hirsch

No kidding. A tube that is badly matched with the other one in its channel can make the amp impossible to bias correctly. Reasonably matched pairs are absolutely necessary. Nothing quite as frustrating as watching the voltage get closer and closer to 0 on the meter, and hitting the limit of the trimpot before you get there.

My set had the driver units replaced by new drivers sent from Germany. Sennheiser US did the assembly, and I doubt that Germany would have sent new drivers if all that was needed were resistors, unless those resistors are in the driver assembly itself. The headphones themselves never left the US. Mikhail has taken apart both old and new HE90's. He believes the "Staxification" to simply be spacers between the stator and the membrane. Apparently, the new batch were built with a smaller gap than the older ones, which he believes was the source of the problems. Simply increasing the gap to the proper distance may have been the fix. I attempted the bias mod that you posted on Head-Fi for the 007t a couple years back, in addition to altering the bias loading resistor, but neither had an effect on the membrane sticking to the stators. Accordingly, I'm inclined to believe that bias voltage was not the problem, but I'm keeping an open mind on this one. If photos exist of a resistor mod, I'd love to see them.

I doubt that it was the resistor, as I tried the resistor myself before sending the headphones to Sennheiser to be "Staxified". AFAIK Sennheiser has not publicly said to anyone exactly what the issue was. The person who would know would be Jan Meier, but he waffled when I asked what the issue turned out to be. In theory, the mod was not supposed to affect sonics at all, just get rid of the stator sticking issue with Stax amps.

Yes to the first. If you use published maximum power handling specs, the R10 can draw more amps than the K-1000. Impedance is not flat throughout the headphone, being lowest, meaning it needs more current draw, in the low end. It's still not doing to be bass-heavy, but you do need to feed it more amperage than just about any other headphone or the low end starves. You're not going to get this without a good amp. High output current is a good thing for any low-impedance headphone. That includes Grado's.

Never encourage a pen collector to show off pens. We'll do it. Here's a sampling:

I've never really gone after the vintage Pelikans, but do have some very nice Soenneckens. My main collection centers around Chilton, Leboeuf, and Carters, although I'm actually all over the place. This was a Chilton type week: 1 Wingflow, 1 bronze/black LI, 1 "Lox Top" in sea green, 1 "Macy's" pen, made for the store by Chilton, 2 "Seth Sears" pens, and an oversize Wahl Doric as a changeup.

I've never heard a speaker system that was able to recreate the space of an original recordings. Given that much of the music that I listen to is electronic, and is not a "live" (in the sense of real-time, rather than the mortality of the musician) recording, that's probably a good thing. Given some of the places where I've heard concerts that were later released as "live" recordings (I know of at least a dozen, maybe more), I'd say failure to recreate the live event is an even better thing in many cases. You say sound field, I say sound stage. You say tomayto, I say tomahto... In either case, there is an area in which sounds can occur. It should ideally extend beyond the ears. IME a system that simply plays from ear to ear is very limited. In any event, it defines the area in which instruments can appear to be located. Within that space, the instrument can appear to be at a very specific point, or can be diffuse and hard to pin down. When I hear the latter, I fix it. By separation, I think that you're referring to the ability to hear both high and low volumes simultaneously, even if the instruments are near each other in the sound field. Yes...I can live with that, although I fail to see how binaural has anything to do with anything that we're talking about. Actually, you're using "delusion" in the wrong way, as it implies the possibility of hearing something veridically. We can't, any more than we can see something veridically. We're very familiar with optical illusions. These work because the visual system must simplify input in systemic ways. They are hardwired. There is no way to have an "OIC" moment and see shades of gray in the absence of their context, for example (there are lots of examples of visual illusions on the web). What is less known is that audition works similarly. There is a lot of processing that goes on in the brain prior to hearing a sound. Here's an interesting experiment. Take a short sound sample (20 sec or so). Cut out a couple of 100 msec gaps per second, leaving the gaps. Take the sound sample, with gaps, and copy it. In the second sample add white noise at the approximate volume of the sample to the gaps. Be sure that the actual audio content is identical, and that the only difference in the samples is the presence of white noise in the gaps. Listen to both and report back. Then check out the work of Daniel Levitin as a good starting point to understanding what just happened.

Hyperbole? Guilty, but I needed a way to express just how much better the Qualia is in that particular aspect of sound than just about anything else, IME. I'm curious about your comment about "headstage". I take it as the ability for a headphone to place instruments in a discrete location is space. The space in which those instruments can appear is the "headstage". However, the nature of headphones can sometimes cause discontinuities in the space (the "blob" effect, with concentration of sound at the ears and in the exact center of the head), which is why some people use crossfeed. I've never had issues with the "blob" effect on most high-end gear, which is why I tend to think of the need for crossfeed as a symptom of something else in the system that needs to be fixed. Biggest "headspace" of any headphone: K-1000, followed by HE90 and Qualia 010. Most precise placement of instruments in that space of any headphone: Qualia 010, followed by HE90 and R10.

