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Today was a very special day. They say, never meet your heroes but today I met the man, the myth, the Legend of the Spritzer. I flew down to Reykjavík to deliver the first production RR1 to ever leave Indian shores. It was an honour to meet Birgir, I still remember reading his posts 7-8 years ago when I got into the hobby and owning an Electrostat seemed unfathomable. So, delivering my Headphone to the STAX Mafia is an occasion to celebrate. Had commissioned 2 custom KGSSHVs. Our primary Amp of choice for upcoming shows. Really fortunate to be lucky enough to visit Iceland. Even though it was a short business trip, will be back with the family someday.

This has been a killer of a week for me so I'm late with the impressions. Then all of sudden we had a holiday today so I finally have some free time. I'm too lazy to find my camera so I'll take some pics later. First off, this is set nr.4 so I very much view it as a "work in progress" but...they are pretty awesome. From the first impressions and until now they keep reminding me of the SR-007. Clearly power hogs (I measured the system with stock cable at 160pf) too and a bit dark sounding. Now in my book this is a welcome reprise from all the bright models out there now. Doesn't mean the treble is subdued or anything like that, it is just not as apparent as with the L700 or 009's for instance. This also gives it a fuller sound and well...that bass. The cups are ported so the bass could have been compromised due to that but not so here, it's deep, tight and tuneful. It doesn't match a closed SR-007 but I frankly don't mind that...I can always grab my 007's if I want to listen to them. These are a bit more tuneful with more presence higher up. One of the first tracks I tried on them is the one which 009, 009S and 009BK all fail miserably at, but no issues here. They replicate the snare drum perfectly and same goes for everything else I've thrown at them. The midrange is perfectly fine and really showcases the difference in mastering on some tracks. The soundstage is just about perfect, follows what the tracks should sound like and doesn't pull a HE90 on us. Not quite up to the layering of the 007's but then again...that is the gold standard. Overall they are very neutral and do what any transducer should do, get out of the way. For me the biggest compliment to any headphones is me willing to listen to them as well, I have a lot of headphones at hand. I've used these almost exclusively since I got them, only swapping out to do comparisons. Now for fit and finish, I have no complaints. The headband is very sturdy with nice spring steel for the main span and they fit my head nicely. A bit snug but then again, I have a melon for a head. I did bend the arc a bit and now I can use them for hours at a time. The housing is attached to the earcups with a single M4 bolt and I did experience some rubbing there. This joint wasn't really supposed to move but for my use, they fit better that way so I place a nylon washer between the two parts and that has fixed this. I've already relayed this to Aumkar who should be arriving back home soon. The only major issue I've had is with the cable or rather one of the connectors. One channel started to drop out and after some troubleshooting this was traced to the mini XLR plug. I bought some new ones and made a quick replacement cable this morning and now it works perfectly. To keep the cost down the mini XLR does work for this but yeah... I'd like something better but given the cost constraints I get why they use it. Same for the cable, getting anything which works for this is difficult and costly. The cable is still better than what Hifiman are using so yeah... I'm not too worried about that. So over all, I'm very, very impressed and I will be working with Aumkar to see if we can't improve on these small issues.

It's a chrome finish. I did it in black as well. Here's the PS...

It was awesome meeting you and getting the headphones hand-delivered. My impressions will be coming soon but a small sneak preview after a very limited time with them (aka I couldn't help myself), don't let the price fool you to think these are budget headphones...they don't sound like that.

First attempt at a brisket. 11 hour cook (3 hours in magic pink paper), 5 hours of rest in the cooler. Not perfect but pretty damn tasty!

So I've been missing a stick car of late. Trying to decide what if anything I should acquire. Wife will likely strangle me unless I sell something, but I'll cross that bridge assuming I survive...LOL Test drove a 2012 BMW M3 with a 6-speed. Fun car although it was a bit of a rough condition. They are difficult to locate and it was just down the road so I went for a spin. Overall, worth the time but it wasn't a keeper. Car out of Quebec that had made its way to TX. They weren't ask kind to it as it deserved. Today I test drove an M4. For whatever reason BMW designated the M3's sedans beginning in 2014 and the M4's the coupes. Again, I was looking for a stick car. Easier to locate M4's than M3's so that part was good. The M3 has a naturally aspirated V8....pretty cool to see that in a 2-door BMW. The M4 has their straight line 6 cylinder twin turbo. Not a bad little motor that makes more power than the V8 thanks to forced induction, but not as visceral as the V8. It's also a bit lighter than the M3's were thanks to more extensive use of carbon fiber and the like. I'm not sure how I feel about the color (it is a bit more metallic orange than it appears in the pics although it very much depends on lighting), but I the interior was very tasteful (it is darker than the images suggest...think a tobacco). I sure did have fun driving it... HS

Designed by a guy called Steve Sells. I hired Steve straight from University back in around 1990 when I was running Engineering at Wharfedale. We were planning to re-launch Leak, and I said to Steve "Design the best power amplifier you know how. Exotic components, silver wiring, multilayer boards - no problem". He designed a stunning piece of work. When I took it to the Audio show in London, and wired it to the speakers, a sound like a quiet tinny radio came out. Turned out the shorting straps were still on the back of the speakers - and Steve's amp was playing the cables into a short circuit. The sound came from the force between the cables. Took off the shorting straps and pow! Awesome. Fast forwarding several decades, and Naim likewise let him off the leash. And Statement was the result.

I left my first ever nice watch -- a Rolex Datejust -- in an open locker at the Washington DC YMCA overnight before I realized I'd lost it. I fucking sprinted back down there from my apartment the next morning and it was a GOOD feeling opening that little door and finding it still inside!

