Leaderboard

I don't know, Mike is a Tom Bihn kind of guy, so I think I may need to buy a Mytek (RedOxx) from Justin, as it seems it may suit me better than a soft bag with pink lace interior.

Wow, it is so good! I was 10 years old when the original came out and I can remember playing multiplayer against friends in the days when we had to manually dial each other's 28.8k modems. And with the remaster:

So I built I fire today... This will eventually be a golden reference bias supply / doubler (because over-kill has no limits). My probe apparently touched something it shouldn’t have. Quite the spectacular fireworks. My heart is still racing

Maybe they'll make cables next.

Actually, I think their strategy is that if you charge enough people will think they sound good or at least delude themselves into thinking they sound good to justify the price they paid.

final version of SS/ZF board with jumpers to go from one to the other. 5 db of gain unbal to unbal 11db of gain ubal to bal 17db of gain bal to bal thinking of a relay board to sit on top with front panel SS/ZF switch. would be a unique feature cfp3rssfixedsssw - CADCAM.ZIP

your new rig looks nice

It's alive! Finished wiring today, only thing missing is drilling the front panel for the 4 pin XLR, waiting on a drill bit. Probably the best amplifier I had for the HD650. Absolutely dead silent, great sound! I'll need to make a better comparison with the dynalo mini, but at first glance it sure seems like a winner. Thanks for all the help I got during the build!

Newly released.

Morning Prog

So when I got my case I got pretty upset with the looks of the power switch: So I search around the house for what could be used to improve this and found and unused aluminum kitchen drawer handle. Nice looks, hollow and easy to cut. A couple of minutes later:

Just got these in a week ago, just got back from Kerry’s comparing these with his SR007mk1 and SR009. some photos of them https://imgur.com/a/sFUOz0S the website for them https://www.eslabhk.com/

^^^ Liked for Cowboy Junkies....

I'm halfway into the third episode and suddenly it's Weekend at Bernie's – I suspect we are being trolled. The cast must have had fun shooting it (no smiles allowed). Gives fresh insight into the term "corpsing." I've somehow managed to dodge ten years' worth of spoilers by living in the matrix.

I’m not sure the series deserves an entire thread, but considering the scathing nature of the commentary I’ll allow it. unrelated:

I liked her baked eggs recipe. I'll go back and watch the rest of them, too. She's very charming and she presents well on the video. The first episode of Downton was very serious and melodramatic, but the second episode showed more comedic potential. I joked to a friend that I am looking forward to six seasons (and a film) of British people being mean to each other in the nicest settings. A brief meme search on Google also gave me the term "posh frock porn."

Martin Logan Dynamo 10s and Velodyne SMS-1.

Remarkably, most of the components survived. The current regulator, U1, was vaporized along with the set resistors. The main fire was from the bottom through hole resistor. Next step, Poubelle! After that, I’m putting in a more robust current regulator.

A member of a discord I'm in posted this: So I did this quick and dirty PS:

A week without offset servo and most of the time jumpers for balance servo have been removed. Today amplifier started out with offsets up to -40V. After half of an hour offsets between 0V and -10V and unbalance 5V and 10V. I think this is acceptable.

Arcy sparky!

Kerry most likely points to the zeners dynamic impedance which varies with current 1.3mA might operate the zeners too close to the knee

Those damn Bulgins vandalize everything!

Are the Zeners 3W or higher. They may have a higher test point if so. The current regulator supplies about 1.3mA. Also, are they 10% or 20%?

Smoke em if you got em

They're purrfect.

Maybe if you smoke enough they actually start to sound good? 🤣

jh13

Best workout, run, biking music in existence. BTW, RTJ4 just came out and 1-4 are all good. IMO 2 is the best. Enjoy.

these came with the pads that the maker said were the better ones. i have no complaints with these pads.. that are the "dark" ones already.

got my es1a yesterday. need more time, but first listen, they sound great! i also bought the kaldas rr1 out of curiosity. I might like these es1a more then my sr009 and sr007mk1

The ES1a is my choice. It’s all around more capable one of the two in my opinion. However it is much more in cost as well so it better be. The RR1 are excellent as well and should be a consideration as they compare well to many other stuff out there just not really in the same level the SR007 and SR009 are.

If you are going to Canjam this weekend in NYC, ill be there likely most of the time over the two days. Ill have both my Kaldas RR1 and ES1a with me if anyone is interested in a listen.

