Leaderboard

They cause you to sprout hair and wear a speedo?

Agreed. I did take a picture of the first, though, on this one -- as it gave me a pang. Very comfortable daily driver!

I actually stopped playing between about age 18 and 60, so when I restarted it was a little like learning to walk again. Which is why I got such a big kick out of Jason Stratham's line in the movie "Spy," where he plays a hyper masculine James Bond type: "I make a habit of doing what other people say I can't do: Walk through fire, waterski blindfolded, take up piano at a late age."

Yeah, that is really nice! Reminds me of a Seiko I had years ago, though yours is nicer. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Replaced the 221R gate stoppers with the original 47R. I had previously switched to some ferrite beads I got from Arrow (Fair-Rite 2773009112) and still no sign of oscillation. I put in the other set of FETs (4 total now) with beads and 47R gate stoppers. Still looked fine. On listening to it, I decided I wanted to isolate the R channel (DynaFET R, Dynahi L) and discovered that both channels were still playing with only the R input connected, so I need to figure out what is messed up in the input wiring. Probably why when it was oscillating, it appeared on both outputs. Oops. EDIT: Biased at ~150mA per device pair. Bias starts at 320mV and drops as amp warms up. 2R ballast resistors. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nope, bought it from a dealer in FL, of all places - high humidity, now in New Mexico, LOW humidity, so I have a DamppChaser to keep it humidified. I have tried a Fazioli - best piano I ever played, but WAAAYY expensive. Put it this way - when I was shopping, there were a few pianos that didn't sound as good as I thought I was, there were several pianos that sounded about as good as I thought I was - the Falcone was the least expensive, probably because they aren't made any more and most people don't know about them. The Fazioli was the only piano that made me sound better than I knew I was! Super-even action, totally responsive from a pianissimo to a triple forte. But even there, there were differences from one Fazioli to another. I'm sure you know, every instrument is different from every other.

is it anything like the final countdown?

And we're back to individual preferences again. Swapping back and forth between the Utopias/GS-X MkII and 007/BHSE running off the same source, I liked the Staxen better. Quelle surprise.

I got rid of the hum... Yay!!! Two layers of a coiled steel band around the diameter of the transformer did the trick. The best part was that Avel Lindberg sent it to me for free.

Happy Birthday, Dan.

Ok, added holes and screws. Next need to make a cable, perform some turntable modifications and then the software side of the project.

I've long been a twitter follower of his and yeah... he posts some really unintentionally funny tweets. Despite his goofy public persona, I've always thought of Magic as a bright guy when the lights are off. I think he will do OK leading the Lakers but I also thought Phil Jackson would do OK leading the Knicks so what do I know?

dang it - missed this - Steve, hope you had a great birthday weekend, Happy Birthday!!

Ahhhhhhhh, so sorry I missed this too, Steve. A very happy, yet belated, birthday to Dr. Wood!

Okay that's pretty funny along with all the roasts of magic's old tweets That said, this is pretty accurate: http://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/la-sp-lakers-buss-transactions-20170221-story.html Not sure whether to cry or to cry harder

Happy Belated my Michigan friend. I hope it was a great day!

So sorry I missed this Steve. You really are one of my favorite human beings and I am so glad you've started another orbit around the sun. Debbie sends her love too. Happy Birthday!

Missed this too! Happy Belated Tice!

Steve, very belated, but hope you had a great birthday!

Happy Birthday, Al!

'S'truth, have been since a child. Sent from my mind using id, ego, or superego...

Don't know the details, but they'll sound good if he likes them.

surfer rosa

Yeah the BHSE is redundant, I gutted mine to farm worms.

Looks fantastic! Always wanted to learn to laminate with nice woods (without the blood). Can't wait to see how it comes out!

No, he'll get it better than any other versions. But it still won't be right.

Happy Belated Birthday Steve! Sorry I missed this.

I've never had problems reworking 1oz boards (several cycles) if they are quality fab boards. 2oz is probably better though I don't know if 2oz is bonded to the substrate any better than 1oz is. I guess the additional copper must have some effect. Today's boards are a far cry from some of the '80s shit, where traces would lift if you looked cross-eyed at them Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have a few old arc's that have been salvaged from headphones which were too far gone but that's the only ones I know about. The cable issue is far worse though as they often see so much abuse.

Go set yourself on fire in Tunisia.

