Leaderboard

Yay ! I got music, and no background noises even at max volume. No Hums, no hiss !! Oh my gawd! I am blessed by Dr. Kevin Gilmore!. I appreciate it so much sir Dr. Gilmore! Finally, I have reached my “ultimate dream goals!” With very limited knowledges. Thank you to George for making this Build a possibility!! Thank you so much to the community as a whole. The best Stax community out there ! Finally, some pictures, herself and in all her glory. Pure solid silver for wires . I am big fan of it I am smiling like a maniac! Yayyyyy! stacking up, and Amp is 130F, the PsU is 141F after 2 hours. Pretty warmth ! Can’t imagine the original The most beautiful amp I have ever had! Period. Time to “burn-in”

I told my mother that I'm getting married on November 15th. It's a strange situation, due to custody, but if I felt right telling my mother, it certainly felt right telling any HC'ers who still give a shit about me, as long as they don't talk about it on FaceBook, or whatever (why would you talk about some guy, right?) about it.

Ceviche Roll Yellow Ferrari Roll And Tarantula Roll Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Got that JLC Reverso Grande Ultra thin and love it, not only do I think it looks classy, but it's extremely comfortable. I'm at it again with photos, but these are of that JLC. ??

if you’re talking about the jan 6922 with green print on the tube i’ve had good results with them

Meanwhile ...

Have you considered the EH 6CA7 (the true beam tetrode ones)? IIRC, they may be a touch tougher due to larger plate structure and I personally really like their sound. They are literally a fraction of NOS EL34 price.

Every single sentence of that is nonsense. And there is not a single citation to back up any of it.

So, I now learned my lesson to be very careful with T2 and tubes. I couldn’t deal with Groove tubes EL-34 sounds, and while I liked the JJ on the Grounded Grid, it was too fragile to stand with T2. Never again to stuck any JJ in the T2 anymore. Then nervously sticking in my next favorite in-line from GG tube rolls, the Quad RFT Vintage EL-34. Didn’t dare to swap tubes without checking the balances and offset. So balances was sitting at below 0.5V on both channel, and Offset was 5-6V on both channel. The one thing I always noticed about GG and the T2 is that these output tubes affect the “turned on” to the 009. The Groove tubes did an echo sound when Hv kicked on, and quick crack when turned off. The RFT has a quick snap which is lower in volume than Groove tubes, and echoes when turned off. In the GG quad Apex matched from JJ was dead quiet on turning on/off. Sadly, it is not a brand to stick into the T2. Now, why would they behave that way ? I have no clues. anyways, I am enjoying the T2 with Quad matched ECC88 goldpin from JJ...again, love those JJ signatures. Cross my fingers, and pray that they don’t give problems, and now RFT Vintage EL-34. I just had to get away from bad tubes Signature, but also so much respect to how powerful T2 is, and that she can cook tubes easily. So far, T2 is awesome!!! Wooooo By the way, if any long time T2 owners can please share the experiences of reliables tubes, and bad tubes. I think it would be excellent !

Good luck Jacob. I'm heading off to my first day at my new job.

Started playing darts again. I've never been good at the game but have always enjoyed playing, with practice though I should get better than I am atm, which is why I've just got one of those boards in the photo, along with that protective surround and a rubber mat. Should be receiving them in the next few days, then I'll set them up in my home so I can practice when I want.

I'm lazy.

Another CFP lives. Started with a single-ended, two-board pilot, proceeded to testing a four-board, balanced setup. Have been listening to it for the past hour or so. Have to settle with 22VDC rails from a Sigma 22 owing to the limit of the transformer I have. Bias set to 150mA. Heatsinks barely get warm. Next is to build yet another GRLV for it with possibly 30VDC rails and higher bias current. Even in its somewhat compromised state, the speed, transparency and resolution of this thing is just incredible!

Congratulations, indeed! Now, as you may know, the T2's backbone is the same as the SRX Plus, it's just difficult to see because of the forest of solid state parts that surrounds it, most of them to replace two capacitors (per channel) in the SRX. So, now you need to build the SRX Plus and see how cheap and simple you can go and still get great sound.

I see, and thank you so very much for the quick respond and the confirmations. This explains the 7812 which supplies the relay load is regulating 12.1V and then drifting to 12.65V and down to 12.16V again I fired her up again and measured the HV together with the Bias, and ignore the -16.5V as I have no load to put it on. +12: 12.01-12.1V -12: -16.75V Low Bias: 276 High Bias:: 565 +500: +496V -560: -555V -260: -242V -500: -494V I also tapped into the Relay supply for the Led indicator to avoid tapping into the regulated from the output....but I guess it doesn’t matter since the LT7912 tends to overshoot without loads ? the Led is only an indicator and not a functioning switch

those JJ tubes have only 1 hole in the plate per side, the originals have 3 holes and a different configuration of the plate, more square than rectangular. my T2 is still using the same tubes as when I demo'd it at CJ010. I recently did a 100 to 120V conversion on a real T2 for someone on HF. It has the original tubes, 22 years old. (pictures can be supplied if anyone has a real T2 and wants to convert voltages, better than $250 in shipping both ways) The gold aero's are labeled 6dj8

Fair enough. By "they", I meant stax, but just wasn't sure about the 6922. They certainly used 6dj8 tubes, as did a number of folks here if one were to search through this thread. Maybe the 6dj8s will expire sooner than 6922, but I have had no issues with NOS Matsushita 6dj8 and 7dj8 for at least 4 years (I also used 1980 JAN Philips 6922, but found the amp to not be as quiet as with some other tubes).