I will be getting both sets of pads and naturally... I take everything apart so expect pics. 🙂 No doubt the normal bias SR-X is a bit bright as they were tuned like that. Stax wanted to bleed off a lot of the bass so the end result is a bright set. My point was more with the importance of the pads as they matter a lot with the close proximity of the drivers. Also when they have arc'ed...they get even brighter.

With the SR-X series the pads make or break them. The current pads Stax stock are actually SR-30 units as the originals haven't been available for a long time. Now for the topic at hand, I have one of these incoming so it will be fun to play with. 🙂

I have the same stax as you, I think these are worth a look at. For me when I got the SR009 I was looking for some things the sr007 lacked for me. Unfortunately it was close but no cigar. I’m pretty happy with the ES1a and Im currently freeing up some gear for it.

As mentioned the 5khz null is audible with sine sweep but I can't hear anything while listening to music. Suffice to say it is probably too high in Q to be an audible defiency (or if it is, a rather small one). The spike right above 4khz is definitely an artifact of the EARS rig. And I agree HPN does not particularly line up with my personal percieved "neutral". The Stax SR-X MK3 (normal bias) measures almost completely flat on EARS but is horrifically bright if you actually listen to it.

So, I actually have a miniDSP EARS. I don't particularly like posting measurements from it since it is notoriously unreliable due to improper acoustic impedance as well as a couple other issues. I decided to measure ES-1a and compare it to a couple of the headphones that have been mentioned in here so far. These are not industry standard measurements and should not be treated as such. They are highly unreliable and should be completely disregarded above 2-ish Khz. Lower if you want to be conservative. You will also notice some wiggling in the FR at low frequencies due to room noise, especially for the 007 measurements, this is not an accurate representation of the bass. SPL these are aligned at is not the actual SPL used for measurement, and note the much more compressed scale than what is commonly used, this will exaggerate things that are otherwise not problematic. Compensation used is HPN. ES-1a (dark pads) and L700 (stock) ES-1a (dark pads) and 007 (blu-tack modded) ES-1a (dark pads) and 404LE (not quite perfect seal, creates the bass rise) ES-1a (dark pads) and ES-1a (stock pads) All these measurements have 1/12th octave smoothing, I consider that most accurate to what you as a human will hear. I'm happy to provide unsmoothed plots if anyone wishes for it though. Note that this has the midrange coloration that is much more in line with 007 than the lambdas. It still benefits from bringing down the midrange a notch in EQ. The null at 5Khz is audible with sine sweep but I do not hear it in normal music listening. Once again: EARS is highly unreliable and should only be trusted below 2Khz where it is mostly accurate. Also note that very slight position changes will alter the treble response especially much.

There's no way the L700 is better than the 007, at least in my experience. The L700 sounds more artificial and "off" at least in terms of midrange tone, whereas the 007 sounds more natural and is better in nearly every technical aspect. The issue with the 007 is that it's one of the least user-friendly headphones out there, hard to amp, very fit dependent, self-adjusting headband system that's awkward and keeps pulling the headphones out of position, modding required for the Mk2 models, etc etc. The 007 has the potential to sound really bad in the wrong system whereas the L700 generally sounds similar from system to system. But the 007 will scale and leave the L700 well behind. In regards to the 007 being too dark or too laid-back - just EQ 2-6khz up a little bit and problem solved. You need an amp with plenty of headroom though. There are reasons to fix the L700 Mk1. My broken yoke on one side is one. It's a good thing the new ones are metal. Also, the earcups have little tabs on them that prevent the top of the earcup from swiveling outwards far enough, putting too much pressure on the top of the earpad, and not enough on the bottom. It's an asinine design, and I'm guessing the extra bend in the yokes in the Mk2 is there for that reason. It would have been smarter still to delete the tabs entirely. Granted, the L700 is still rather good. Very punchy and dynamic, with a very 3D and holographic stage. The latter is probably the best aspect of it, that and the general forwardness of the presentation. But the 007 it ain't. RE: ES1a - interesting, and I'll put it on my radar. Maybe if impressions keep being positive (and I want to see some more comparative measurements) I might pick one up later down the line. Lots of other things to get to first.

