spritzer

Here is the SRD-7 Mk2 schematic with the bias supplies on the bottom. It's pretty straight forward with a 150k resistor on the input and then the z1100 bidirectional zener but you can use two 81v units instead facing each other. The rest is easy and it doesn't take long to build on a perfboard.

Ouch!!! I'm going to go and hug my SR-Omega now...

Keep me posted because if an upgraded PSU does improve the amp a great deal it will save me huge amounts of money...

What I'd like to know is how an upgrade can take up to two years and why do people put up with this crap? I'd like to see some measurements on the ES-1 such as output impedance, slew rate etc. as those will tell us a whole lot more then the voltage swing alone. I do have an itch to throw together a second BH psu and see how the amp responds to dual mono supplies... \

The truth is that the HE90 doesn't like direct coupled, relatively neutral and clean amps. They need something to mess up the sound, be it the steaming pile of crap that is the HEV90 or some caps in the signal path, to gloss over the biggest faults. This why an Aristaeus is on my to buy/build list but Marc's talk about the souped up KGSS has made me want to take a second look at the BH and see what can be done for the PSU. I think the BH deserves a PSU that is at least 5 times as big as the amp section. Can anybody say giant film caps...

A lot of current into 4ohm is very different from 100v into 2000ohm and more so it will depend on the amp. It should be find at low volume though before the amp runs out of voltage and starts to misbehave.

I'd rather say I'm recommending them... not pimping them... My cables use a specially drawn silver that was made for a friend of mine and I got some of his stash after he was done experimenting. The other limited material is the center tube that the whole cable is built on. I found a stash of it but haven't been able to find a similar material to buy anywhere that shares the same flexibility but is yet so sturdy and non resonant. It's a bit like the Indra but I have enough for all my cable needs in the future. The basic design is thin conductors, spiraled around the center tube and then damped by two separate layers of material. They are a bitch to fabricate with a lot of time going into each meter and are fragile where the connectors meet the cable but I've mostly solved that issue now. If you think the Ridge Street stuff is expensive then this would be in a whole other league.

That is a really good cable and why a recommend the VH DIY silver recipe to anybody that know which end of the soldering iron you are supposed to hold. I'm not pimping them!! I've just pointed out that they are good and you have to spend a great deal more or invest a bundle in DIY to get a better cable. While most of the stuff they are talking about is the usual marketing BS there are hints at how the cables are made. They start out with fresh silver wire drawn soft but still at least 99.99% pure. The silver is polished a number of times and then sheath in natural insulation such as cotton. The wires are then damped and the cable is closed up. My only issue with them are the large conductors as smaller is better with IC's and that they are slightly stiff. My own IC's are so manageable that you can loop it around a finger, not that I would ever do that to the precious wire , and that's how IC's should be.

I did spend most of the time with one of the Nite models but have also heard the Revelation (or something like that) and the Master series but not long enough to fully get to know them. One of the local hi-fi nuts loves the VD stuff which is good since I unloaded all my old VD PC's for a nice profit. These cables aren't Nordost or Transparent bad but so excessively overpriced I could never recommend them.

Why should I hold back... I'm just not that type... I could find no redeeming factor for the VD cables and they have started to market their cables directly on HF. Check out the Omega IC thread.

I've tried a number of their cables and can't stand them both because of their stiffness and that they sound like crap. They are creating a artificial bloom and rolling off the HF to make for pleasant sounding cable but they are far from neutral and a bit diffused. They are overpriced beyond belief and will mess up a well balanced system.

That is a good price for something this good. The USD as only 2/3 of the Euro is bad for everybody...

You have to stop all of this ESP950 talk... its one of the few phones I've never heard... \ On a better note I scored one of the rarest and most sought after Stax phones, the SR-Alpha Pro Excellent. It was the ultimate expression of the SR-X Mk3 driver with PC-OCC cable and special earpads but the price was so high that few sold.

They have been doing this for a long time around the holiday season. This game has been a long time coming as I remember it was ready for released and even previewed back in '99.

The P&G's had some issues. You can get a 2 gang RK50 for 400euros so the 4 gang would be double that.

The P&G RF15 is the best pot they offer and it is supposed to be a step down from the RK50 and there have also been some issues with them. Impressive pots though but I'm glad that my new source has a built in volume control so I remove all steppers and pots from the signal path. The RK50 gets the best recommendation I can think off... Kondo uses them. That's enough for me.

It's not really the pads but the technology that is built into them. They have ports or something like that which brings the bass under better control similar to the system on the 4070.

They are always working against at least a triple markup. Stax needs their share, so do the distributors and the dealers. The T2 would be at least 10k or more if they sold it today.

Why change a good thing? The 4070 was a tremendous effort to design and with only a few engineers on staff there is a lot to do in a limited amount of time. They wouldn't even have altered the SR-007 except for the ROHS that forced them to change the amps and headphones alike so they came up with a facelift that would fix those issues that they weren't' aware of 9 years ago. I'm sure they have continued the Omega research started way before the Sr-Omega was released but there is nothing wrong with the Sr-007 that can be "fixed". They could come up with a much more expensive version with better materials but there would be little to gain.

I don't think I even asked when it would be finished... I don't care all that much as I have a few players here to use once the Meridian is gone. I was a bit concerned by the post that they would start to offer the upgrades in the spring... I was also talking to him about electrostatic amp design and I should really bother him some more about it. It will be very interesting to see what he comes up with.

Yup! Congrats Justin and let me know what you think off them. I'll hold out for now to see how the Purtscheller headphone business develops but I have one SR-007A on hold.

I'm sure you could talk him into doing it but I'm sure that would require some new interface between transport and DAC as well as the complete rebuild of both units. OTOH I should really start bothering Alex and see if they aren't about finished with my 3910... :'( I think I read on the APL forum that the SA-10 is supposed to be the dedicated transport and then a DV-60 and a UX-1 for those insane enough. The P-05 would be cool though as it looks so good.

Looks cool. *goes to check if there is a 230v version* That is the only way. Life is too short for boring amps with boring tubes.

I need to get one like this as I'd build a lot more circuits with no PSU worries... \

Very, very cool! Shame about the 550v HV limit...