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Steve came up from the coal mine to work on his headphone stand

Oh man, glad I didn't say anything 😄 I was born December 1964, so "officially" a Boomer, but definitely Gen-X as well as Boomer..... But I do agree with Steve regarding the downfall of TV news....I blame Reagan and the removal of the Fairness Doctrine....

I am working on building a bathroom and played around a bit with finishing this floating shelf… probably obvious what kind of wood it is but I experimented with opening the grain and using a tinted danish oil.. will try a clear coat when I get the sink roughed in. Pictures are after finish and before.

Well the SRS-X1000 just showed up unexpectedly and with all of my cameras out of juice the phone had to do. It really doesn't like the halogen lights in the kitchen... First off, this made me laugh out loud... here is how they came out of the box: Now for anybody familiar with the vintage SR-1/2/3/5 and SR-X series... this is usually how they arrived too with one or both earcups loose from the headband. Packaging is also very reminiscent of the SR-X boxes: I must say though that I fucking despise these new Stax boxes from a graphics design point of view. It looks like any cheap, tacky crap out of China... the older ones were unique and had their own thing going on but this just fucking blows. Now for the headphones it was a quick trip into the office for a listen so no more pics. Usual rig of Denarips Terminator and Carbon CC. They do feel nice in the hand though, very light and the cable actually has copper colored lines/dashes on it, not gold ones as they often looked from the pics. Gone is the blue cable... why they made that I have no idea. The headband has a lot of extension to it so even melon heads can use these. There is no padding on the headband at all but the material is firm here, not loose like on the original SR-X units. Earpads are nice and snug and seem to be nice quality, leagues ahead of the garbage on the L300/L500's. Now for sound... these sound pretty good which is a fun thing to say about a Stax set for a change. They are nice and neutral, not much forward slant here but they are quite extended on top. The bottom end is a bit lacking (smaller drivers and all that) but it is very mid-bass happy so quite fun to listen to. Midrange is a tiny bit closed in at times and the soundstage is quite closed in but it doesn't really bother me. Just that odd moment where something sounds a tad bit off but yeah... these are so much better than the L300... it's not even fucking funny. Might even be able to finally retire my aging fleet of SR-207 test headphones good... we'll see. I'll update more in the coming days but after an hour, yeah get a set. Now for the amp, first thing you notice is that it's a good inch deeper than the 252S and all of the other desktop Stax amps before it. I haven't done any circuit analysis yet but this is clearly just a version of the last 252S circuit and yup... it's still all through hole in 2024. Utterly bizarre... The extra length in the chassis is just there for the fuse and a breakout board for the RCA's. There are clearly spots on the PCB for - inputs so they might make a balanced version of it at some point? Been there, done that and while fun... it adds very little to the performance. Input Jfets are K81's so 2SK2881's and those riser boards seem to be PCB capacitors. I need to take a look at them in more detail but yeah, quite odd as they are numbered from 1 and up to 4.

My AI assistant refuses to generate a double entendre using the keywords "Steve", "Rigid Tool", "Hard Wood", " particulate emissions" Saying "it's too easy"

Don't look now, but I think I found Brent.

Still my favorite voice of all time. Followed by KD Lang at #2 and Alison Krauss at #3. And shout out to Willie Nelson for writing such a beautiful song.

^ Noted Boom X 😁 And don't get me started on Reagan. I thought I'd never have such hatred for any human being... Then Trump came along.

On a lighter note- on vacation in Naples Florida This week!

Building the first headphone stand I've done in at least 10 years. Actually probably closer to 15. I had a return customer contact me recently, and the timing was right. Got the hanger pieces milled up today from the same Walnut burl as the cookie table above. This will be a wall hanging headphone holder, with 5 hanger pieces and a curly Maple back board. Pics to come after it's finished.

Seeing is believing?

Cool - actually it’s not walnut but made to look like it. I did some experimenting and found that a 50/50 water to acetone applied at the second to last standing step opened the pores and allowed the teak to take a tinted oil finish. I was thinking a varnish would be nice.

I'm not criticizing it, just hadn't seen it before. Not sure what you're planning on using for the final seal coat, but bathroom and kitchen countertops made of wood take a lot of abuse. You need something really tough. Al has turned me onto a really fantastic, natural product made for marine use. And being a natural, oil based product, it's also beautiful. It's very tough. Al applied it to his garage door in his city house, near the beach. Harsh environment, and it's been several years now and still looks amazing. I haven't found many products that will fare well on a bathroom counter, but this one will. I'd highly recommend it to you. Pretty Walnut BTW.

Ok, boomer. 😉 On a related note, it is truly insane to me how many people exclusively get their news from social media or other algorithmic sources these days. I feel like a dinosaur still reading newspapers that I have to pay for!

And an Ebony penis extension!

Yep, EL34 for the CCS tubes and (EMS 20B or 300b) for the output tubes Here's the 20B version before power switch/volume knob etc. Kevin already posted what is necessary. Using 20Bs is pretty straight forward, 300b is another story and requires a bit of tail resistor tweaking. Not using either, but you probably figured that out looking at the above pic 🐵

So essentially you're saying that young people are stupid? I can get on board with that.

Have been tinkering a bit with the XL'ish. Build one based on EMS 20Bs and another based on EMS 300b (picture) A major improvement to the Megatron for sure. Really enjoyable to listen to, toe tapping. Whether 20B or 300b I found those pretty similar sounding in this configuration.