spritzer

I bought something similar but without the holes (as they just mess up the sound) but I prefer thicker pads for them.

Wow, those look great. I'd love a pair as I only have the one real set to play with.

Time for an update on the MA-90... or what ever I'm going to call this thing. This is prototype nr.2 and it seemed only fitting to put on the "Orpheus" IQ stand: So what's new, well the headband is now fully DIY with just the arc being borrowed off a Senn HD58x but they are all the same and very close to the HE90 arc in design. Then a custom adapter block in the HE90 style adapts it to the forks... which didn't come out quite right. A bit too long and too thick to bend correctly so I'll have to redesign them but no big issue there. The actual housing is mostly complete at this point but the biggest hurdle were the metal backs, or so I thought: In the end, pretty simple and I can mass produce them by hand in quick order. I've made about 20 of them at this point and they fit snugly in there, no glue needed at all. Inside there is a new baffle, new spacers and new stators but they will need further work. Mostly I have to move the contacts to better fit inside the housing and those are ready to be made. This set is fitted with the cheap Chinese Solitaire earpads and sound pretty good with them. They are 15$ shipped compared to the HE90 pads which are impossible to get at this point.

Is the HE-1 2.4um? Odd thickness that, as I believe DCA also use it for their sets. I just hate working with anything less than 2um and I have so much of the stuff, so that is what I use. As for the bias, any change in that will make a difference but higher bias is always better but comes with its own challenges. There is no benefit from using 230V and the SR-Lambda has its own reasons to sound the way it does, nothing to do with the bias. Blaming the diaphragm thickness for how something sounds is also very misguided, I adore the HE60 (which uses the same diaphragm material) and I also really like the Lambda Signature, again 1um. It's all about the driver tuning and what sound you are after. My issue with the HE90 was always the utter lack of meaningful bass output at certain spots and that's down to how they were tuned. Btw. the "clones" are now in a fully redesigned version of the housing (well I've sent out for a newer one still to be made) and fitted onto a NOS headband. First prototypes of the metal backs are also ready and look great. Just have to be fitted to the new housings when they arrive. Parts for the DIY headband are also en route and we'll see if that design actually works. Also probably the final prototypes of the "axles" so I should get them properly made soon. Those who know the HE90, know those are bloody expensive tiny pieces of plastic. Also new spacers, dust cover pieces and a redesigned stator too... Now fitted with real HE90 earpads and they have no reason to sound this good. Far from perfect but I'd take these anyday over the original. Still a tiny bit on the bright side and with a bit of a midbass hump Now I just need to make of these "clones" and cram a Stax Lambda driver in it. That upset so many people I kinda have to do it again...

HE90 "clone" first prototypes up and running as of yesterday: The drivers are all PCB based with 2um mylar diaphragms. They are about 3mm lower in height than stock to accommodate the cable entry and move the connections to the bottom of the drivers. The housing is resin 3D printed but this is the old version which has now been abandoned for a new one that has yet to arrive. Cables are King Sound (as I had some in stock) and allow me to fit it all in the same housing size as the original. The earpads are ones for the T+A Solitaire that are not a great fit but dirt cheap... so work just fine for this role. I've ordered new genuine pads but I'm not sure if Senn have any in stock. Next up is to refine the headband design and start to work on prototyping the metal back shell. Now I just wait on parts as usual... As for the sound, far from finished, even in prototype form but a HE90 with actual bass response... perish the thought!! ;)

Early Lambdas seem to last forever but anything made after 1990 has issues. Some are major, some are minor but still there. The X9000 has all the issues of the 009 and 009S so it's more of the same really.

I haven't found ones I really like, I settled on some pads off Aliexpress that arrived incorrectly so I'm not sure what listing would link to them. They are 105mm and perforated on the inside which isn't ideal but seem to work okey.

I will buy a set but if they sound like the originals... I probably won't like them. The HE90 has always left me cold, despite how many I've tried. The HEV90 doesn't fix them either, it just muddies up the sound... seriously the input cap on those is a very nasty electrolytic cap. How that is high end is beyond me... That being said, I've been slowly working on my own clone of the HE90 for a couple of years now. They will never be sold to anybody, just a very stupid and crazy expensive DIY project to fix the HE90's. I have some NOS headbands for them but I'm currently designing a new headband which has more range (as the stock ones barely fit me) and looks like the original. New drivers too but I've only sent out for the first prototype parts for those.