I just bought a vintage fountain pen. Repeat this post daily.

Uh, no. Saying that the HP-2 can do pinpoint imaging like the Qualia is something akin to saying that a Chevette handles like a Corvette. Resolution on any Grado is not anywhere close to the Qualia 010. Pinpoint imaging is where the Qualia lays the smackdown on any electrostatic I've heard also, although the ES1/HE90 is finally getting close enough to make it a contest. The problem, and one of several reasons that made the Qualia a commercial failure, is that it is a one-person headphone. It's got to be adjusted exactly to the user, and then left alone. If you put a different head in the middle, the odds of it sitting correctly are small. If positioning is even slightly off, you're hearing a distorted version of the sound, not the Qualia itself. Not good in a commercial product. Add the fragility of the headband to the mix, and you've got a real problem. Sony lost a lot of money on that one. Between finding the fit and breaking headbands, the Qualia I've got is my fourth.

No sorry about it. Synergism is just about everything. For example, I have no doubt that everything that spritzer has said about the HE90 driven by the Blue Hawaii is absolutely true, and that I'd hear the same thing in his rig. However, it's not necessarily the fault of the HE90. The original commission that bozebuttons gave to Mikhail many years ago was to build a maxxed out Blue Hawaii for the HE90. The problem came about when the Blue Hawaii and HE90 sounded anywhere from mediocre to awful together. Mikhail finally gave up trying to make that combination work together, put the BH design aside, and put together an amp specifically targeted to the HE90. It also happens to be a superb Omega II amp, but that wasn't the driving motivation for building it in the first place. So, I've got to laugh at Spritzer's descriptions of HE90 sound, because I've heard it all before from Mikhail, when he was bitching about trying to get the Blue Hawaii design to work with the HE90 long ago. The difference is that Mikhail went on to design and build a better amp that addressed the issues he was hearing in the BH/HE90 combo, while spritzer just keeps bitching and making pronouncements about the sound of the HE90, driven by an amp that some of us have known for years has little synergy with the headphone.

:rofl:

Nah, just needed to take some of the air out of Spritzer when he started posting about the sound of things he has never heard. That kind of post belongs on the other forum.

Umm, I hate to burst your bubble, but there are no output capacitors on an ES1, It is in fact directly coupled to the headphone so you might not want to push this argument too far. The ES1 is a far more transparent amp than the KGSS or KGBH, and yes, I've heard all of them with the HE90. Of the three, the BH had a warmish coloration lacking in the KGSS, but beyond that had very little to say that the KGSS didn't. I'm also sure that the designs have evolved, and that I haven't heard the latest iterations. Then again, I haven't heard the ES2 either. I try to only speak about the sonics of gear that I've heard, and my sig file is very deliberate mockery of posts like yours, where you have never heard the product, and apparently know little about the design either, but seem to feel a need to say something anyway.

Interesting. I was completely uninterested in Stax headphones in general a few years back. I had owned a 404 and sold it, and heard the Omega II many times, but had settled on HE60. Then a friend on Head-Fi held a mini-meet where I heard the Lambda Pro. IMO, it was better at that meet than the Omega II's that were floating around (and there was a great deal of different sources and amplification to try them with). I bought a Lambda Pro, and still have it (having long since bought and sold and Omega II; that headphone is too fucking polite). Lambda Pro has much better dynamics than SR-404 did, and is a great headphone for just rocking out.

My guess, based on the information given, is that your symptoms are consistent with pulling the headphone jack out of its socket. This would produce noise followed by silence. The cure for this one is easy: plug the headphone back in. If that's wrong, why don't you try giving whatever information that you have? What is the complete system that you are using? What tests have you done to test which components of your system are working? If you use an amp, does it still power on? Does it work with other headphones? Does your source power up? Do the headphones work with another source (if available)? yadda yadda yadda... You have more information than you posted, or you can get it, but you need to think through what it might be. If you post no information about the problem, you'll get silly answers if you get anything at all.

I love the name. I have a cat with very similar coloring who's named Rufus T. Firefly. I remember when I got my first stray, many years ago. I was at U of Illinois, and took him to the vet school for his shots. He had ear mites, and the vet wanted to take him back to clean his ears. I warned her that he didn't like having his ears touched, but she told me that she had done this many times and it would be no problem. Five minutes later, she brought him back out. She was putting bandages on her arms, and his ears hadn't been touched. If a cat could grin, he was doing it (he only had one upper canine, so his grin looked absolutely evil).