Checked the actual board (marked the same as yours Kevin, from the group buy, lovely black soldermask), and the 2 electros up by the MOSFETs run from V+ to V-. I'd have to refresh my memory on bypassing, as I recall this being done with opamps before, but I would think to gnd would be better? Still running 1 pair of devices, removed the 1K gate stopper and put sockets in. With 221R everything looks fine, other than it is resembling lampizator construction technique. Marc: thanks for the Cordell link. I read quite a bit of that, plus took a look at his book on amplifier design. It appears that he always uses gate zobels consisting of 39pf->100R->gnd on his amps. He seemed to indicate that he always uses them.

Chanel will not arrive for probably 3 weeks, they said 8-10 days to get to them before even shipping it from Switzerland/Italy. We'll get the pics when it arrives. Crappy phone picture: Got it sized no problem though I may have put a microscratch on the side of one or more of the spare links. Plan to wear it a lot so I'm not going to worry about it. Tried to post a video of it running with the second hand sweeping but Tapatalk wasn't cooperating. Lume shot:

Happy birthday, Steve!

It's not that bad but they have probably replaced a lot of drivers over the years. Well that and headbands...that thing is just a pile of fail.

Replaced the cable in my SR-009 yesterday. They are playing great now. When soldering the wires to the stator and diaphragm tabs, I came across some details that I thought should be passed on. Desoldering all the wires and removing the old cable was not a problem. See the "Ants in My Stax" thread for 009 disassembly. Remove all the plastic parts mounting the cable to the ear pod, don't try to desolder the wires/cable with these in place -no room. On reassembly, first note orientation of the cable for each ear pod, The arrow on one side of the molded strain relief is to be assembled on the inside only (ear side) and will help ensure signal polarity between L&R channels. Soldering the +/- signal wires to the stator tabs was straightforward. Where it got interesting was when I went to solder the pro bias wires to the diaphragm tabs. The diaphragm solder tabs on my SR-009 are a small additional part that had been riveted to the actual diaphagm. The right side rivet was well attached and the wire/tab easily soldered. But the left side rivet was loose and the tab rotated wildly when I touched it with my solder tip. Took some doing, but got it soldered. Then to double check when done, I measured the continuity of each wire from solder tab to cable pin. All measured 0.01 ohm, except the left bias wire. That measured ~25 ohms and varied wildly as the tab was minimally rotated. I then attempted to solder the bias wire to the diaphragm directly, but did not want to heat too much and possible melt it. Also, the material did not take to solder (probably aluminum?) and so the reason for the riveted solder tab. I finally resorted to adding a blob of solder (with the bias wire) on the tab, and rotating until the tab wedged tight under the diaphragm. That ended up also measuring 0.01 ohm and was stable with the cable assembled. Powering up the headphones, I noticed that both L and R channels started playing at nearly the same time. Previously, the L channel took several seconds longer to start playing, and usually had a sllght and wandering imbalance with the R channel for the first 1/2 hour or so. I took that as amp warm up (KGST), as things settled in nicely after that time. Now, the central image is rock stable from the start up, and the soundstage is balanced and huge. Got me thinking that loose rivets may be a cause of imbalance in some SR-009s, and takes longer to fully charge? My 009s are around 3 years old. I did not take photos while I was working on them, but attached detailed photos from the "Ants in My Stax" thread from 2012. In those earlier headphones, Stax is seen to have used a screw and nut to assemble the solder tab to the central diaphragm. Later versions like mine were "cost reduced" to rivet that connection. When that changed over in production, I do not know. I could image the intermittent coming and going of stereo balance problems written about, may be due to a loose rivet and random cable handling. That might be something others with SR-009 channel imbalance issues may want to check out. Earside view (note arrow), circa 2012: Opposite view, circa 2012:

Another two GRLV live! These are set up for 20VDC rails to power my dual-mono SS Dynalo. Thanks to Pars for his creation and generosity of sharing the Schottky bridges with a built-in AC snubber. Although I have to settle for the LM4040 VREF for now until I get the LT1021.

here is a dxf file that is modified, https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwUlR99qUHFqQnVZcGkzMjBva3c I enlarged it .250" to allow for 1/4" square stock to use as a frame and made other minor changes, its not perfect yet but getting close. RCA hole size increased to fit the lip around them. the IEC corners have been rounded more but haven't tested that also want a round button instead of the square one test pieces out of PCB and yes I cheated on the trimpots and I find these very hard to solder: