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Well, we decided to add kitty #3. Penelope never really got over losing Koshka a few years back, and while she loves our cats, they didn’t really bond with her. She’s a couple of years older and a little more cat-savvy now, so we thought it’s the right time. 8 month old just up from GA. P and the new addition (name TBD): And the requisite shot of the meezers: Yes, they’re this cute all the time So far Nutella and Marshmallow are intrigued by whatever is behind the door, but they don’t seem too put off. We’ll be patient with introductions to avoid rocking the boat too much. Edit: She’s a doll.

I'm finally able to put a closure on this pentode experiment, sorta. What finally improved the THD figure between 300V and 500Vrms output is the driver transistor. I replaced the PZTA42s with TTC004Bs when trying the original GG circuit with EL34s, while the PZTA42s remained in the left channel. With SiC FET as the output device, the driver transistor has a pretty steep load line, so the nonlinearities on the upper left portion of the curve didn't matter that much, as long as the idle Vce is chosen to be high enough to avoid that area. With the GU50 tube as output device, the driver transistors not only need to swing current, but also swing voltage (about 10Vpp), so the load line is more flat. The nonlinearities of the transistor becomes more problematic. The PZTA42s have to go. The KSC2690s I have on the left channel have higher hFE than the TTC004B on the right. The two channels ended up having very close THD+N curves. The 2nd harmonic is more prominent than the 3rd in the left channel with the KSC2690s, not sure if that's consequential. The hum is 110dB below the 100Vrms mark, with the 12.6V filament transformer CT simply tied to B-. I'm quite happy with the sound on my SR-009. It has the basic characteristics of the Carbon with a very slight touch of tube softness, yet not losing resolution or immediacy. I searched up and down but didn't find another pentode more suitable for this role, at least on paper. If some day I manage to put this into an enclosure, the ugly 'hats' would surely be sticking out.

It has all the same issues as the Woo Audio WES, their absurdly expensive unit, probably the new ES8 (based on the tube choice) and the LTA unit. The biggest issue is how the tubes are being driven, i.e. a center tapped inductor. With a normal loudspeaker, this isn't an issue but with electrostatic loads, it creates a lot odd issues and they can be clearly heard, if you know what you are looking for. It is not linear and neutral as it moves through the frequency range so to be simple, a high quality CCS, is pretty much utterly inert to what the amp is doing, a resistor far less so but here you add an inductor to the mix and a lot of weird stuff happens. Now why use inductors, well they are cheap all told. Palatauf are using nice Lundahl units but compared to the cost of CCS's and cooling it, it is a cheap option. Second reason, lot of voltage swing but that is problematic on its own. I've been hearing through the grapevine that Stax are not happy about these amps and why they've come so hard down on warranty repairs for headphones. A brief burst from one of these amps will kill the drivers at high volume levels

Mysore nuggets came from an old Frisbee, not Old Bisbee.

Fleetwood Mac - Tusk (Deluxe Edition) The demo versions of the songs on this deluxe edition are fun, but I'm loving the live tracks from the Tusk Tour in '79 and '80 the most. These polished studio gems sound a little rougher and a little livelier in a concert setting. https://music.apple.com/us/album/tusk-deluxe-edition/1052398476

Legend and Master:

