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I did search but I couldn't find a dedicated thread about DIY electrostatics so in the spirit of getting the discussion started, here is something I've been working on. Well over a decade ago I bought up all the spare Sennheiser HE60 parts to assemble new headphones. The first thing to go out of stock was the main housing so to assemble the last pair, I had to adept a HD650 housing to take the HE60 drivers. Ever since then it has stuck in my head to make my own drivers for those housings and well... here is version 2.0: I bought a ratty old HD650 and completely stripped it apart. Headpad, earpads and cable went into the trash while the rest went for a long bath. First step is to make the baffle flat so a lot of cutting with nice, sharp, flush cutters. I naturally forgot to take a picture of that step... Next step was to fully measure what area I had to work with and design PCB's to match that, while maximizing the open area. The end result is three different PCB's, as they are all setup to be dual sided. One for the stators, one which holds the diaphragm and finally the simple outline which holds the dust covers and can act as a spacer. Some pics of them assembled in the housing: Four nylon screws hold the sandwich together, fixed with PEEK nuts to get extra gripping power as the assembly had to be as flat as is possible. Dust covers placed away from the stators so they don't cause any issues. Earpad side: Due to the screws, some earpad mountings have to be cut up to get the pads to fit but yeah, they are just cheap crap from China so who cares. I could cut a slot in them to try and make it fit but maintaining as much pressure on the drivers as I can is far more important. Final assembly with a King Sound cable as I have a couple of those sitting around. For the diaphragm I used my usual stock of 1.4um film and the earpads are just the cheapest leather pads I found on ebay. I have a couple of nicer ones but these are the thickest and that helps make them more balanced sounding. The diaphragms were stretched by hand on a mirror (which is my preferred way) and glued with wood glue (thanks for the tip Aumkar!) which is just perfect for this. Coating is anti-static spray which means they energize in five seconds or so which I can live with. Now for the sound... pretty damn good for something so simple and literally being the second set I assemble. Well that and zero effort has been put into sealing the baffle or just any sealing at all. I just stuck the PCB's onto the baffle and built up the stack. Overall sound signature is similar to the HE60 but not as diffused and with far more bass output. Maybe a tad too much at times as there are some oscillations that I can pickup at very high volume levels and under high excursion. I tend to go with slightly less tension on the diaphragm so that might be it. Treble is very pronounced with the thinner pads but with the ones pictured, it is just perfect. These are not forward at all and the soundstage is excellent for this size of a driver and non-angled earpads. Sensitivity is slightly lower than the regular Stax sets but still only marginally so. All in I'm very happy with the roughly 150$ outlay for these. Now this is version 2.0 but the first version used a HD58X from Drop, brand new in the box that I cut up. Same driver profile but thicker stators so the efficiency was really bad plus the stators had full solder mask on them. Now I'm out of the spacer PCB's for the dust covers so next time I order PCB's, I'll make another set. I also have some diaphragm spacers which would work well for normal bias as I've always wanted to mess more with that.

Roller stands really helped, but mostly it was a lot of heavy lifting. Jodi took a picture while I was working on it.

Naaman, not sure how you managed this with the 8’ slabs from the Roubo. This bitch is getting heavy to run through the machinery with my little 66” slabs.

Back at the east coast ping pong table, making engineer of the year plaques for work.

Thanks folks! Low key day today but Claire is making a Guinness chocolate cake tonight, so that will be exciting enough for this old fart.

I assume that was after one of the 7,000 morphine pills required after your back went out. Did not know those pills worked so well for hair growth.

Farmer Wants a Wife, the American version (Hulu). "Real stories" between "big city" "girls" and "real, authentic" "farmers" (cowboys, close enough) "trying" to "find" "true love." Hopefully I have all those quotation marks correct. You know how geographically hodge-podgy all this is up front when they introduce Oklahoma with John Denver and "Almost heaven, West Virginia" (see cowboys). Yet, unless I'm getting way too soft, you still kinda feel sympathy for all the participants (except the host and I'm sure evil producers).

Happy Birthday, Al! Hope you get your cake and eat it too.

Happy Birthday Al.

This looks like way too much fun.... https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorsports/my-miata-sort-of-won-americas-oldest-off-road-race/?utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_content=MED_UN_NA_EML_UN_DailyDriver_Monday&hashed_email=5a40c51c3d4254d5f58319200ca2ac8bb44b94437291b38bd1d989d5554293b0 HS

Happy (Vernal Equinox) Birthday, Al! "A bearded, jazz loving, woodworking, defender of the universe, who lives in mayberry on acid, birthday celebration, digital art" https://creator.nightcafe.studio/creation/ohApqrS0E4J1D46dubIp EDIT . also Via https://www.midjourney.com/app/jobs/48a140e3-3da3-4fa1-8543-f797bb5eb0cd/

I wouldn’t trust anyone from Arkansas.

That's awesome! Congrats and may your tires and brakes last long... Sam

I'm two episodes away to finish the first season of Tehran Some things are good, others are rather poorly resolved. Entertaining so far.

Detroit style pesto pizza.

Fettuccine Alfredo with shrimp and tomatoes.

I get weak/sprung at the sight of the RS5, but that's me and my inexplicable love of Audi.

Just remember to wear a sweater. There's a draft in that house.

Same thing kind of happened to a mate of mine. Lifelong skier, really skilled. Skiing in Austria with his adult daughter, he was descending at speed off-piste, a ski hit a rock and pitched him downslope into a tree. He was wearing a helmet, but clobbering a tree with your head at 30mph is not going to end well. Helicoptered off the hill, he ended up in the neurology ward for quite a long time. He's kind of recovered five or six years on, but still has some problems in concentrating. Which is tough for a serial entrepreneur. He was CEO of his latest company before the accident. Nothing like as bad as Michael Schumacher's skiing accident which reduced him to being a pale shadow of his former self, wheelchair bound and with difficulty in communicating. He apparently manages to watch F1 on the television and understand what he's seeing. Or Fabio Casertelli in the 1995 Tour de France, who lost control while descending the col de Portet d'Aspet at speed (usually 50mph plus), and his head hit a concrete bollard at the side of the road. Dead at the scene. Not wearing a helmet, which was not necessary on mountain stages at that time.