spritzer

Well he has lost his marbles... I must say though that I feel the same way for current day Stax, they just sound a bit soulless and appear to be lost. They came out with the L series... but why make those changes? What is the purpose of fucking with the imaging on those and the X9000? Take this SR-Alpha Pro (Japanese Gamma Pro btw.) I got this week, it was utterly disgusting when it arrived so earpads and headpad had to go and a lot of time spent cleaning them up. Drivers were perfect though and they did clean up nicely: They sound far from perfect but I'd much rather use these than the 007S. They sound more alive despite their limitations and the tiny driver.

I wasn't sure where to put this either but this should be rare enough, the Sony ECR-800 energizer or the ECA-80 to be precise. Now there is a bit of a backstory to this one, I've never found a ECR-800 but I found this one for a song in China so I had to snap it up. It was in a bad way when it arrived, damage all over and the back sockets all a bit crooked but the worst was inside. See, Sony in their infinite wisdom, used a mercury switch for the input switching and that had broken in shipping. There was mercury all over the inside so I had to clean everything and dispose of it properly. It's a shame as its a very early unit with the custom Sony sockets, they later moved onto using Stax 6 pin sockets with these. I let it sit for probably a year before I decided what to do with it as so a full rebuild was in order. These are 100V only so for my use I need a new transformer, I fitted an IEC on the back, new binding posts with the switch function bypassed and all caps replaced. I also fitted a 6 pin Stax socket to the front as I don't have an ECR-800 and if I ever find one, odds are it will have that plug. Plus this works nicely with Stax normal bias sets. For the circuitry as it is a bit odd for 1978 or so. Most of the what's there is a protection circuit and output relay but the gray brick on the bottom is the bias supply, a DC/DC converter. It has clearly seen some use as there should be paint on there but it seems to work fine and there is clearly a ballast resistor in there too. It's also odd that the transformers have two sets of wires so each socket is fed from its own set of wires. See the 4 purple bias wires too, they are all common on the bias supply.

I like that riser for the power switch and the tubes visible through the front.

That looks rather old and not fun at all to work on. When was this made, the 90's?

No idea as I've never had a broken set here to experiment on. Based on this set the coating is definitely helping and I'm about 85% balanced now. The plan is to rewire them and see how much that changes. I'm not a fan headphones being out of phase in general, I always reverse it on HE60's when I work on them as they are also wired out of phase from the factory.

You can't plug normal bias headphones into a Pro bias output, that will just blow them up even on trash like the D10. If it is just the plug you want to modify, no you'd need to connect the left side bias somewhere in the cable as it is only connected to the center pin.

In an effort to try and finish up some of the gigantic pile of projects, here is a fully DC/DC powered KGSSHV. The unit is close to 10 years old but not really used at all as it ended up at Kevin's with some transformer trouble. A couple of years ago I made an effort to bring all those amps home so I stripped it down for transport and the transformer went in the trash to save on weight. Then I found those lovely 400V DC/DC bricks, added one for 600V bias (with a bit of a trim and filtering) and one for +/-15V, all driven off a 90W 24VDC Meanwell brick. I had to lower the output stage current a bit from stock and there is a tiny bit of coil whine coming from those HV supplies but it works well. The B+ supply is the hottest part in there at 60°C.

Kevin warned me about that stuff as it is toxic if I remember correctly. I have a rule of thumb, if Kevin says something is nasty stuff then I keep well clear.

Probably, never tried it and it always a question how long the coating would last but well worth a try.

We aren't in the EU and that muddles everything. I'll try that plus I should have some airbrush equipment somewhere. I just made some new stators for my Senn HD6x0 design that I want to try out.

Licron is not available here and shipping anything under pressure is a no-go. The Comfort was available at my local store so I'll give it a go. Nice consistency too and dirt cheap.

Interesting, I'll see if I can find that locally. Do you apply it with an airbrush or a sponge?

It was antistatex spray, it was what I had at hand and could use in a small dosage. I went away today and when I arrived home again the imbalance was back. Might not be as bad but yeah, not a good fix.

Yeah, pretty much. I was clearing up and found the broken X1's so time to do some tinkering. Sure enough, one driver started failing after an hour or so it's trash at this point... time for something drastic. I opened them up and nothing looks wrong so I just added some coating to the diaphragm, just a tiny bit. It's been an hour now and they sound pretty much balanced so this might have worked but it adds another issue, are Stax having coating issues 65 years in? Another thing about the X1, the drivers are wired out of phase as in the + signal goes to the back stator. Might be worth adding a cheater plug to these to reverse the phase to try out and the earpads on the X1 are clearly made by the same company as the 007S pads.

