spritzer

Now where is the picture of that gold plated Single Power amp....

The arc's are slightly different between different versions. So 1977 vs. 1982 etc. The Gamma arc's are also slightly different but will work for the Lambdas.

Liquid Shit if you will...

Ok.... I'll admit that was funny.

Bob does love his LCD-4's so I'm not surprised by the findings but as for the amps, what AMB unit is that? M3? Could be very close to the Deckard in terms of performance.

Let's not talk about the 60's PCB's...

Hehe good point...

I have a few old arc's that have been salvaged from headphones which were too far gone but that's the only ones I know about. The cable issue is far worse though as they often see so much abuse.

I don't think many would agree on that...

Smash with a hammer and hand him some 007's...

We are shit out of luck on the old parts though I believe Stax has a lot of that stuff still in stock or it could be made in small quantities easily. I mean how hard would it be to make 300 normal bias Lambda cables which are 95% the same as the 207 cable? The problem with something like this is knowing the older models well enough to supply people with the stuff they need. The distributors fuck up the current lineup when it comes to parts so I have little hope for them knowing a Gamma cable from a SR-5N cable. I've toyed with the idea for so long to import Stax into Iceland but I doubt they would want their biggest critic anywhere near this. Still they could make a nice amount of money servicing the old units with minimal outlay... Ohh and thanks for that Justin. Did you ever get those 009's fixed after the NYC meet? I could take a look at them when I'm in the US next month...

I'm certain they can do a good amp but they are severely limited in terms of parts they can use, weight, power consumption and just how complex it can be. Well that and they are way too obsessed with using something "cool" and not ultimate performance. I doubt anybody thinks the 727 NO-NFB is a brilliant plan...

It's not that bad but they have probably replaced a lot of drivers over the years. Well that and headbands...that thing is just a pile of fail.

I'm pretty sure that the loose bias contact is the reason for some of the imbalance issues. Not sure why they would use such a weak mechanical contact there..

I agree, the wool is necessary to keep those drivers in check. I have a spare SR-3 somewhere so I might try something with it.

I just love his endless obsession with fucking over his customers. Make a small change, yay!! a new version which makes the old one worth even less.

Do wonder if he's finally cased up that latest tubed monstrosity. It's only been about two years on the meet circuit and never in a box...

I certainly have no wish to ever see one of these again, let alone hear one, but if anybody has pics of the new version it would be simple enough to see if anything has changed. This is Cavalli though, any claims of improvements should be taken with a container load of salt. They just lie...flat out lie.. to the consumer so why would this time be any different.

I would have to check for that but given that this an off the shelf design, any driver issue would have been quickly resolved. Also the Denafrips dac tested there is clearly different and substantially so. Rather different string setup.

Kevin and I are thinking about acquiring one as the measurements for it don't all add up. I've been looking at the USB input and I don't really see why it would be increasing the THD and I'm frankly more worried about the RCA input. Optical should just be thrown in a fire as it is garbage on everything but the coax has just a 75R resistor to ground and then AC coupled to the AKM chip. No transformers or anything like that and if you are using some odd cables, this could be compromised quite heavily. I'll try it but I might also go and get some 75ohm BNC's and do this properly.

I'd really like to try these but the feedback I'm getting isn't exactly encouraging. Terms like artificial and trying too hard have been thrown around. As for the Sonoma...it's a single ended electrostat and that will never sound brilliant.

Nope, no point in selling the MSB. As for the Carbon, I don't think anybody would classify the Penny+Giles RF15 as having anything wrong with it... My issue is a number of amps all running at the same time and thus a PITA to alter the volume of all of them for the different volume levels in different programs. Three opamps on the outputs and 50 resistors per string and 18 in the shorter ones. Imagine doing this through hole...

There are a lot of sanded parts in there so the regulators and opamps are unknown at this point. I've been listening pretty much all day and I quite like how this DAC sounds. The slightly thinner sound does give a lot more insight into the various parts of the spectrum and the separation between instruments is excellent. Voices are reproduced perfectly, quite startling actually and the bass...let's just say that the Carbon CC shines here. Not just depth but the detail...something which the SR-009's just can't do the 007's handle easily. The top end might be a stumbling block for the new, bright as all fuck, Stax sets such as the 507, L700 and 009's. Far from being bright on the 007's but the extension and presence is something else and it might push the bright squad over the top. Now the only thing I'm missing is the volume control on the MSB...

I doubt it is fully balanced as the TOTL stuff has four discrete banks but I've yet to check under the board.

It's this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/252689559326?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT Though the price has gone up almost 130$ since I bought it 11 days ago. Not sure what version this is but I don't really care. I always use the USB input and the drivers were flawless as one expects from the XMOS stuff. Those are 105°C quality caps so I would expect a lot of life out of them.