A few quick thoughts... First thing to do when there's hum in almost any audio product is to check for a ground loop. Try using a cheater plug from Rat Shack so that the ground pin isn't connected (the MPX-3 will still be grounded through the ground of the interconnects from your source). You can also plug the MPX-3 into a circuit (not just a socket, but the whole circuit) with nothing else plugged into it, and see if there's still hum. If either of these gets rid of the hum, then it's simply a matter of tracking down which component is interacting with the MPX-3 to create the ground loop. All components of your audio rig should be hooked into the same wall socket/power strip/conditioner/whatever you like so that they are all grounded at the same place to minimize the chance of a ground loop. Another common source of hum is EMI/RFI through unshielded interconnects. If your interconnects are not shielded, try one that is. If that eliminates the hum, then you've identified the problem, and can deal with it. If neither of the above works, I'd try different tubes to insure that a noisy tube wasn't affecting things.

Joe Grado designed a simple attenuation cable for running headphones from speaker amps. I'll post a copy if I can find it. Basically, in each channel, you put a 20 ohm resistor in the "hot" lead. A 2 ohm resistor goes from the "hot" lead (before the 20 ohm resistor) to ground, if I'm remembering it right. You use fairly high wattage resistors for this. This is done with dual banana plugs. Putting a plug into the speaker amp outputs the wrong way might be less than ideal ...

Just out of curiosity, do you have any idea what a capacitor is, or how it works?

Yes, I heard them, and did a bit of critical listening. Warm sound with nice imaging, but the sweet spot is tiny, as they are very directional. Dammit, I shouldn't have said that (see sig). I've heard bits and pieces of what happened with Ken, but am not going into it either. I miss him too.

The most creative use of RS-1 drivers I've seen was done by John Grado himself. The speakers in the background of this picture (from an early NY meet at Grado Labs) are made using a vertical column of RS-1 drivers. The people in the picture are bozebuttons, John Grado, and HighwayStar.

I've owned Virtual Dynamics cables for years (since you could get a demo Power 3 for about $40). I like the Master Series as the "sweet spot" where you get most of the high-end qualities. A friend of mine did an entire speaker rig in the Revelation Series (I've got one pair). Their cables are frequently on sale (current sale is 50% off), although 50% of expensive is still expensive. What they do best is dynamics (which is somehow appropriate). Usually, if I switch from them to another interconnect, it tends to sound like I've added compression somewhere. The VD cables don't limit dynamic range. I've gotten best results when entire system is rigged with Virtual Dynamics cables, including power cords. There are some components that simply won't pair with them (Wadia 301 would not sound right with VD power cord) and there is a settling in period of several days once you've bent them into your system. At first, they can sound slow. After a few days, not necessarily with a lot of music going through them, the slowness vanishes and the cable seems to disappear sonically. I have no explanation for any of this. If you're reasonably good at anticipating the bends you'll need in a cable, and bend them before hooking them up, they're actually pretty easy to use them, as long as the components are heavy enough to hold them down. I've heard the diffuse effect that Spritzer describes in the Nite Series interconnects and below. The Master Series and above provides much needed focus. Yep, they're expensive. Yep, they can sound bad with some components. And yep, when they're what you want in an interconnect, there is no substitute that I've heard. My priorities are a large, well-focussed sound stage with a lot of dynamic range, and the capability of both soft and loud sounds co-occurring and being easily distinguishable. So far, the Virtual Dynamics cables have given me that. I haven't heard anything else in my system I could listen to for long periods (but there are a LOT of cables I haven't heard, or haven't heard enough to have gotten their measure).

Probably been said before: You can't change a deal once you've made it, from either side. However, if either party starts modifying the agreement after the deal is made, the other has a right to back out. If the OP needed time to raise the full price, then his response to the seller should have said so, and offered a non-refundable good-faith deposit. The OP might have lost the item to someone who was ready to pay right away, but would have also removed grounds for the seller to scrap the deal. Dusty is right: 24-48 hours is not unreasonable, but not all people on the web are reasonable. I've been strung along so many times it's ridiculous. Think spending three-four days answering questions after a firm "I want it", and then having the buyer say he doesn't have the money (poor college student, sure) and can I sell for half the agreed price...while my other buyers have already been told a sale is pending. Happened a lot. These days, I'll only wait for people I know, or if there are no other buyers in line. Nothing says "I want it!" better than "You have cash!" from Paypal.

No, the problem is that imaging is very diffuse (at least using their balanced interconnects). I had a sample here for a couple of weeks, and didn't like the Jena Labs cable (trying to remember the model). Tonally, it's a very warm and luxurious sound, but the longer I listened, the more I missed the focus of my other interconnects. I don't care what an interconnect looks like, but do care what it sounds like.