Yumi took me to the shooting range yesterday. She has guns in the house so I decided that I probably should know how to properly use them in case of emergency. I may even get my own gun at some point but not to carry, just for range and home. I really liked the feel of the Glock 48 and 43X.

So over the last month I've begun a slow return to photography, after 5+ years of near complete inactivity. I started with digging out my old camera gear, blowing the dust off and charging my batteries. Said batteries are all over a decade old at this point and very quickly it became clear they didn't have the moxie to keep my DSLRs happy. They could keep my ca. 2002 IR-modified PowerShot G2 running, however: Taken with a 17 year old, 4 megapixel point & shoot with a wide angle adapter that was meant for (SD) video. Slightly thereafter, I placed several orders to AMZN and got my IR-modified 5D up and running.. My initial adventure wasn't very far ...my side yard. I used my EF 50mm F/1.8, the vintage 1987 Mk I iteration (which is mechanically superior, but optically the same as the plastic "nifty fifty.") Converted to black & white with an blue filter and then duotoned in Photoshop. Taken with my EF 35mm F/2, which has a wonky AF motor but usually works on the 5D. Converted to black & white with a blue filter an duotoned in Photoshop. I pulled a tick off me shortly after taking this photo. Straight out of the camera. No edits at all.

Have a great day, which means, stay off bikes, skateboards, rollerblades/skates, unicycles and shoes with tall heals!

Mad dash at the end. Here's my unuseful take (as an inner spring preference side sleeper)... Best: Hästens Most Loved: McRoskey Most Confusing: Duxiana Great, But Always Too Close to a Hästens: Vispring And of course the above have almost nothing in common with each other. In the end we went bang-for-buck and joined the Aireloom club. Ronald Reagan and I finally have something in common. Aireloom Midnight Preferred Ingraham

The previous post was supposed to be longer, but I'm having some issue posting multiple images from Flickr to HC. Yes, the irony of that statement is not lost on me. The stream at the edge of my property. I spent considerable time framing this shot. 35mm F/2 at F/8, 1/60, ISO200. It's just a bunch of trees. Converted to black & white in Photoshop using a high contrast blue filter, then duotoned. I also tweaked the curves a bit and then cropped it to 5:4 (which has been my favorite aspect ratio for a decade now.) The vignetting is organic, and not done by a PS plugin. It's an artifact of how the EF 50mm F/1.4 USM transmits IR. F/8, 1/100 ISO 160. 17-40L at 17mm, F/7.1, 1/100, ISO50. 17-40L at 19mm, F/6.3, 1/80, ISO50. Moar later.

I've been slow to get it but finally I have it at home.

23 seconds... any longer and you will ruin any headphones!!!

As much as I like BMWs it’s hard to not start considering a lower end 911 (or used) / Cayman when you consider what a loaded M4 costs.

Anyone else spend a lot of their childhood reading gamebooks (Choose Your Own Adventure, Fighting Fantasy, Be An Interplanetary Spy, Time Machine, etc.)? I've been looking for this series for years and I finally found it: https://archive.org/details/Star_Challenge_1_Planets_in_Peril/page/n1

This thread has been moribund for too long. The 1st Affair A married man is having an affair With his secretary. One day they went to her place And made love all afternoon. Exhausted, they fell asleep And woke up at 8 PM. The man hurriedly dressed And told his lover to take his shoes Outside and rub them in the grass and dirt. He put on his shoes and drove home. 'Where have you been?' his wife demanded. 'I can't lie to you,' he replied, 'I'm having an affair with my secretary.. We had sex all afternoon.' She looked down at his shoes and said: 'You lying bastard! You've been playing golf!'

Re: Mini Dynalo I thought I had posted this here, but apparently I didn't (had some PMs going at the time). When I was getting ready to ship the last mini out that I built, I noticed an odd problem in that occasionally DC offset on the SE would jump to ~500mV at startup. To make a long story short, I determined via scope that the Meanwell bricks don't always start up at the same time. When the + comes up first, the servo opamps freak out briefly, causing the offset. Without the 0R jumpers in you'll never see this. And it only affects SE output; the balanced output offset is always fine. A month or so ago, while perusing diyaudio, I ran across a comparator circuit used for power management in, of all things, the O2 amp. This circuit, placed before or after the regs, with proper parts selection for voltages, would cure this "problem". I realize virtually no one would build one of these for SE output use, but one thing to be aware of. If you are using SE phones with these, wait about 30 secs. before plugging them in. I did PM this info, and this circuit to Kerry, but he has a lot of fires burning and redoing the mini probably isn't even on his radar

I've only got direct experience with the dac1541 and ADI-2 Pro and DAC. Generally I regard the RME to be a better deal than Soekris, if you think the features can help you. IMO the EQ can help out many headphones, especially bright stuff like the HD800. If you're used to THD in your chain, then the RME will sound too naked, even if it's the "right" sound. The headamp in the RME compares favorably to many of the dedicated stuff up to around 500$. Also the separate low-power IEM stage is virtually noiseless, which is good if you have something like a Campfire Andromeda or similar. The Soekris does tick more "hi-fi" boxes. R2R, no-feedback discrete output stage... To me it's a sound that compliments the RME, as it's a tad more organic, mostly due to higher THD. I sometimes feel that the bass on the Soekris is weaker than on the RME, but I might just be imagining this. Both units have superb resolution and seemed virtually immune to source jitter, so I can't see much sense in clocking them externally.

Nice Speedy and strap. I picked up a Speedy Pro last night.

Would not surprise me if this was a Head Caser.