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It started with repairing a badly damaged shangri la jr driver 2 years ago, I almost rebuilt the set from the diaphragm to the stators，and of course the dust cover😦 The first thing I discovered is that the 'nano-technology' used by hifiman actually comes from the covering used by indoors aircraft model enthusiasts，the name is OS film and it is still available on ebay or https://www.indoorffsupply.com/shop/os-film-25ft-roll-1 the driver of the hifiman estats is completely glued which is similar to the early stax lambdas, but hifiman glue is significantly worse...after opening the driver i found that they only use OS film for their dust cover, the diaphragm is another PET film ~ a little bit thicker but with much better strength. In order to repair the diaphragm, I found a seller on Alibaba who can provide samples of Toray PET film with thickness below 2 microns at an acceptable price，and use the inner tire stretcher to stretch the film like any other diy estats ，Then test it with a 10" subwoofer and minidsp umik-1 to find proper F0. conductive coating is another serious problem，I've tried quite a few methods including antistatic agents like licron crystal, ANTISTATIK100，floor cleaner，carbon-based coatings such as graphene, and alcohol-soluble nylon, even tried nano-silver wire solution and metal evaporation...Some of them are sensitive to humidity, some arcs，some are ridiculously expensive, some have uneven surface resistance distribution, and some are sensitive to temperature changes. Yah~ finding the proper conductive coating is the most difficult part especially for a layman. unexpectedly, I tried to search for hifiman patents, hoping to find something useful... here's a patent showing that they used some kind of metal oxide nano particles as conductive coating for their estats. emmm，very interesting...🙄 By consulting with chemistry professionals, I decided to try a solution called ATO (antimony doped tin oxide), there are many antistatic agents I have used before have ATO ingredients though. I got some ATO alcohol solution at concentration around 10~15%, it works really well, and coating appearance is somewhat identical to hifiman diaphragm! The last thing is to repair stators. hifimans probably use #150~300 brass mesh and solder their edges to a 2mm thick aluminum base plate PCB board, then glue the rest of middle part. I've tried tensioning those brass mesh with embroidery frame and manual screen stretcher，but it is not tight enough to stretche brass mesh in this way, the mesh itself is too strong to tighten it up... then I found some brass sieves with different meshes on taobao and these machined copper screens are perfect for making DIY mesh stators... after everything's ready，i desoldered OG brass mesh, cleaned the copper foil, applied low temperature solder paste, and carefully soldered the new brass mesh with a heat gun. During the process of repairing shangri la jr, I started planning to make some bigger mesh stator estats... of course，the target is its big brother shangri la SR😈I received a set of the first batch of shangri la sr made in 2016，here is the headphone inside，yap~inherited the tradition of hifiman with such horrible workmanship...😱 however，SR sounds not as technical as the X9000 though，but with more pleasant and passion. SR uses 3mm thick aluminum base plate PCB instead of 2mm on JR version，2 black things in the middle are to prevent the diaphragm from attaching stators，The D-S gap is around 0.7~0.8mm(thickness of glue included) which is identical to JR version，active area is close to 6400mm² ，that is pretty large diaphragm size for a commercial product though，but less 5300mm² of area on stator allows air to pass through. I tried to use the 3mm FR4 board as mesh holder at first time，however，mesh stator disassembly is not an easy job...therefore，I changed to use 1.5mm brass plates as the mesh holder and glued the copper mesh to it , brass mesh is also replaced with higher # red copper mesh for more convenient adhension. I spent most of time adjusting the tension of the diaphragm and finally found the tension needed for F0 similar to OG SR ,the clone driver has a slightly enlarged diaphragm(6839mm²) ，0.73mm fr-4 pcb spacer， and everything is screwed to the housing cover. The frequency response of clone and SR are generally similar，but the sensitivity difference between the two is about 1.5dB actually，SR is more diffused...clone one sounds a bit more clearer. SR has obvious recession between 1-2kHz，it may be caused by a sealing problem in the space between the driver and the earcup.... It's unlikely to be solved without EQ, but it doesn't sound as bad as it looks from the graphics. one more thing... Every shangri la must have a throne , so I made one for my mutation🤣

Pasquale Grasso

I have been commuting to work on this since March of last year. I don’t have to worry about gas.

Went to my dad's to visit, just me and him. We talked about our family history (still much unknown), and of him playing basketball in Philadelphia growing up (and how basketball was a "Jewish game" early on). I recorded 2 long videos of it, so good to have this info although a lot of the family history is so vague.... I had mentioned he played against Wilt Chamberlain in a school playground basketball court....he mentioned that Wilt's nickname - before becoming Wilt the Stilt - was "Dippy" Chamberlain! 😄 This is pure gold for me, having this on record now. Karen had also done some recordings of her mom before she passed, about her family and what she knew. To be treasured for sure.....

Waiting for Jp’s arrival. He has a bunch of he has a bunch of headphones to try out with his Matirx Sabre DAC. I have HP1’’s with the J Grado amp (Gene’s gear) as well as my Lola’s and Matirx Mini Pro 3 Streamer.

Don't look now but the Evel Knievel of dirt bikes is is now "well into" his 40s.

And free of butyric acid

Agreed on the 32GB of RAM and 6GB of video memory. Also, some of the "more powerful" laptops are quite loud.

Lenovo has some Thinkpad workstation laptops that will work well that are in stock. I just got this one for Fusion360: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadp/thinkpad-p1-gen-4/20y3004hus

I just recently got myself this: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1657652-REG/asus_16_vivobook_pro_m7600qe_xb99.html 32G, AMD Ryzen 9, high-res OLED display albeit non-touch, under $2K. I waited forever for it, though (well, 6 months, but with today's technology, that's eternal). They also have lower end models.