I am working under the assumption that L700 and L700mk2 are sonically identical or at least very close. I've not heard the mk2 but owned the L700 mk1 on 2 different occasions. I see no reason for stax to change the headphone, and most forum posters elsewhere seem to have noted that it is very similar if not identical. Just a caveat. I don't really think L700 is better than either SR-009 or SR-007 (but I can understand someone preferring it tonally) and that the difference between them is quite apparent. I feel the same with regards to the ES-1a. ES-1a has a more even treble response, better bass (which is of course at least somewhat alleviated by blu-tack mod which I also used). The staging on the ES-1a also feels larger to me. The midrange peak of the L700 and ES-1a sound similar to me (in terms of what frequency it happens at) but with L700 reaching a slightly higher amplitude and therefore being somewhat more shouty. Build quality seems good to me, I'm a little skeptical of the strain relief but it seems fine I suppose. The entire headphone cup and yoke is aluminum (which is the reason for it being so heavy). In that regard it feels a lot like SR-009. The headpad and stock earpads are lower quality than what stax offer but the "dark" pads which are in a different leather feel very high quality/smooth grained leather. The headband and baffle are nylon, they feel sturdy enough. The headband is very similar to the headband my SR-Lambda has but it does feel slightly more solid. I think the slider on one side is a little loose, however. I haven't felt anything worth complaining about at least, and judging from the pictures on their website the driver assembly seems well done too.

Hmm. How would you compare L700 MkII vs. ES-1a? I've been looking for a used L700 MkI, meaning to do the BlueTak mod, since several reviews keep saying L700 is "better" than SR007 and SR009, with brightness level between the two, which would be about right for my tastes..

I bought one of these and got them on Tuesday. Been spending a lot of time with them since then, I ordered with both pairs of pads. Some thoughts: The stock pads are irredeemably garbage sounding to me, the bass is off, the midrange is simultaneously forward and recessed (way too much 1Khz and not enough 2-4Khz) and there is way too much treble in the 8-10Khz range. I legitimately had a hard time listening to these. I'm sure some people will like these but this is reminiscent of the SR-507 in terms of how forward/thin it sounds (not a good thing). With these pads? Not a fan. The other pads I ordered which are the ones the creator says has the more laid-back nature is much more to my preference. It is somewhat more forward in the midrange than 007 (which I think is a good thing, 007 lacks a bit of energy between 2-4Khz for me), but I would not call it particularly shouty. It certainly is less shouty than something like the 404LE for instance. With these pads the treble also becomes fantastic, very similar to 007 treble to my ears. Bass was a mixed bag, when I first got them I felt like they were lacking a bit of slam/impact despite going very deep/having good rumble (much like 009S). Over time I feel like the bass has improved in this regard. I think burn-in is a hot load of garbage (other than minor changes in thiele-small parameters) so the more likely answer is the pads softening up a bit. Overall I really like the headphone with these pads, it's what the 009S should have been in my opinion. It seems like a good counterpoint to the 007 if using the dark pads. Slightly more forward, but with a bigger stage than the slightly more intimate feeling 007. Some annoyances: pad attachment uses rivets similar to SR-Omega. Not a huge issue but kind of scary to work with since the dust cover is basically exposed to the screwdriver you use to remove the rivets. Also means it takes a while to remove the pads. The pads do sit on very nicely once attached though. This headphone is also heavy, I have no issue with 700+ grams of weight but I know the approx. 650 grams this headphone weighs is gonna be too much for a lot of people. It's still more comfortable than 007 for me due to the fact that my head is too large for 007 (headband rests against the arc) but I don't think this will be the case for the vast majority of people. Currently this costs about the same as L700mk2 and between those 2 picking this one (with dark pads) is a no-brainer to me. Pretty stellar headphone overall, definitely a keeper. From the pictures this looks like the "dark" pads due to the round ear opening and the higher quality leather. EDIT: Swap around what I said above most likely. The pads I thought were the "dark" pads are the ones that came installed on the headphone.

Hi, there website needs updating I had a loaner unit with a new pad that is meant to replace the two mentioned on the website as of now, this single new one is suppose to strike a balance between the two older pads mention on the website. I am wondering how the other pads change things and I’m waiting to see if ES can send those as well. If you email them you can possibly request for whatever pads they have. So far the communication is excellent with replies always within the day.

Very interesting. We enjoyed them on my T2 and Carbon

Had a Weller Pyropen Piezo years ago and liked it for a couple of things. One was soldering stuff in other places than my desk where I couldn't be bothered to get the soldering iron and an extension cord. The other was soldering thick speaker cables to drivers/crossovers where I needed more heat than my stationary iron could provide. For electrician-type soldering and heat shrink it's probably fine, but I wouldn't use it for electronics. Not only because of the crude temperature control but also because then ones I have seen all seem to eject (very) hot air off to one side. Realistically it's only a matter of time before you turn the iron in a way that means the hot air will damage a board or some parts.