More tube weirdness. The JJ 6CA7 is a Beam Pentode, with the beam forming plates connected to pin 1, similar electrically to the pentode EL34’s G3. The other big bottle 6CA7s are Beam Tetrodes, with the beam forming plates internally wired to the cathode (pin 8). Pin 1 is NC in this case. In the GG, G3 is tied to the cathode on the PCB. So no difference electrically between using any EL34 or 6CA7 in that position. In the T2 circuit, G3 is tied to the plate and draws current, so may have stressed the JJ 6CA7 beyond what it could handle. The internally connected EH 6CA7 doesn’t see that.

I just looked up the datasheet for JJ and it looks like they are calling the 6DJ8 the same as 6922 and the max voltage is 220V so you are fine. I am using JAN Philips 6922.

Meanwhile, for mere mortals

Nice! I tried these on, and they have “blue / purple hue fluorescent” or so I was told.....lol, never seen it in GG. Anyways, these sound so nice! Surprisingly the balances was dead-on around below 0.5V at cold start on both channel and offset is 5-6V on both channel. When Hv kicked in, she gave a quick snap, but even lower than RFT I hope this will be a reliable choice

I mean, that's one way to go.

Thanks for that Reks, but when that Reverso needs a new strap I'll be getting a JLC with a deployant clasp.

Really wonderful, Dave. One of my favourite watches. Maybe one of these days...

Which is quite an achievement, in a perverse sort of way.

Look, Doug. Everybody else is wrong. You're part of "everybody else." Pipe down.

In my teens I played darts a lot, we had a pretty nice board at home, no fancy brand that I can recall though, but a few good quality darts with natural feather flights. I always liked the heavier ones better. What's the difference between the Unicorn and the Winmau besides the plastic vs metal numbers? I could get either of them and retake the hobby now that I probably would have to stay away from music. I'd appreciate some good quality old fashioned darts recommendations. I hate this new trend of electronic harmless darts

You're welcome. Spending other people's money is my calling. Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

Didn't know that was/is available, thank you for letting me know.

Might I recommend: https://www.playwiththebest.com/hd2-pro-edition-metal-number-ring.html Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

Received that Unicorn board, protective surround and mat, but have yet to secure the board to the wall where it's going. It does seem a nice board, but the numbers are plastic and removable, whereas that Winmau I had had metal non movable numbers which I much preferred.

Welcome back to the fold. I'm newer to the hobby as well so I don't have a lot of good advice. I did go to the local shop and throw 12 different dart shape/weight combos before settling Yana weight forward, slight teardrop 25 gr dart. Nice choice on the flight. Out of walls of flights that had to choose from at the shop, that is one of the two sets that I picked out as well, along with some dimpled Ruthless ones. Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

Interesting piece by Rob Watts from Chord https://www.head-fi.org/threads/watts-up.800264/page-23#post-13772429

David & David -- Boomtown Takes me back a bit ...

This wonderful performance of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor

Indeed, congrats on the fantastic build Whitigir! You’ve really been on the STAX DIY fast lane this year. Enjoyed following your journey.

Congratulations!

I would have thought you would build yourself a ginormous one out of Chestnut and Zebra wood.

This was back when i had power at my house....been 36+ hours without, and counting..... New Shpongle! Have to say, though, was a bit underwhelmed for the first few songs, a bit bass-heavy EDM for me. But they got more of that Psy-trance in later, so got better,

I am getting very close! Thanks god that @Kevin Gilmore , @Georgep , @Soren, Birgir, Mike, and the whole community here. Especially thanks to Kevin for taking up your time and advises, and thanks George for the chassis, some obsolete sands and sharing hard to find Xicon. I finally realized that adjusting the batteries with 10k pots is wrong, and it will in the end make 1 battery stuck. Have to measure 22k resistor to 6.5V and then dialing with 2k pot to 740V . Thanks George for the method and it worked to unstuck my battery Now, I can have all 4 batteries at 740V, O+/O- is -100mV to +50mV on right channel. -200mV to +12mV on Left channel. This is cold start O+ to Ground References is R (2.2V and dropping steadily) and L (4.5V and dropping steadily) I think my next step is to plug in the 009 and try to observe noises **my Tube arcing problem turned out to be that JJ 6ca7 was pretty fragile, and couldn’t handle the T2. I was sweating and checking everywhere to realize it was a ghost, until KG confirmed that JJ are junk. I stuck in Groove tubes EL34, and it got to this result.