I'd agree with Ian, but would bump up both RAM and maybe video memory. A couple of folks on my team doing Data Science got Dell Latitudes with 32G RAM and I think 6G NVidia video memory. The Dell - both Precision and Latitude, though Precision may have better keyboard - and Lenovo laptops would be my recommendations as well.... And she should be prepared for driver updates, another thing (HW and driver stability) Apple has over PC's....

When I left my Government position last fall, the company I went to work for ordered a new laptop for me. It was a Dell Precision 3551 Mobile Workstation. Intel i7 5.1GHz Processor, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSHD, NVIDIA 4GB Graphics Adapter, 15.6" screen. It has zero issues running AutoCAD... I use Architectural Desktop. The keyboard seems better than most I've tried. And it's pretty well put together for a Windows machine, though the cost is still staggering considering it's nowhere near the build quality of a MacBook Pro.

Like most pre-amplifiers the blue hawaii topology is actually an attenuator followed by fixed amplification stages. (in the case of the blue hawaii totalling x1000 times gain). The amplification stages will amplify by a fixed amount regardless and independently of the blue hawaii volume control. The blue hawaii volume control simply reduces the input voltage before it is then amplified by x1000. This means any noise on the inputs will also be multiplied by 1000! if you bypass the volume control so you need a quiet pre amp and sources. One thing to be cautious of is, when you switch off anything connected to the inputs of the blue hawaii if thing being switched off creates a thump or generates a dc offset as it is shutting down the blue hawaii will be multiply it by x1000 and sent it to the headphones... THUMP! SIZZLE! So its highly recommended to have the blue hawaii volume at full attenuation before you switch anything else on or off. You can get a similar situation if you switch off a preamp before switching off the power amp in a loudspeaker setup. Other than this their should be no problems and in fact some forum members have built blue hawaiis and similar without volume controls in them.

Pat Metheny Group Live Motreal 1982

A small bottle of sample I took from a local college friend, the ingredients included ATO powder with a particle size of 20-30nm, some surfactant, and the rest was some kind of alcohol solution. I was told to mix extra anhydrous alcohol at a ratio of 1:3 to dilute it for coating, but I didn't dilute it, just sprayed it on the sponge to apply the stretched film, and there were some traces of liquid on the surface of the film after drying , it looks the same as the hifiman's. that shangri la jr driver was later used as a test driver for testing different thicknesses of films.

Happy belated birthday Rob!

I was off the grid, so I'll add another belated happy birthday Rob! Cheers!

looks fun! it's been a while, maybe I'll stop by the next one 😁

Must resist the sexual inuindos in that statement. Having great difficulty!

I will volunteer to do a long term test/review for you, should you choose to purchase and have sent to me.

There will be plenty of demand for DIY repairs; this is what my second set of Shangri La drivers looked like after just over two years. You will be one busy man. The first set had a rattle in the right driver and was replaced, also. Build dates were 2018, 2019, 2022. The last Hifiman warranty replacement took 6 months to arrive. Traded the new set for what I paid for them - a little more than a moldy bread sandwich. At least the Hifiman sandwich comes with a 5 year warranty.

Thanks all! I had a decent day and took it easy.

i am really glad i didn't buy ls50 wireless in the past... very good chance i will try these at some point https://us.kef.com/wireless/ls60/ls60-wireless.html

I'm finally able to put a closure on this pentode experiment, sorta. What finally improved the THD figure between 300V and 500Vrms output is the driver transistor. I replaced the PZTA42s with TTC004Bs when trying the original GG circuit with EL34s, while the PZTA42s remained in the left channel. With SiC FET as the output device, the driver transistor has a pretty steep load line, so the nonlinearities on the upper left portion of the curve didn't matter that much, as long as the idle Vce is chosen to be high enough to avoid that area. With the GU50 tube as output device, the driver transistors not only need to swing current, but also swing voltage (about 10Vpp), so the load line is more flat. The nonlinearities of the transistor becomes more problematic. The PZTA42s have to go. The KSC2690s I have on the left channel have higher hFE than the TTC004B on the right. The two channels ended up having very close THD+N curves. The 2nd harmonic is more prominent than the 3rd in the left channel with the KSC2690s, not sure if that's consequential. The hum is 110dB below the 100Vrms mark, with the 12.6V filament transformer CT simply tied to B-. I'm quite happy with the sound on my SR-009. It has the basic characteristics of the Carbon with a very slight touch of tube softness, yet not losing resolution or immediacy. I searched up and down but didn't find another pentode more suitable for this role, at least on paper. If some day I manage to put this into an enclosure, the ugly 'hats' would surely be sticking out.

We came to possibly the lamest conclusion, all three are pretty awesome. We had way different rankings I preferred the lcd5 of the three amd Mike the he1kse. The lcd5 to me was the most revealing of the three and had the wettest midrange. When a headphone out details the HE1kse that's impressive and the lcd5 did just that. I love the other two as well and could easily and very happily live with any of these. Hifiman wins for comfort and least picky of sources while holding its own in every audio category we compared them in. I do think the adx5000 is the mofo steal of the century at almost half the price of the HE1kse and less than half the price of the lcd5. Very very fast sounding extremely dynamic but can be slightly thin sounding. Both the adx5000 and lcd5 improve with eq and take eq well the HE1kse doesn't need much.