Of the current day Stax electrostatics that I've opened up, all of them will fail eventually. They are making stupid design decisions which are just a net negative and they should switch back to mylar for the film as the PEEK just doesn't work.

That's a good move. I might see if I can find a broken set somewhere and make my own version that I might actually want to use, as I did with the 009's.

As it turns out, Moondrop are finally releasing the MoonZero soon: https://www.hifihub.com.br/en/product-launches/moondrop-moonzero-445-electrostatic-headphone-takes-on-the-stax-sr-x1 This image courtesy of Fujiya Avic: Looks cool and if they can bring them in for under 500$... that is mighty tempting.

I think it is mostly just greed but yup, 10% on almost everything. The X9000 is up to 770KYen which is just stupid.

I moved the cable chat over to another thread but yeah... this is not great:

I figured it was worth its own thread to look at these aftermarket cables that have popped up. Now I don't really want to be a part of the whole cable mess but with electrostatics it is rather simple... the main component is capacitance. The cable will always add some and it determines how hard the entire system is to drive. So TLDR, more capacitance... everything is worse. The amp has to work much harder to try and push current into the top and bottom end. As a baseline, I tested a spare SR-X1 driver I had here and between the +/- inputs it is right on 40pF. We want to keep this as low as possible to keep the load low. So first off we have this ebay find, staight out of China: I was roughly 130$ shipped for the 2.5M version but I've seen them go for a lot more than that. It has the off the shelf Stax connectors on either end and they are nice enough quality. The wire is the cheapest, thinnest crap possible though. As a comparison the plan was to use a SR-X1/007S/009D cable but I only found a SRE-725 extension cable. Same length at 2.5m but is might be a tiny bit worse as the flat ribbon needs to connect to the Stax socket on the other end with wires will cross a bit doing that. Should be a small one but worth noting. I tested between the L+ and L- (I also compared against the R+ and R- but it should read the same) using a basic Uni-T capacitance meter at 1kHz. Both cables strewn out as long as they go on a wooden floor so minimal impact from that. So first off, here is the Stax SRE-725: That is 0.061nF or 61pF. Not bad and what I'd expect from the Wide PC-OCC cables. Now here we have the ebay cable... That is 0.46nF or 460pF. Yeah... that is not great is it. So as a comparison, the whole system capacitance with the Stax cable is 101pF, with the ebay cable it is 500pF. Yeah... this is utterly terrible and will make the headphones sound terrible. Now a second possible issue is how much voltage can the cable withstand. Again here we are hooked up to the L+ and L- simply because those pins are the easiest to get to with the large clips. This cable passes at 1500V with flying colors, almost 30 seconds and at almost 6 gigaohms so no issues there. I'm guessing this is actually double insulated as there is not a whole lot of wire in there.

These are available for preorder now: https://apos.audio/products/sjy-argos-electrostatic-headphones?utm_campaign=hyperfuse_last_day+%2801KZW4554JVNW58G1HET4TN43W%29&utm_medium=email&utm_source=alex_nongdpr_never_subbed_active_180&_kx=cd77Rbf3yu6_OAujM-M4VU1ihuQFsjtyVcb-jl8r-OKxvi62Czezy2yxdLQUUnAj.Ldk8SW&variant=48186260947180 List price is 1800$... yeah no that is a hard pass for me. Just as a point of reference, how bad this has to be for me not to buy one. I'm a degenerate electrostatic headphone collector with pretty much every set ever made in my collection... even weird prototypes which never went anywhere.

It was mostly adjusting the design to different parts and the weird stuff were the PCB caps that Stax decided to use... plus the enlarged the amp chassis for no particular reason. In terms of being better than the 252S... nope.

Yeah, I'm not surprised as they are essentially a pile of caps stacked on top of each other. They are the easy solution but there are ribbon cables out there. I really like the 20AWG silicone rubber one which was rated to 600V but in did far more in testing. The new cable on the EH-1's is excellent, very much like the Wide PC-OCC Stax cable but with smaller conductors. Even the Monolith electrostatics from Monoprice had custom cables on them back in the day. Btw. here is a picture of the ebay Stax braided cable for posterity:

I thought I'd see if any of these cables are out there and what do we have here: Ebay Stax cable I bought one to do some testing on it but who thinks those wires can handle 1kV and are low capacitance...