I thought I would provide an update on the sound of my 2 SRX-Plus amps. I used new Penta Labs quad 12at7s that were balanced and matched in both builds. I used some existing NOS 12AT7s I had laying around and could not balance the amp correctly. With new balanced and matched Penta Labs, it was a breeze to get the amp dialed in. Then for one amp, I used new Tung Sol 6SN7GTBs, and in the other, NOS GTA Sylvanias. The Sylvanias sounded better out of the gate. cleaner and crisper sound. Tung Sols seemed a bit muddier. I have been primarily listening to the Tung Sol amp for the past week, and it appears that over time, the amp has become more clear and defined; less muddy. I am not sure I believe everything I read about break in periods for headphones, speakers, tubes, etc. Much of the break in talk is not supported by objective measurements so I am skeptical. However, it sure seems that something has changed in the Tung Sol amp over time. And I don't think it is just my ears because I have been using an HD650 Sennheiser as reference for comparison. Both driven from the same O2 DAC/AMP source, with line out of the O2 DAC going into both the O2 Amp (for HD650s) and the SRX-Plus (for SR-507s). Of course, the SRX/507 combo always won, but at first, the HD650s just seemed cleaner less muddy. There was and is a surprising amount of bass coming from the SRX/507 combo, but the bass seemed too muddy and was somewhat fatiguing. Now, that muddiness in the SRX/507 seems mostly gone. Still not perfect, but better. Not sure if this is a combination of the amp settling in, the Tung Sols breaking in, the Penta Labs breaking in, my final dialing in of the amp outputs (my offset was about 70V or so before I did all the tuning to get it to essentially 0V after warm up), or maybe my ears getting more used to the sound. But the SRX seems to sound a bit better every day. I have about 30 hours of listening time on it so far. I will report back when I cross 100 hours. I did notice that when I put the NOS Sylvania SN7s in my amp instead of the Tung Sols, it does sound noticeably cleaner and clearer. Perfect, really. No trace of muddiness at all. And that is without retuning the amp for these tubes. So perhaps there is something to be said for either the quality of those old tubes, or the fact that new tubes need an extended break in period? Why do I continue to use the Tung Sols, you ask? Well, because my son's ears are much better than mine, so he gets the good Sylvania tubes! For someone coming from Dynamics or even Stax driven by SRD-7, I would rate the sound as SRX-Plus/507 >>> SRD-7/507 >>>>>>>>>> O2Amp/HD650 So I would strongly recommend the SRX-Plus build. Just be aware of the importance of good tubes both in dialing in the amplifier and in quality of sounds. And if using new tubes, given them time to break in.

Met the man, the myth, the legend, Sir Stretch! Had a great lunch with him and Al. He lives up to the hype! We only have the two, but we switch with each other every week. Also made a trip to Ikea with Al. I needed an armoire for my clothes because I'm gay! Al not only helped me pick them out but stayed and helped put everything together. He's either an extremely good friend or extremely bored. I think maybe both!

Yesterday: finally moved all the way out. I’m back in Tennessee now. Everything (hopefully) will be finalized this week, but everything that we are keeping from the house is in transit and everything else has been arranged to deal with. There’s now about 3x what is reasonable in my tiny apartment and 10 uhaul uboxes on their way to Tennessee. Now to find a house on this end.

I helped this guy move into his new place in Mayberry.

Ah. I thought maybe Stax of Mass Destruction. But yours makes more sense....

Game of Thrones spoiler:

moved furniture around took furniture and yard waste to the dump moved furniture around watched carpet get installed watched paint get applied took furniture and cardboard to the dump moved furniture around went to dinner moved u-haul u-box containers around

Although I opted for a JLC SS bracelet fitted to the JLC Master Ultra thin, I couldn't get used to the fit, it was either too loose or too tight after having a link removed, and was told there are no half links available for that bracelet. So I've used that Master as part exchange for a JLC Reverso Grande Ultra thin ( Manual wind ) shown in the photo. Should be receiving that Reverso either Friday or Saturday.

A little T2 tube rolling goodness

Circlotron Driver board from the Group Buy is working. As I'd like to test as much as possible before connecting everything, I'd decided to hook the driver up as an amp. The Carbon V5 and Circlotron driver board are very similar although there are a number of differences that require a bit of tweaking to make it work. The biggest difference is in the servo part of the driver board and since the driver board is missing the A06 - controlling the current in the tail of the output stage directly from the opto - it is probably not possible to run the output stage at 20mA as it will exceed the opto current capabilities. The pic shows (I believe) everything needed to 'convert' the driver into an amp - I haven't tried to get the servo to work though. The important alterations is: (not including servo - amp only) NOT populating the 10k/10uF besides the opto terminal (until it is actually gonna be used that is) parallel the 500ohm in the tail of the output stage with 150ohm or thereabouts (I just solder one on top - easy to remove again) adding 2x (100k + 100k) for feedback. adding 2x 5k1 ballast resistors to the output This is as I hook'ed it up, and dialed it in for 20mA operation - has ran for some days 24x7 without any problems. For the servo to work a few changes in addition to the picture above is needed: the opto has leg2 tied to GND - this trace needs to be cut. Remove: the 47uF between the opto leg1 and leg2, and 5k resistor between OpAmp leg6 and opto log1 Add: 1uF between OpAmp leg6 and leg2, 200ohm between OpAmp leg6 and opto leg 2, and GND to opto leg1