD and this is beyond good. I think I have to update the APL thread with some impressions...

You wouldn't be the first to go down that road. You could even add a HE90 connector in stead of the missing Stax plug. Ehhhhhh.... now I feel violated....

It's still here but I'm saving it for a later this week when I'm going to spend some quality time with the Blue Hawaii.

It's nice to the see the old warhorse get the respect that it deserves. I'm using the SR-? mostly now as I'm too scared to plug in the SR-007A... If that midrange "honk" wasn't due to the new tube in the APL then I might have to try and pull a MarkL on the new SR-007's...

Allied has stopped carrying them so your best bet is to find a SRD-4 and remove connector. Some of the Stax distributors might still sell them in small quantities...

Looking good!!! Smart move to leave the drivers and baffle in peace as it can be a pain to mount them.

Welcome to the mafia.

An update is in order. The player has been sitting here useless for about a month now as it had started to distort and had very little bass output. APL wasn't much help as Alex is in Europe but I suspected the tube to be the culprit as the player was fine on day one. The tubes I ordered just came in and the player is playing just fine now. I must now receive punishment for the epic fail of not having spare tubes but I just don't care as the sound is sublime and that from a SRM-T1 driving the SR-007A The detail retrieval is impressive and small overdubs can be picked up with ease while never being intrusive. Bass is tight and controlled though the amp and can combo makes it less precise then the BH/SR-007 mk1 would be. Everything else is good but I need a lot more time to get to grips with the sound but first impressions are just that... impressive.

Sign me up for a few cables. If you need any ashes from the many volcanoes here just ask. Jules Verne said Sn

MarcE cables are notably superior to everything else. Massive amounts of cryoed micro bearing damping material will do that

You might get more bass slam with a more powerful amp but the standard power ratings mean less then usual when it comes to the adapters so it's tough to tell. Very different to say the least. The 323 isn't as lush and rounded as the T1.

How about a plastic helmet that we can wear, with a breathing apparatus, so it could be filled with some gas like Dayton-Wright did for a higher bias voltage??

Happy birthday!!

Obviously...

Damp cardboard and +/-350v.... \

I believe it was either a modified KGSS or a normal BH. I'm sure Kevin will chime in when he can.

What it really needs is a power meter Mac style. Bigger is better here and with enough led's to light up a room.

Ray perhaps...

I could be wrong but they might even be as few as 12.

Yup, it's the indicator light.

Yup. We need something like an oversized GES with better tubes which are also plentiful and cheap. Shall we say a quartet of ECC99's and GU50's for output duty.

The Sigma 11 will work fine on the 252, just remember the polarity.

I replaced the burned up resistor in the 007t with a new one (3 actually in series) but there is still something wrong with the amp. It plays fine but the balance between the output tubes on the left channel is way off as a small change in the pot and I'm up to 300VDC or more with the LED's lit. When it's close to 0V the LED's aren't lit. Btw. Has anybody ever installed 6SA's in a 007t as per KG's instructions? Bingo!! The newer mk2/A is more impressive though as the lower midrange hump is fixed so they seem to have great bass on nearly any amp. Damn... already broke that one...