The original is on the right... the left one is clearly a fake

This is the 12th eruption and we have reached the point where people are protesting unfair police closures. It's well away from anything and already fizzling out so nobody is worried.

I see we have a member of the audio religion in our midst, how fun to see the scientologist poke their head out of their echo chamber. Arguing whether Class A is better than Class B is fucking retarded so let's not but the question of measurements is a fun one. Are you measuring something that actually matters or is it voltage swing in an electrostatic amp, meaningless stat that is measured in the one spot that makes it even more meaningless? If you go from 0.01 THD to 000.1 THD... how does that change the sound? Do we have hearing good enough to spot that or are we picking up something different? If something measures badly but sounds good, which is correct? If you claim something terrible sounds good... do you have enough experience to know it sounds bad? Just because you have ears, doesn't mean you know how to use them. Same goes with a scope or a test suite, just because you have it, doesn't mean you know what to look for. If you take a cult leader, hand him a device he doesn't understand because he's as thick as brick, he measures it incorrectly and claims "I don't understand why anybody think this is good"... was the device at fault or was the cult leader being retarded? If you smother everything in feedback, can you hear that? What if you remove all the feedback and make an unstable circuit, can you hear that? There are so many good questions out there...

Just look at the original 4070... they never estimated a person with a certain shape of the head so fit for those is not great.

This shit is pretty dire but I expect it got glowing reviews all over the place...

Sure, could be but there seems to be something going on as one user was apologizing to Stax saying "this fixed the issues he was having" according to google translate. For me the fit is pretty bad and the 007Mk1 pads made it even worse.

Stax just posted this on X in Japanese but it made me laugh: Anybody want to venture a guess why this had to be posted? Terrible headband design strikes yet again.

After almost a week the smell from the stock SR-007S earpads has subsided so I put them back on... and they lasted there for a good hour before I removed them. What the hell were Stax thinking with these... Going from the 007Mk1 pads it was a drastic downgrade, bass, upper bass gets this reverb effect to it, midrange looses all definition and the top end is very peaky. The soundstage and imaging being poor on a 007 is pretty much rock bottom for performance. So I went back to the Kennerton pads as they were a better fit for the new arc and lack of rotation compared to the Mk1 pads. Sound is much tighter and more controlled with them with minimal downsides. As it stands now, I'm going to go with the Kennerton ECL-01 pads but I've gone on a bit of an earpad buying spree (as if I needed any more...) so there might be something better out there for them. To anybody with a set of SR-007S's, I'd recommend trying other earpads as the 105mm size is pretty common and they are easy enough to install.

A SRM-313 with a normal bias output would be a solid upgrade and one of the best normal bias amps out there. I'd pick it over a SRM-1 Mk2 as they are more reliable but it would also be an upgrade too.

Had some free time so on went the 007Mk1 pads: These are the 71xxx type but fitted with new foam so not stock, not that a 20+ year old stock set would be fine now. First impressions are okey, the sound has a tad more space around it and the top end might be a bit better but a particular frequency range has that "sheen" to it that is not natural. I'll spend some more time with this setup Comparison of the stock pads on the right and 007Mk1's on the left (with new foam so a bit puffier than normal). Now the Kennerton pads vs. the stock ones. This is with 007 mesh installed but much smaller opening area. Thicker leather too. Finally I wanted to try and show just how shit the stock pads are: The red line on the right hand pad, that's the edge of the foam and where the leather should start. It's off by some 5mm or so in the middle and the same on the other side. I'm not sure if the foam is simply rotated out of alignment or if it is cut incorrectly but the pads are sealed so no way to simply peel them open like the older pads. Both pads are also crooked and just cheap crap. Stax you can do so much better...

I felt a bit hopeful after the X1 release as it was a large step up from the L300 but the first one failing like that did sour it for me bit. Still they are nice enough for the price even if the ES-1x does the same idea much better. Granted at twice the price but more comfortable and far better build quality. As an update on the 007S, I've used them a lot over the last couple of days and they are not "gelling" for me at all. On some material they are just fine but not so much on other songs. I always have this feeling it is a superficial look into the music, it lacks the depth of the older units and the SR-Omega. Voices have this 2D feeling to them and not 3D as they should be. It is subtle thing but apparent after a few hours. Detail is also simply not there that is readily apparent on a Mk1 or 007A. Transients have an edge to them that is just annoying with some material, loud crescendos bite way too hard for no reason. I'm still on the Kennerton pads as the stock pads still smell awful after letting them sit with air blowing over them. I might try some refurbished 007Mk1 pads or have something custom made....