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Now it shouldn't come as a massive shock to anybody but I'm not much of a SR-009 fan. From day 1 they always sounded messed up to me and the BK and S didn't really make it any better, even a bit worse with the 009S. To this day I have only one 009BK (as it is a limited edition) in my collection and one regular 009 that showed up here randomly and was a stark improvement over all the other sets I've owned. No idea why those sound different but better not mess with them. Now the plan was always to do something with the 009's to improve them but there was always something better to do. Well with surgery pending a couple of months ago, I finally had time to do something not too taxing. First off I needed a donor set and here is where that came in: I got these three years ago and they just sat there in a box. Too many parts missing with no spares available, three out of the four dust covers were trashed and I took off the arc to rescue another 009... so a pile of parts with fucked up drivers. The plan forward was clear though, the drivers needed new dust covers, new diaphragms, a way to mount the cable and finally some way to attach the earpads which wasn't 009 levels of stupid. Now none of those parts could be reused or they simply weren't there so time to do some designing. I still suck at 3D design but practice makes perfect... or it should in theory. Now first off, dust covers and diaphragm holders. These are easy to do as PCB's but materials, thickness, films used etc. are all large variables. Here are my first drivers, actually using the third batch of diaphragms as I slightly tweaked the dimensions once I started test fitting: Those familiar with the stock drivers might spot the bias connection is very different. I had to spend a lot of time cleaning the stock drivers, as they had been open for who knows how long, but this first test was successful. Fully balanced drivers and no noises from them at all so they are as clean as I can get them. The dust covers are 2um mylar-C, just lightly stretched (hence the slight lines visible) and the main diaphragms are also fairly loosely stretched 2um mylar-C, then heat treated and given a coat of fabric softener. The drivers are easy to align but one major part of this project is to find all the correct o-rings used to assemble these and in the right grade. When I had waited a month for a large shipment just for the one size I needed to not show, I even bought some stupid expensive examples locally. That got me here: All new screws used to get the drivers into the housings. You can see how beat up the aluminum housings are but hey, fine for a project like this. Now there was the next difficult bit, the cable entry: On the stock set it is a plastic guide which sits in those holes, the cable fits in that and the whole assemble is screwed down. Now the stock cable I had was not perfect so instead of making my own version of that... I just used a standard Lambda cable. A L500 was going to die for this set anyway (as I needed the arc) so why not use that cable. Here is my solution for that: This is 3D resin printed and is the second revision. First was just to check for hole size, alignment and if it was fouling on anything but it was way too shallow. This version still had to be sanded a tiny bit but it fits nicely. I did make a 3rd and 4th version which is incoming to clean up the design a bit and give me some more internal room. The earpads above are simply stuck on with some blutack so more on that... For the earpad mounting, there two problems there really. None of mounting hardware was included and anybody who had changed the 009 pads knows just how fucking stupid that mounting setup is. I also wanted to use non Stax earpads (not paying 300$+ for pleather crap) so here is what I came up with: Same idea really but I added a spacer between the plate and the driver housing so there is room to slide the lip of the earpads underneath it. The two layers of the PCB sandwich are visible there (along with the production number as I forgot to have it removed) and it works nicely. I could have made this from aluminum but it wouldn't have cost roughly 4$ then... This is the fitment with some random test earpads and standard 1.6mm PCB's. Works just fine and I can't find any issues with baffle seal... quite the contrary really. So here we are, the MA-009 This set of earpads has already been replaced and it takes a matter of seconds to swap them over. What a novel feature... Now what was the true goal for all of this, well besides having some fun doing something new... make a set of 009's I would actually want to sit down and listen to. Now this project is far from over but here is something novel... a SR-009 that has some actual bass output. They are still forward sounding but it has been diminished by a large extent. I can use these for hours quite happily, even at my usually higher volume levels. The decision to use 2um mylar was to try and tame that forward edge and it has been partially successful. A stock set of 009's is terrible on most music I try them with, this one is mostly good with just some tracks which show how bad that stator design really is. There is this slight forward sheen over everything and it simply has to be the stators as the rest of the headphones has so much in common with the 007 overall design. Now the major issue is driver stability as the left diaphragm really likes to get stuck to the stators and I have to open up the driver to get is back on song. I might have gone too far in sealing them up but I wanted some bass dammit!! I will make some more test diaphragms and see if I can make some which can handle the pressure of going on the head energized while giving the sound I want. For now I'll just use this pile of parts to make some music... So to end off... if anybody has a set of 009's with blown drivers that are collecting dust... hit me up and I might want to buy them.