I’m going to post this in its own thread as so many people are asking me for X9000 impressions, and it makes sense to have them somewhere where they are easy to find. I was also going to take some pictures to add to this review but I’m just wiped. Might add some later if these ever present storms let up for some good light. I’ve now had the SR-X9000 here for over a week so time for a writeup... as my email inbox is full of people asking for just that. 🙂 First impressions were very promising, the build quality is superb, and those drivers are just a marvel to behold. I do like the new replaceable cables even, though it is a bit of a copy of the King Sound setup, and they really should include a 2.5m cable and a 5m one, the 1.5m makes no sense to me. The earpads might be a tad too big in terms of open area for their own good but they are well made and comfy. That new arc design is also excellent, far better than the 009 mess. The inspiration from the SR-Omega is clear but the build quality here is far, far better. Same loose feeling fit too; they mostly just hang off the head with minimal clamping. I really like how they drew inspiration from them, but I also have some issues with how that was executed… more about that later. The system I’ve been using them in is my main rig, Denafrips Terminator DAC feeding a Carbon CC all being fed from my main PC. Now for the sound, these are clearly voiced in the same direction as the 009/009S but not as horribly colored as those two. They sound open and lively with decent bass and the forward slant is there but far better than the predecessors. I remember thinking… “these are what the 009’s should have been 11 years ago” so yeah, not bad at all. For some recordings they really work but yeah… a few tracks in and the cracks began to show. A bit of a backstory, I’ve likened buying Stax to being in an “abusive relationship” for the last 15 years. Back in 2007 they brought us the 007Mk2’s with all of their issues. Sure, they could be fixed easily enough with some blutac but yeah it was a sign of things to come. At CanJam it was confirmed there was a new version of the 007Mk2’s out and they were even worse (the Mk2.5 as we called them), the blutac helped but could not fix the terrible voicing. Then it was announced a new flagship was incoming and the SR-009 landed in 2011. Now we all remember the clusterfuck that was, drivers failing left and right and forward sound with pitiful bass response… yeah, I’m not a fan. One bright spark was in 2014 when I got a new set of 007Mk2’s and they had clearly been changed for the better. The port finally kind of worked and the voicing was more like the Mk1’s. Then we got the limited edition 009BK (2016?) which I found to be a small improvement over the 009 but still that same sound and finally the 009S is 2018. Less said about them the better, quickest I’ve ever sold one of my flagship phones there… That brings us to the present and since the wait for the SR-X9000 was so long, I had time to bolster my collection to compare against them. I got a used set of 009S just to make sure I didn’t like them (that was still the case), a Voce (not arrived yet due to some shipping snafu’s) and finally the one I really wanted, a SR-Omega with early 007 Mk1 drivers. I had a set a decade or so ago and it’s really the only set of headphones I truly regret selling. I also got my final set of Audeze CRBN’s to compare against the new kid on the block. I had a lot of fun doing so and after a few hours I gravitated to a direct A-B test of the SR-Omega/007 against the X9000. Makes sense as they are a similar idea, put a more modern driver into that same basic housing design. That did reveal the two main issues with the X9000’s, the bright edge to everything which is just borderline annoying and more distracting than anything. Second are the imaging issues… First off, the brightness, with the 009’s they were really intolerable, and I’ve never been able to just sit down and enjoy a listening session with 009’s. It’s not that bad here but it’s always present. Some tracks it just blends in and becomes part of the sound while on others it stands out and takes away from the immersion. What makes it worse is that there is no logic to which tracks have that edge to them, bright ones which I would expect to have it… well it just blends in while darker ones have it. Must be a resonance issue as there is so little damping here. Now with the imaging, I think Stax made a mistake having the outside screen angled like that. On the SR-Omega it is perfectly parallel with the drivers but on the X9K, it is maybe 3mm further out towards the front. This or some part of the driver structure might be the culprit for the odd imaging. Let me clarify, they throw a large soundstage but it’s very much a “three blob affair”. Nothing wrong with that really but it’s the front imaging which sounds off for me. It’s all a bit to distant and boxed in while not being as focused as the 007 soundstage. When you pick up on it, it becomes very apparent and distracting. As comparison, let’s take the SR-Omega and SR-007Mk2. The SR-Omega throws a wide soundstage but it’s all a bit loose and diffused. Now the 007’s (all of them really) have a much tighter, more focused soundstage which also does something unique, there are layers to it. With the SR-X9000 it’s more like the SR-Omega (which makes sense) but more localized to the three blobs and the middle one has that odd boxed in effect while being a bit distant. Now other than these two things, these are well made and high performing sets, but these two things annoy me enough for them to not make my top/best ever list. The SR-007’s are more laid back and “darker” but also more neutral and truer to the original sound. The SR-Omega/007 is a more fun and looser version of that sound but those slight deficiencies just make them a welcome change, doesn’t make them any less neutral. They simply act as a bridge bringing those two sounds together, absolute purity of the 007 with the more warm and loose nature of the SR-Omega. I feel I should also talk a bit about the new kid on the block, the Audeze CRBN. Now I’ve had a few of them here, prototype units to the final production version and it really is the antithesis of the SR-X9000 is terms of fit and sound. The CRBN is snug as it hugs your head with thick and supple earpads. The sound is far more damped so it is darker but still very open and expansive. Now they aren’t perfect, they have that slight issue with the midrange presence due to the heavy damping, but it is minor overall. They are really what the HE90 could have been back in the day, more diffused than the 007’s but with proper bass. Nice way to tie back the 007's were always being compared to the HE90 back in the day. Lastly, how are they to drive. Well… as one would expect with a driver this size, they need a lot of power to behave. That brightness will quickly get out of control, especially at higher volume levels when the headphones don’t have enough power behind them. I’ve only tried them on a couple of amps so far so I’ll need more time with that, but I’d say powerful and neutral amps will suit these just fine. Conclusion/TL; DR These are good but not as good as they could have been. They are too forward sounding though not as bad as the SR-009, 009BK or 009S. I crave neutrality over everything else, the headphones should just present the sound with as little an impact on it as is possible. If they fail to represent a part of the spectrum, that’s fine but if they add something… then I have a problem with it. The brightness and imaging issue does disqualify them due to that, but I will keep them around, nonetheless. With some material they work well and plus I’m in a collecting mood… 😉 I'll probably add to review later on as I spend some more time with them. Finally, I’m going to be a bit cynical and think Stax are doing this sound signature on purpose and not for the obvious reasons. This is exactly the type of sound which grabs you on a quick audition or impresses the useless audio reviewers out there who don’t know any better. Back in 2002 the 007’s got no love at all as they are the definition of “unimpressive at first audition”, let along not many amps around at that time which could drive them. Stax are clearly now trying to make money and not audio purist just trying to make the best product possible, nothing wrong with that, so I’m glad this wasn’t a complete hack job like the 009S.

