All Activity

I can't recommend it yet. I had to send it to a third party to rebuild the power supply.

The JLC Calendar watch fell through (I think somebody offered more money on a different platform after my payment was accepted), so I scratched the JLC itch with a Reverso classic monoface small seconds. I like it much more than the GRUT I used to own.

Who knew that the Billie Eilish / Cardi B of Israel would have a cool music video set in a woodshop? I didn't until tonight. I also found this Succulent Sessions video of several songs, starting with Cipi that includes the great line "You think you are the boss of me? But most the time you're my bitch."

Rosalía - Berghain feat. Björk & Yves Tumor

Sinéad

where?

https://reverb.com/item/91894544-gibson-les-paul-standard-1957-goldtop-natural-back

Also kinda

I love playing around with classic gear. But not 17k worth. I miss the days of $20 garage sale finds. Another 10 years and this sort of thing will fade away. Everybody that wants one will be too old to carry it.

I have both in front of me and they have identical cables. The L500Mk2 has the old cable with the white line (the blue was just on the SR-L300) so that should be pure copper. On that note, I've compared all the cables and there is no difference at all to my ears. They all have the same specs that actually matter (capacitance) so they should all perform the same.

Just for future info: diskutil unmount /dev/disk1s2

https://staxaudio.com/earspeaker/srs-x1 Maybe im wrong on the colour thing, this site shows a blue lined cable at the bottom. but that could just be an error. My X1 also had the bronze painted cable. But the strange thing is the sound....Unfortunately i sold my X1 so i cant compare to the 007S now. If you have both, are you able to switch the cables and try? I am going by the following: 1) I swapped X1 and L500mk2 cables and it was 100% sure , the L500 cable brought out a bit more in the upper trebles, and was a hint less bright 2) X1 is not present. but swapped 007S and L500mk2 cables onto the 007S, and the L500 cable was significantly less bright up top. Anecdotally there was an 007S X9000 owner in USA who swapped their cables and found they sounded the same.

What a steal...

Did the color change on the cables from the first release? My first batch sets (X1, two of them and 007S) have identical cables in every way.

For the bargain hunters out there.

Brief update on this issue: To securely wipe an HDD, it's necessary to do one pass with Disk Utility first, then make use of the Terminal command. This is because Terminal itself can't unmount a disk. Also, in possibly related news I have a stack of six HDDs to donate to the local second hand shop.

While being stuck home, recovering for the past two weeks, I finally got round to doing some more DIY electrostatic headphones. I wanted to try out some different materials, 2um mylar and Comfort fabric softener to do the resistive coating. I must say both worked well and if the Comfort stuff holds up long term, it is a damn good coating that costs pretty much nothing. First off my long standing test drivers in a Superlux HD330 housing... as I had some donor headphones in stock. I made a few of these but this set has the Stax wide PC-OCC cable and Dekoni Fostex hybrid pads. I've made so many of these drivers over the years that they are a good benchmark and they perform flawlessly. Charge up instantly, no charge migration or issue with humidity that I can detect. The drivers are also modular so easy to assemble and test: I didn't even spring for ENIG on these but yeah, super simple design that just slots into the Supelux housing. They are just a bit on the small side for my head and the partially closed housing has issues but it's a fun set to play with. Next up is a set of SR-5's that had severe imbalance. Time for a new set of diaphragms with the thicker spacers I made 10 years ago or. I simply replace the stock diaphragm and this converts them to Pro bias too. Throw on there an old Lambda cable which had a break at the cable entry and it's a great little set of headphones. I love the SR-X Mk3 drivers and they are fun to play with. It is a bit challenging to fit the thicker spacers into the normal bias housings as it can warp the drivers but not a big deal really. Then I put on some leather earpads from my stash and yeah, a great SR-5 Pro... something Stax really should have sold back in the day. While I was making the diapgragms for those SR-5's, I made a couple of more for a spare set of drivers which resulted in this: I'm always on the lookout for cheap open back headphones which can be "easily" turned into electrostatics. This is a Fiio JT1 which was less than 60$ shipped but is not ideal for the conversion as the baffle is not flat due to how the earpads are mounted. Still nothing a circular saw can't fix: I covered the stock holes with tape to seal the baffle and keep the glue out when I fitted the driver: The PU two part adhesive covers all the baffle vents and I put some tape on the earpad attachment points to just keep the glue out of them. Worked just fine and the seal is great No damping at the back and they are open enough. I fitted strain reliefs at the cable entry and plugs to seal off the top vents in the housing as well. This one has the stock earpads and the cable is the standard silicone 6 core stuff floating around with an aluminum cable splitter for the Y split and a prototype plug I was sent a while back. Pretty nice sounding set of headphones that don't cost a lot to make. Granted you need a SR-X Mk3 to donate the drivers and some custom spacers to make it work but I'd want to make something like this with custom drivers. It would be a great DIY project to release, buy this set of headphones, rip out its guts and make your own drivers from these PCB's. The cable is easy to source, so are the cable entry glands and a Stax plug can be 3D printed with basic XLR housings. Finally, a bit of a closure for me with what is probably the final version of the HD580/600/650 electrostatic conversion above. I was always battling baffle leaks on those as it is impossible to shave the stock baffle completely flat. I might try to laser cut a neoprene gasket or something like that but on this one I simply designed a new protection grill and glued that to the baffle. Not ideal but it works nicely. Then new stators and new spacers for the diaphragms and dust covers. The cable is the King Sound KS-H4 unit so it is removable. I just shaved down the socket a bit and glued it into the stock holes. The protection grill which is glued to the baffle. Earpads are the hybrid units Drop used to sell and then sheepskin headpad. New stators with full ENIG plating and purple solder mask because reasons. :) These do sound great if I dare say so myself, very much on par with the HE60 but with a fuller sound. Same spacing at 0.5mm so sensitivity is very close too to stock Senn units. Funny for me as the HD600 was my first ever high end set of headphones, so when I found this set with broken drivers it was an ideal candidate for conversion. Full circle and all that shit...

So, after doing some experiments with a friend. I don't believe the 007S cable is the same OFC cable that the X1 has... It has different colour paint lines on it now. And it sounds BRIGHTER than the L500 HiFC cable. Whereas the X1 OFC cable sounded a little warmer than the L500 cable. With some other anecdotes: it is likely a SPC cable either the same or similar to the L700 cable. It is also contributing to the 007S brightness up top. The L500 cable makes the 007S better.

Thank you for your explanation, Spritzer.

No. Given the simple physics that the force of an electrostatic field falls with the square of the distance, it quickly vanishes into background noise before even reaching the skin. An amp like this would never be run at full tilt, not into Stax compatible drivers at least. Well past 120dB so permanent hearing damage until they simply burn up. That means the field is even weaker than that in reality. Ideally you'd never want to run the headphones above say 1200-1400Vppss (which is already crazy loud) as depending on the air parameters around you, is could destroy the headphone drivers. Now there are a lot of variables at play here but a rule of thumb says insulation of air is 3kV/mm and we are running at 0.5mm spacing so 1500V. I go a bit lower as humidity is a huge factor here and the new Stax drivers appear to be anything but stable so I'd err on the side of caution with them. I've noticed some very alarming behavior from the X9000 and the 007S so yeah... Stax will never side with you if you have driver damage.

Pork, Okra, Green Beans, half a can of mushrooms in... Very delicious.