spritzer

I seriously doubt that but then again, people paid good money for the Single Power, Woo Audio, Cavalli, LTA, Ray Samuels amps (and the list goes on and on) thinking they sounded good...

Anybody who measures for lowest distortion and thinks that is some sort of a golden benchmark, knows absolutely fuck all about amplifier design let alone the history of hi-fi. I have nothing against meaningful measurements but when something sounds like crap and measures ok... you are doing something wrong. Same goes for awful measurements, if you sit down and it sounds good then something is wrong. Like when Amir showed the world he's fucking retarded by not understanding how electrostatic amps work. A real Schrödinger's cat quantum phenomenon, the device sitting in two states at the same time. The issue for me here is twofold, it's a low power amp which is asked to do far more than it can deliver and then we have the whole can of worms of using transformers to step up the signal with all of their limitations. Anybody who's taken a SRD-7 and some cheap chip amp off ebay knows if can swing a lot of voltage (hence why Stax put a clamping circuit into the later ones) but it doesn't sound all that great.

8mm should fit in there just fine

Because idiots think this sounds good? What gets me are the cheap parts and just pure stupidity of using power supply caps which are known to fail as a dead short for audio coupling.

It should be ok. The volume control could be an issue but power stuff like the transformer is packed with resin so nothing should get in there.

There should be an export site, that's what I've used in the past.

That's impressive... shame they sound like shit. Something new for me, I came across my first ever arc'ed over SR-007 driver yesterday. Utter carnage in there, a hole in the diaphragm roughly 30mm across and burn marks on both stators. Other driver was just fine but yeah, there is a reason we fit protection circuits.

Nope, it has never been released but I've heard hints that it's just a version of the HEV70 circuit with a very bad tube front end.

That's really all the procedure for this. I never tried it on the L300 LE's but the labels on the earcups might be an issue. I just never use mine but I might test it out.

It's a bit close to where my storage lockup is...

You have to add some hot glue as well. It is a necessity... Come to think of it, I've never even owned a hot glue gun... 😂

They are still going and I really want one of these amps for my wall of shame.

Might be to get more volume out of the amp as for a lot of people... moar loud... moar powah!!!

Preamps driving Stax amps is very much becoming a thing and I don't understand it.

Thanks everybody. I almost got a volcano as a present but nope... not yet. As I wrote this an earthquake shook us...

Nope, that's the production stuff.

In reality the bias harvest a negligible amount of energy from the audio signal so the effect is pretty small. My main issue is with the cross talk it will generate as Stax always placed the bias supply (or the transformer on the later versions) between the channels to maximize the potential available. Well that plus the extra inductance of the second transformer is bound to have some effect. That all being said, I'd really pick this over having the mains effective rigged directly to my head which is the case for all of the mains units. Couple that to 40-50 year old diodes, caps and carbon resistors and it is a scary thing. As for the Topping, I've been thinking about what to do with it. It's main issue is the crap amp and bias supply so that could be fixed. Retrofit the small bias supply Kerry designed for the portable amp project (200V boost battery charge chip fed into a voltage tripler) and change the amp boards for some Class D design. I've been using Icepower for over a decade to run my transformer boxes so something like that.

Completely different package so you need to match the pinout but that should be it. Could be some freak oscillation though to look out for. Still this wouldn't be worth it as real 2SA1968's are probably 50$ each now for low quantities and most for sale are fakes. I can't remember the rail voltages on those amps but if it is +/-300V, then a 700Vpnp would work. There are none in current production but they can be found.

That's actually a SRM-1, not a Mk2 unit. It seems Stax just had a bunch left over so they stuck them in a Mk2 chassis. These amps are less than 1% of all SRM-1 Mk2's so yeah, not a true representation of them. Still the 2SA1968/1967 would work there attached to a heatsink. Edit: Given the rail voltages, a 600V part might even work there or a 700V one.

Maybe a very old SRM-1 Mk2 has some obsolete parts but the rest can all be replaced either directly or by substituting close parts. Anything after that can also easily be fixed. Now how long we will have HV TO220 parts is not clear but I've lost count of how many SRM-1 Mk2's I've fixed over the years and none were a complete write-off.

Shit happens?

Happy Birthday my friend!!

Perhaps we should design replacement modules for people...

The thing is, we are not swayed by how much something costs. There is no correlation between price and performance. Let's put it this way, the Sennheiser HE-1 is ok... nothing more than that and would be elevated greatly by using other amps. The drivers are just a further development of the HE90 so they can be easily converted to Stax standard. I'm not going to pay 30K$ for a new set just to throw away the amp though. The Hifiman Shangri-la is just awful and that was off the BHSE. Couple that with bad build quality, cheap materials and that they will all die... yeah fucking trash. I tried the Apperio at Harrods the last time I was in London and with everything unfamiliar, a sales gremlin breathing down my neck and a short audition... I didn't want to comment on it but it is very similar to the Sonoma/Bravura so not high end by any means. I'd rather get a Stax L500Mk2 with a good amp... As for Viva, Woo Audio, LTA or what ever trash there is... go ahead and throw your money away.

I really need to do something with these...