Happy New Year everyone! Bit bittersweet for me. The last few years Karen and I have had mixed celebrations: 3 years ago at some friends' place in NH, we went to bed early but watched the ball drop on streaming. Two years ago, same friends weren't feeling well so we skipped, but watched the ball drop. Last year, too tired, went to bed early. This year, I fell asleep reading, but woke up at ~11:40 to turn on the TV and watch the ball drop. When the clock struck midnight, I turned to the other side of the bed...and started crying. The sweet side was some of my closest friends sharing pics and texts for the New Year, our bonds are ever closer. Hoping that 2026 is a much better year....for me, for my family, for all of us here, and for our country and the world!

Today NASA hosted a chat session with my nephew. We got to catch up with him, talk about things he's doing, etc. He took us on a bit of a tour and we got to see his view from ISS. And....fancy that....the world really IS round! 🤣 'Twas very very cool! Pics are screen captures, and video quality was so-so. But wow.....

Maybe my last pizza of 2025.

My plate was almost as decadent

Thanks all! Wasn't the celebratory day Karen would have recommended.... Fighting a cold, and did some work starting at 4:30am! But after all that, was able to chill for much of the day. Realized I hadn't done that for a long, long time - a few hours here or there but not for basically a whole day - and it felt damn good! Needed to recoup some but also just shut things off. And having Andrew's cat June purr in my lap was good medicine, too. Andrew ended up bringing in Thai for us for dinner; our planned excursion out will be a rain check.

Kept it simple this year. Turned out pretty good...I shorted the cooking time, but I'd pull it off a few minutes earlier for a bit more rare goodness. Wifey made some great sides. I need a sugar detox.... HS

Went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch. Another Jewish friend joined, and a work colleague/friend who is Indian (and leans towards Buddhism). Was a fascinating 4.5 hours (!!) of conversation: religion, philosophy, jokes, and just good stories! Incredibly nice people!

Ironically (?) on the day that Al was supposed to have Detroit-style pizza, that's what I made for dinner.

Al and I just prepared Eggs Benedict for the Mayberry compound. I may have overdone it. See you all after a brief food coma.

Robert Earl Keen's Greatest Christmas on Earth John R Miller opening https://archive.org/details/rek20251209 https://archive.org/details/jrm20251209

Celery

I may have over ordered. Goat Vindaloo Samosa's (2pc) Lamb tikka masala Lamb korma Butter chicken

Santa brought me a shiny new A7V and some Batis lenses after the old D810 stopped working recently. Nice to pick up a camera again.

Just finished my first beer and street tacos at

Cats, squirrels and other critters will have to wait. Let's talk about using an unnecessarily shallow depth of field. Last night it was cold AF, especially by Vineyard standards. In spite of that, I picked one of my new lenses, bundled up and went downtown. Zero points for guessing which one I chose. As I have said repeatedly, the list of things that have encountered in my life that lived up to the hype were (in no order): Citizen Kane, Ardbeg Uigeadail, Biosphere's Substrata, Tapatio hot sauce and the Canon EF 85mm F/1.2L (II). I last shot with the 85L in 2009, when it was a relatively new lens. Also, when I was a young, spry man in his 30s who had no problem lugging around a glass boat anchor + camera body for hours on end. The 85L is so comically fat, it changes the entire shooting experience. The balance of the camera feels different. Every shot takes just a bit more effort. I actually find it easier to hold things steady for longer exposures than with some lighter lenses. Of course, the depth of field is (to use the technical term) non-fucking-existent. I'm not old. You're old. (This joke works a lot better on places that aren't Head-Case.) Shot wide-open because I can. Downtown EDG's Christmas decorations (which are so famous, people come from all over the world for the "Christmas in Edgartown" first lighting.) TBH this is not a terribly compelling shot. It does look a bit like a still from a movie. Same idea, reflected off a truck. There's no real artistry to the wafer thin DoF, but it looks neat. It actually takes a fair amount of work (and some luck) to use such a shallow plane of focus effectively. I actually really like these two. The ornaments are sufficiently in focus, and the background is a warm cozy dream. The way I describe the 85L's handling of OOF highlight is that it paints them. It looks like a less cloying version of a Hallmark card. That's about it from an hour's walk. My hit rate was abysmal. Not terrible surprising, as I was shooting in Program mode with auto ISO. The 5D kept the 85 at max aperture and 1/80th shutter speed, while it adjusted auto ISO on the fly. Most of the Christmas lights are LED, and strobe at 60Hz. This effect is noticeable to the naked eye and super obvious in photos. I have two shots of the same doorway where one strand is out and then other. It looks comically bad. Also, while the 85L's shallow DoF is amusing, it's not reliably useful. It turns out that having more than a paper sheet's worth of a frame in-focus is good idea. Who knew? If it's not so ball freezingly cold, I'm going to back out and shoot more lights. I won't lug the 85 again. 35 years ago I dislocated my left shoulder and it never healed correctly. It was in absolute agony by the end of last night. If I'm smart, I'll take my OG 50mm F/1.8 (arguably the best lens I own for actually taking photos and not dicking around.) The 17-40mm is also a great walkaround lens. Modern bodies have sufficient high ISO performance that it's F/4 aperture is not a problem. I also have a strong notion to make use of the 135 F/2L. It's not as over the top as the 85L (what is, this side of Leica?) but its optical qualities are legendary.

