Leaderboard

While being stuck home, recovering for the past two weeks, I finally got round to doing some more DIY electrostatic headphones. I wanted to try out some different materials, 2um mylar and Comfort fabric softener to do the resistive coating. I must say both worked well and if the Comfort stuff holds up long term, it is a damn good coating that costs pretty much nothing. First off my long standing test drivers in a Superlux HD330 housing... as I had some donor headphones in stock. I made a few of these but this set has the Stax wide PC-OCC cable and Dekoni Fostex hybrid pads. I've made so many of these drivers over the years that they are a good benchmark and they perform flawlessly. Charge up instantly, no charge migration or issue with humidity that I can detect. The drivers are also modular so easy to assemble and test: I didn't even spring for ENIG on these but yeah, super simple design that just slots into the Supelux housing. They are just a bit on the small side for my head and the partially closed housing has issues but it's a fun set to play with. Next up is a set of SR-5's that had severe imbalance. Time for a new set of diaphragms with the thicker spacers I made 10 years ago or. I simply replace the stock diaphragm and this converts them to Pro bias too. Throw on there an old Lambda cable which had a break at the cable entry and it's a great little set of headphones. I love the SR-X Mk3 drivers and they are fun to play with. It is a bit challenging to fit the thicker spacers into the normal bias housings as it can warp the drivers but not a big deal really. Then I put on some leather earpads from my stash and yeah, a great SR-5 Pro... something Stax really should have sold back in the day. While I was making the diapgragms for those SR-5's, I made a couple of more for a spare set of drivers which resulted in this: I'm always on the lookout for cheap open back headphones which can be "easily" turned into electrostatics. This is a Fiio JT1 which was less than 60$ shipped but is not ideal for the conversion as the baffle is not flat due to how the earpads are mounted. Still nothing a circular saw can't fix: I covered the stock holes with tape to seal the baffle and keep the glue out when I fitted the driver: The PU two part adhesive covers all the baffle vents and I put some tape on the earpad attachment points to just keep the glue out of them. Worked just fine and the seal is great No damping at the back and they are open enough. I fitted strain reliefs at the cable entry and plugs to seal off the top vents in the housing as well. This one has the stock earpads and the cable is the standard silicone 6 core stuff floating around with an aluminum cable splitter for the Y split and a prototype plug I was sent a while back. Pretty nice sounding set of headphones that don't cost a lot to make. Granted you need a SR-X Mk3 to donate the drivers and some custom spacers to make it work but I'd want to make something like this with custom drivers. It would be a great DIY project to release, buy this set of headphones, rip out its guts and make your own drivers from these PCB's. The cable is easy to source, so are the cable entry glands and a Stax plug can be 3D printed with basic XLR housings. Finally, a bit of a closure for me with what is probably the final version of the HD580/600/650 electrostatic conversion above. I was always battling baffle leaks on those as it is impossible to shave the stock baffle completely flat. I might try to laser cut a neoprene gasket or something like that but on this one I simply designed a new protection grill and glued that to the baffle. Not ideal but it works nicely. Then new stators and new spacers for the diaphragms and dust covers. The cable is the King Sound KS-H4 unit so it is removable. I just shaved down the socket a bit and glued it into the stock holes. The protection grill which is glued to the baffle. Earpads are the hybrid units Drop used to sell and then sheepskin headpad. New stators with full ENIG plating and purple solder mask because reasons. :) These do sound great if I dare say so myself, very much on par with the HE60 but with a fuller sound. Same spacing at 0.5mm so sensitivity is very close too to stock Senn units. Funny for me as the HD600 was my first ever high end set of headphones, so when I found this set with broken drivers it was an ideal candidate for conversion. Full circle and all that shit...

Why is this the first time I am hearing about - Kobe Beef Bacon? Who been slacking on updating the Bacon thread!!?? Come on people - we are living a society here...

A breakfast almost worthy of a Grehaem. Venison snausage and bacon hiding in the periphery. I would also like to note that this is what happens when you give the humble potato to the French. 🫣

Participating in the Spotify Boycott, so cancelled my Spotify subscription and renewed my Tidal. Have to figure everything out all over again. Started, of course, with Al1ce's latest, As Above, So Below. Turns out, they're already working on another dimension. As Within, So Without.

Speaking of: Released on Wednesday. Chopin: 24 Préludes, Ballade No. 4 & Piano Sonata No. 2 by Eric Lu (2025) https://album.link/hj55qbvfbjcp4 Example: Winner on Warner. Good recording, and performance is top notch. Looking forward to seeing how he grows.

Also kinda

Just for future info: diskutil unmount /dev/disk1s2

For the bargain hunters out there.

Brief update on this issue: To securely wipe an HDD, it's necessary to do one pass with Disk Utility first, then make use of the Terminal command. This is because Terminal itself can't unmount a disk. Also, in possibly related news I have a stack of six HDDs to donate to the local second hand shop.

Pork, Okra, Green Beans, half a can of mushrooms in... Very delicious.

Todd is kind of Analyst...

Between yesterday and today, giving and feeling good. I've been talking to two different (one partially) homeless people for several months, always giving a 10 or 20 when I see them. At my son's insistence (!) I just gave one of them $300 in cash. To say the least, he was amazed and driven to tears and hugs. As I walked back to my car, this woman drives up to me and chats with me. "He's not REALLY homeless..." she says. I knew that; he has a wife and a dog, and his father in law lets him stay at his place at times. Otherwise, they live in a van. I acknowledged that, but also just said that people need some help now and then. A man came out of the passenger seat, she told me it was her son, and he has autism, so don't be put off. He was fairly high functioning, but you could tell he'd always need help. Anyway, we got to talking and this woman has a home, but also has had a tough time of things. So, I took the other $300 I had and gave it to her. We both started tearing up. Now I need to pull ANOTHER chunk out to give to the other person. He knows me by name, knows I lost my wife, and like the first guy I give him something whenever I see him. He also told me that - even though he's homeless and has limited capability to help - if I ever needed something he could provide, to not hesitate to ask. These folks are amazing. So yeah, I'll get him something that I hope will help him this winter. On top of all that, today my son (staying with me while condo being worked on) has a friend over and they are listening to a few of my systems. Son brought back some speakers I gave him, so offering them to his friend. TL;DR version: it feels fucking great to give and help others as long as I can!

Completed servo controlled grid voltage. Works with EL34, 2A3, 300B and EML 20B-V4.

Arrived yesterday and it really opens up every electrostatic headphone that I own. I was looking for an amp that can bring more bass out of my HE90 than HEV90 so I drained my pocket to bid on this and now I am very satisfied. The hev90 has a romantic sound but the t2 amplifies every piece of detail, expand the soundstage to what ever possible with extreme fineness and sweetness. Buying any head-fi gear at this price is ridiculous but considering the previous closing bid I think I got a fair deal. And it is so rare to have T2 being sold alone. I do not need another pair of omega so this deal saves me a lot of money. But this amp's functionality in long run is questionable. I hope my handful of obsolete FETs stock will save me some pain when I need to fix this in the future.