the lta unit is something different entirely. and has 1% distortion and switching noise due to the square wave oscillator, diodes and high frequency transformer. The eddie current electra is a center tapped inductor with capacitors on the output. No distortion specs ever published. The original woo audio wes is a pair of inductors with capacitors on the output. No distortion specs ever published. The malvalve has an output transformer and in electrostatic mode the headphones are run off the transformer primary. The new es8 finally has a center tapped inductor and output capacitors. Low power output tubes. The palatauf is highly similar to the es8 with lundahl center tapped inductors ($100 each) and output capacitors. None of these amps have enough voltage gain to have enough feedback to reduce the distortion to reasonable levels. None of these amplifiers have inductors or transformers specifically designed to drive electrostatic headphones which result in various phase and frequency response issues. if i knew of a company that would be willing to correctly wind me some transformers i might be willing to make an amp like this. Even if i wanted to wind my own transformers, availability of the cores i want and the rest of the parts are impossible to find. And there would be 1 more tube gain stage. re: birgir's baked goods. seriously you people have no idea.

So here in Austria, we don't use our brains at all and life is so much better? Yeah, I don't buy that.... It's been the same shit for the last 20 years I've been active in this hobby, Single Power, RSA, Woo Audio and all those other crap amps, the fanboys when faced with actual circuit analysis, it's fingers in the ears and this stuff sounds amazing!! Shut UP!! What I don't get is that you like the crap amp, fine, that's your problem. I'm not trying to sell you anything but because your bad tastes validate some crap design, that suddenly makes it good? So the KGSSHV, which is a monitor amp - designed to be as neutral as is possible, sounds flat and lifeless... might that just be the source? Just throwing that out there... Also, this has the be the lamest attempt to try a Carbon I've ever read...

That Irish supplier you linked to is a guaranteed fake. And it is pretty doubtful that the input FETs are bad to begin with. JFETs aren't particularly static sensitive. Unless they've been abused in some fashion, I don't think these are the problem. The 2SK389s could be replaced by pairs of Linear Systems LSK170s. I'm not sure if LSK389s are available, but certainly not in the Toshiba 7-pin package type.

Cinder is a good name for a black cat.

Voidfloof is amazing!

Huzzah for voidfloofs (that's what I call my black cats)!

Old Bisbee has the mysore nuggets back in stock

Someone asked me in PMs what I thought of the DCA Stealth so thought I'd share what I wrote here: I think this reviewer hears the Stealth more or less the same way that I do: https://www.headfonia.com/dan-clark-audio-stealth-review/2/ In particular: At first, I did honestly find the Stealth a little unexciting – I didn’t feel the urge to reach for them for some ‘fun’ time listening. However, given time, you become accustomed to their astonishing level of clarity and textbook tuning that really does become your new ‘benchmark’ in terms of tonal performance, which then makes everything else seem a little flawed. Instead of looking for the dopamine-inducing dose of mid-bass ‘shove’, you begin to become a junkie for the remarkable little world of pinpoint imaging and brilliantly separated sounds that envelop your head – all in a perfectly comfortable and outside-world-blocking cocoon. From 100hz and up they sound more or less totally neutral to me. After getting used to them I can now hear what people don’t like about the HD800s’s treble. Achieving neutrality does not "wow" me, but after I listen to other headphones I can more clearly hear their flaws. Interestingly, I think the downside to the Stealth is below 100hz. You’d think the bass would sound boosted given the harman curve adhearannce, but the opposite is the case. Stealth feels a little too light and not as anchored down there as I’d like. It is funny to compare them to the (also closed back) Apple AirPod Max which is their exact opposite. Incredible, controlled bass, but lacking everywhere else. I also wish they weren’t closed back, but that is what it is. I’m happy with them, but if I had to do it over again I’d have kept the $ in my pocket. There is a sweet-spot on the price/performance curve and these are way past it.

nice motorcycle