A frendly Head-Caser has kindly lent me four EL156, So, I made myself some EL156 to EL34 adaptors. Here a Megatron SS CCD something with the four EL156. Same friendly fellow has built himself a couple of filament supply for DHT similar to the one in above post.

I could listen to the tone of this instrument all night.

Had not made empanadas in a while. Decided that needed fixing so I defrosted some left over carnitas and that was that. Well, first I made a double batch of dough so I could make them more hand-pie sized. This was half of them.

New Tricky album I got for my bday... feels like I'm in Highschool

I won an album today. Sharon Mansur's Trigger -- which is jazz fusion and unholy carp, this might break me -- it's right up there with Hiromi and Fox Capture Plan! Just listen to this shit:

Meanwhile, in San Rafael , it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

I became full Vegan today. So no more dairy products as well.

Rack of lamb at the lake house tonight. Everything turned out perfect. Food coma, then pecan pie if I can fit it in.

colnago c50 with super record 11 and shamal ultra wheels. It’s officially the riders fault when I can’t go up hill or fast.

Merry Christmas I made the output board for D&G and tested it with +/-400V and 845 tubes. Seems to be working as there's 44v across the cathode resistor. I was planning on using +/-1250V but the C3M mosfet blew up on the circlotronps because 1n4007 diodes aren't rated for that voltage.

I had to do it! I had extra shoulder bacon, English muffins, eggs and so on. I did cook more hash browns than intended.

Cheers Matt!

Have missed a few of our normal holiday events this year, so happy to see Mountain View went all out for last night’s tree lighting ceremony.

It's the start of the Holiday Concert Season at the College of Marin

Met @swt61 in the Costco parking lot. By Chance.

Hoping for a much better 2026 than its predecessor.

It won't last long but it is nice. Boxing day dusting.

Saw some talk about this and decided to make a new version. use either the tube unbal/bal to bal board, or the solid state version result is about 125 watts rms into 8 ohms at thd of .005% will definitely drive 4 ohms with suitably large power supplies. transistors are standard pinout, so pick your favorite output transistors. the to220 transistors are mje15034/mje15035 perfect for so many things, including esl boost transformers. pioneera09.pdf

I did Chinese takeout, as I do every year. It was delicious.

My existing direct-drive trainer had started to had multiple signal drop issues so Santa was kind enough to bring me:

amp board for single ended. you can run this as low as +/-24v and as high as +/-40v pioneera09amp - CADCAM.ZIP pioneera09pre2gain - CADCAM.ZIP

clever huh? first time i have seen this. what it really is, is some local feedback around the current mirror. the lower impedance load forces the current source to supply more current to the drive of the output transistors. all those output transistors in parallel really form an extremely stiff drive current without global feedback. in single ended form, perfect for low impedance ribbons. and 30v/10a switchers are cheap. lot of heat however, 1.5 amp bias current. (total) i have a single ended gain stage to go with it. basically half of the balanced version with a cfa capable input section. input section can have local feedback as shown. or remove that resistor. updated to current version pioneera09pre.pdf

More Vocals With Seasonal Rudolph!

Nobody Speak - DJ Shadow [feat. Run the Jewels]

Thanks every one pretty much a uneventful day ,turning 74 which was okay.

Saw that some people in Marin are making an effort with their Christmas / Holiday decorations.

Few more from the drive....the first is my new Spirit Animal!

Meanwhile...

I had no idea they were the first ever Conan musical guest. Talk about starting on a high note!

Another Tiny Desk this week - lovely.

Oh. Shit. There's someone on island selling off their EF lens collection: 24-70mm F/2.8 II (very functional but not super interesting zoom) 100mm F/2.8L Macro (expensive new, unfamiliar to me) 135mm F/2L (niche, but exceptional) 100-400mm F/4.5-5.6 II (bird annoyer tele-zoom) 85mm F/1.2L II (Gojira) BRB, selling off some antiques.

Hehe, I don't think I'll ever be there but I have a lot of fun messing with this stuff. I might open this up as a DIY project if anybody is interested as this isn't all that hard to do and no bad chemicals are used. While on the subject, I finally got the last parts to get my reclaimed SR-009 drivers up and running with new diaphragms and dust covers. I skipped straight to the Mk2 version of the main diaphragm rings and they are now sitting on my head with nothing holding the earpads on them and cables just dangling off. I keep reiterating the new cable entry design so I won't post pics until the system is all complete.