Damn, never seen that happen. Most of the wires that I come across are just plated aluminum, even the silver wires as they just dual coat with copper and then with silver. It's super easy to check, just cut a bit of insulation off and hit it with a mini blowtorch or a hot lighter. If the wires curl up, that's aluminum. It is clearly a crap cable off aliexpress and there are plenty of ribbon cables available. It's just lazy and bad engineering. With the Hongshu EH-1 out now, this will be a very tough sell. I have no idea of the price but the EH-1 is 650$ with an amp and they are pretty damn good. Also no venting on the drivers there...

I haven't had much time for DIY headphones recently but I just sent for some parts to be made and one might be a truly unique stator principle. More on that later but I've been using these lately and finally post about them after seeing that SJY pile of fail: I found this Hifiman Edition X for next to nothing as the pads were trashed and both drivers were blown. Gotta love that Hifiman build quality... Anyway, the plan was to design some drivers for this shell and then make my own version of the Shangri-la as the stock ones are frankly utter crap. Given the complex shape of the baffle in these I put it off for months but finally got off my ass and made these: This is the same piece but reversible for each side. There is just enough space in the housing to cram Stax Lambda drivers in there and I just happen to have quite a few in stock... shocker. Then we ended up with this: The back grill was glued into place but with the driver glued to the baffle, it holds it all in place as there is no extra room in there. I added the coarse foam to back to make them look more stock as I didn't have any of that black cover Hifiman uses. The baffle uses the stock neoprene gaskets from the planar drivers and it's okey for the seal but not quite perfect. The drivers in these are Lambda Signature units (no real reason I chose those, just what came to hand) and the cable is a Stax extension cable. I added the strain reliefs to the housing and the cable is so tight in there that it doesn't need any more fixing in place. Then they were finished off with some sheepskin earpads off Aliexpress as the stock Hifiman units are trash. These are the drivers with the protective mesh in place (just as they were in a Lambda/Sigma) but I also ordered some baffles with slots cut in them so I could put in thinner drivers to have a bit more space behind the drivers.

So a new electrostatic seems to be incoming: https://apos.audio/products/sjy-argos-electrostatic-headphones?utm_campaign=hyperfuse_last_day%20%2801KZW4554JVNW58G1HET4TN43W%29&utm_medium=email&utm_source=alex_nongdpr_never_subbed_active_180&_kx=cd77Rbf3yu6_OAujM-M4VU1ihuQFsjtyVcb-jl8r-OKxvi62Czezy2yxdLQUUnAj.Ldk8SW I've been keeping an eye on them for a while, no idea what that company is but hey, more the merrier and all that. I just saw the new updated page for these and it is just what the fuck, are they retarded? First off, "fully vented drivers" being spun as something that is positive. Hello, what is the number one rule of planar design? Something about an infinite baffle? No? Anybody here have any fucking clue what they are doing? No? Let's spin our engineering ineptitude as a positive Yes, that is what the drivers need, room to breathe. A common problem with all planar drivers is that they are just being suffocated. What a novel idea and people making planars for 70+ years have clearly all been wrong. Seriously, who thinks the actual reason is that the drivers are horribly unstable so the extra pressure from a sealed baffle would knock them out of balance. So instead of fixing that, let's just employ marketing wank. Then we have the cable... what the actual fuck. Just look at this thing: Anybody who makes a braided cable for electrostatics needs to be taken out back and beaten repeatedly with a copy of the Art of Electronics. The whole point of the fucking cable is to minimize capacitance... not add to it!! Now this looks like the cheap crappy headphone cables coming out of China so I very much doubt it's high voltage credentials. I also love the Y split on a commercial set of headphones... a piece of clear heatshrink. It's also 1.5meters in length, probably to cut down on the pile of extra capacitance this turd adds to the load. Then you can get a proper extension cable and have the headphones reach anything as these are hardly portable.

Of course, it should be in this thread when ever they came out. It is essentially just the 252S with some weird stuff added to it.

I don't think they ever hid that they were made in China but they are great transformers. Very consistent in quality which is hard to come by these days. Plus they oversize all of the cores so they run cooler and with less chance of any nasty behavior. As somebody that has ordered transformers in bulk from China, they stop being cheap very quickly once you ask for some proper specs or even worse... actual bloody copper in them.

I'm looking forward to those as I'm slowly working on my own version just for me, i.e. fixing how they sound. :) I got these recently: https://poloyoaudio.store/products/hongshu-eh1 It is my third one of these as they design has been maturing over the years. I'm waiting on a replacement set as mine had some noise issues in one driver so I'll do a proper write up as they arrive but I do like them a lot. The earpads are crap but there is a lot of potential there.

Shit that's bad. I'm sure all those 10% carbon comp resistors add a magical tone...