Agnostic

Thank you for the reply. I saw your thread when I was looking around for info. The information is very useful. It seems that stretching the mylar very tight really affects the bass and even the mids a little, since my first pair doesn't have very tight membranes yet produces some of the deepest bass I have heard in a headphone. I also haven't noticed any recessed mids and I'm quite allergic to those. I have the same out of head experience with the seikis that you describe. In fact on some occassions I have taken them off to check whether I hadn't accidentally left the speakers on while I listened to them because they sounded so transparent. If I can match both diaphragms of the second pair to the good one in my first pair I am going to be very happy with them, and for my taste I think they might become my favourite headphone out of the ones that I have heard or owned. They will certainly be the most natural and musical sounding. I suspect my first pair uses 3 micron so I think i will go with the 2 micron mylar I ordered and tighten it just enough to keep the mylar flat on the mounting ring. Just waiting for the mylar to arrive now.

It takes all kinds. Some people get enjoyment from a cheap chinese tube amp, others derive their pleasure from petty one-upmanship. Go figure.

I love my ATH W10VTG but they are quite warm sounding and really need the right amplification to shine. It sounds horrible from my Xiang Sheng 708B tube amp and completely uninvolving from the Graham Slee solo. The best amps I have found for them so far are a portable amp: the microshar Uamp 107b (this little amp seems to have a great synergy with AT cans, it also sounds great with the ATH-ES7, ATH-AD900 and the ATH ESW9) and the Little Dot I+ hybrid tube amp. I have a hunch that it will sound quite nice with most hybrid tube amps.

That’s what I understood. When I disassembled my first pair of MX-1 I found broken pieces of a milky white material which felt a bit rubbery. It had so badly deteriorated that it almost fell to pieces when you touched it. @Spritzer: Thanks for the mention of the HF thread. When I finish restoring the MX-1 (I am thinking of doing both and perhaps trying two different thicknesses of membrane), I may give building a stat from scratch a go. I still have an empty DT990 shell lying around which I could use as a frame. I guess that would be a Beyerstatic then

Thanks for the input Birgir. Do you have any ideas on what influence membrane thickness has on the sound? I wrote to Mitsubishi plastics in Germany who used to produce Hostaphan to ask them for a sample but alas they stopped production of the very thin types but after a lot of searching yesterday I managed to order some 2 micron Mylar from a site in the UK that sells parts for building model airplanes.

Thanks, I sent Spritzer a pm. In fact he helped me with some advice on the first pair. The guy who built the stats said he used the curved stators to allow the diaphragms to push more air, though I wonder if a curved stator with a very tight membrane might in fact not end up pushing less air. Might be an explanation why they sounded so laid back for electrostats? He was also using a very high bias voltage, 1200 volts if I remember correctly.

I thought about a repair of the first pair but I didn't get around to it, partly because I enjoyed them too much and they are quite difficult to assemble correctly once you take them apart because the construction is very fiddly and partly because back then I didn't find any source for thin mebrane material. The reason my Lambda sounds sibilant probably has to do with the amps I'm using, but I have to make choices, I'm also an avid photographer and most of my money goes into that so I can't afford getting an expensive dedicated amp for it. Anyway, aside form the problem I mentioned the Micro Seiki sounds much better to me than the Lambda, I prefer my headphones more to the warm and musical side and that's what the MX-1 provides. So what you are saying is that for the best bass I should use the thinnest membrane I can get? The guy who gave me the second MX-1 had a home built stat which used 0.95 micron mebranes mounted in an old Audio Technica frame. The sounded nice but didn't have much prat. In fact they sounded a bit laid back for my taste, almost Sennheiser like. Now admittedly that may have had more to do with his amp, a huge home built tube amp or with the fact that he tensioned the mebranes very tightly, or with the fact that he used stators which were curved. On the other hand I like the sound I get from the first MX-1 and I'm pretty sure those mebranes are thicker than 1.35 micron... Equal tensioning between the two drivers should not be a problem, I learned a neat trick for that, which involves tapping the first diaphragm and recording the tone it produces and then tuning the second to that tone.

Some years ago I bought a Micro Seiki MX-1 with energizer. The problem with those is that the material that was originally used for the diaphragms deteriorates. As a result it is impossible to find a pair that still works unless the diaphragms have been replaced. The pair that I bought had a new pair of diaphragms but they were not mounted correctly so I finished the job and got them to work. The problem with them is that because of incorrect mounting of the membrane on one of the mounting rings, which has insufficient tension, one of the two sides has a bit less volume and sounds a little less dynamic. Despite that fact they are still a pleasure to listen to. They sound fast, have non of the sibilance issues I have with my Stax Lambda and have some of the deepest and tightest bass I have ever heard from a headphone and generally sound very musical. Because they sound so good I have always had the idea in the back of my head that one day I would try to find a second pair and do a proper job of repairing them. A few days ago someone offered me another MX-1 for free. Now for the questions: I have no idea what the thickness of the membranes on my first set is and I would like to try to get as close to that as possible. I know that the Lambda has 2 micron membranes and that it sounds a little harsh in the treble as well as suffering from sibilance so I am guessing I should go up to at least 3 micron, though on the other hand the micro Seiki has much smaller diaphragms which may also affect the sound. Any thoughts on this? And question number two, does anyone know where to get thin Hostaphan-RE or Mylar-C in Europe? I have found 6 micron and possibly some 4 micron but nothing thinner.

I'm open to suggestions. It's just that there are a lot of things I really like about the Lambdas.

Quick question, any opinions on what's the most mellow Lambda?

So....anyone found one yet?

So the new shortlist includes: W11JPN L3000 W10VTG A900Ti I'll look what info I can find on them. It's a pity the ATs are so difficult to find for auditioning here in Holland. Anyone know if the ATs are cheaper in Japan? I'll probably be there again later this year. And thanks for the advice!

So no W5000. I need bass. Not lots of it but it needs to be there and it needs to be somewhat tactile, not just hearable. If that's what some people call bloated, then it's bloated that I want. I don't care about neutral, I don't care about accurate; musical experience and enjoyment is as personal and subjective as it gets; I just want the maximum phenomenal experience of enjoyment I can get. If that means I'm hearing music in a way it never sounded, and was never meant to sound: I couldn't care less. This does not mean that any crappy can will do though because I DO like refinement and detail.

Thanks for the advice. I don't think I will be able to convince myself to spend that amount of money on another headphone in the next few months, but I will start doing some research. Are the w5000 mids similar to the ATH-ES7? (Well fot that price they should be better! But I mean a similar type of sound)

I was hoping you weren't going to say that. Mainly because they are 700 DOLLARS!!!!!