spritzer

This shit happens to me all the time. I keep getting notices from customs about some packages that I don't have a clue about.

Happy Birthday!!!

This one does have to be fixed as there are a number of issues. Heatsinks should be soldered down and grounded, the ground plane in a mess so not working properly and one resistor per side is running right on its limit. There are also some small changes to part values and ideally they should be put right plus the transistor mounting to the heatsinks needs work.

Indeed...

Minor detail...

I forgot about the tiny heatsinks.

Not sure about the low voltage caps but the high voltage supply should have no problem with higher AC input voltage. The PSU is regulated so the output is fixed, the only issue being the prereg DC voltage not being excessively high for the filter caps. Try to ask SumR to use a larger core. That seemed to help when I was working on this with him. As others have said, tubes aren't just tubes in the same sense that not all transistor devices are equal. To think of tubes being different to transistors would be a fallacy as they both do the same job and can often be used in very similar circuits. There are differences in the same sense that bipolar transistors and mosfets aren't the same thing but the key difference is how any component is used. The Stax 007t and the BHSE are both hybrids with similar rail voltages and many parts of the solid state circuit are similar. How the tubes are used couldn't be more different though. The 007t tube stage could just as well have been designed in the 50's and is just about as simple as they come. The later version have added bits here and there but the final design is always the same. The BHSE on the other hand is radically different. Active circuits set the correct operational area for the tubes so they don't rely on the massive drift found in passive devices. The tubes are also wired differently for even lower distortion so this is far from a normal tube amp. Moar expensive doesn't mean better tubes. Shuguang is a good example of that and I for one would never use anything they make, in any of my amps. The old Mullards were simply better made than anything today so that is the biggest factor.

Yup, that's correct and it has been fixed.

I'm happy that I finally sent Kevin something he likes. Last time was a Liquid Lightning which he wasn't too happy with... Is the pot a real Alps unit or a fake? Can't tell from the pics...

Please don't compare anything here to HF. Here we can state our opinion, backed up by copious experience, and it is accepted as such. The LCD-3 isn't bad by any means but the model released three years ago is far from the current offering.

The shipping for the KGSS was just over 113$ for a 6.5Kg package. The transformer is a Talema unit so odds are that it has dual primaries. We are famous... http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.72.YKuenw&id=37960660378 I say a new project with a new thread. Make it easy for them... Seriously, the only thing stopping us are those damn P-channel Jfets. Are any of the Fairchild parts usable?

Have a head banging birthday Justin!!

The KSA-5. Nobody had completely reverse engineered it until we did so. Speaking of which... http://www.ebay.com/itm/KRELL-ksa5-Class-A-8W-8W-amplifier-in-case-220V/271466031172?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222003%26algo%3DSIC.FIT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131003132420%26meid%3D6872961694781196531%26pid%3D100005%26prg%3D20131003132420%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D151276393019&rt=nc Not very subtle in their thieving...

I agree, the HD800 is simply better than any ortho I've ever heard. The Dynalo drives it perfectly and even better with some output resistance added. The Dynalo or a balanced one will drive the LCD-2 and 3 very well but a balanced Dynahi would be utter state of the art.

Stax really don't want to sell the sockets so not sure where this guy is getting them. They are genuine alright and the newest spec. First KGSS? I used Cart100.com but there are a lot of deputy services out there. Cart100 have been great on the two occasions I've used them, even reminded me that China is 230V so there might be a problem with that.

That's an issue with the bright nature of the phones, something which I know can be fixed without taking a sledgehammer to the top end. I'd have no reason to use the 009 if it mean making them less resolving... Just so it's clear, I've never felt the 009 offered any resolution bonus over a well fitted 007. It's even the opposite as the 007 just gets out of the bloody way and is in no way apparent.

I do like the build quality over all. Pretty nice parts and the correct ballast resistor for the phones. Even carbon comp like Stax still use. The transformer is 230V only so that is not good for US users. Still, easy enough to swap out. So the second Chinese copy this year, we must be doing something right.

Given how big a factor the output impedance is to the HD800 sound then that should be compensated for when comparing amps. Then again I'm a crazy purist... Sticking the HD800 on a WA5 is a bit like sticking the SR-009 on the Liquid Lightning, having a highly resolving transducer dumbed down by a highly colored amplifier. Didn't catch that SRD box. Do you have a link? Funny thing though, I recently found a box I'd put into storage years ago with a pile of SRD-7 transformers. No idea I had that so I'll have to find some use for them. Perhaps show Woo how the WEE should have been down with a regulated PSU and relay switching?

I just threw up a bit looking at that site... Anyway, the price difference is probably due to the weak Yen against the USD.

Poor or simply broken. Chewing up tubes might just be a design choice...

Happy Birthday!!!

Happy Birthday!!

The Chinese one is a KGSS, not a KGSSHV. It runs at +/-350V when a KGSSHV runs 400V or higher. Not the sole distinction though... Going by the pics the Chinese amp will need some mods to perform better than a nice little desktop unit.

The simplest answer is that the WES and BHSE have nothing in common, at all. Sure they both drive electrostatic phones and have similar tubes but it ends there, same with the Electra. The goal of both Woo and EC is to price their amps at the same level or higher to fool people to think they might be in the same class which they clearly aren't. Let's just view what a WES with all the upgrades and updates looks like: This is what 8000$ will buy you. Now for some impressions of the design, the PSU in this thing is the usual Woo joke. Utterly overloaded tube rectifiers which don't matter due to the bridge present. No regulation what so ever except for the circuit which powers the LED's and front end heaters. This power supply is very similar to what Stax do so why would anybody pay a premium for this? Now for the amp section, here is where it gets from bad to "we will kill your headphones". First off, a HE90 should never be used with a WES or a WEE. Never in a million years should the twain meet as both will destroy the phones. It's easy to see in the amp pic, see the small PCB next to the output sockets? Yeah, those aren't close to be the correct values though for Stax they are closer so not as big of a deal. So with actual amp the worst idea are those output chokes as there should be only two of them. Simply connecting them as a single push-pull unit doesn't work, they need to be on the same core. Inductors for Stax are bad idea though given the electrostatic load and its behaviour but a push-pull choke at least works. This doesn't which is why the amp sounds like shit, hell it sounds like it is broken. You can also clearly see that there are four isolated amp sections here with no adjustment so how can one phase know what the other one is doing? It can't so the natural drift found in all circuits is , quite literally, out of control. The amp should also be wired differently to use the benefits of matched triodes within the same envelope. The phase splitter is also an absolute dog and should never have been there. How come the ESX uses all the same tubes, far less components and doesn't need one? Other stuff such as series connected heaters for the EL34's are a problem. These are not computer/TV tubes and were never designed to be series connected. So the bottom line is this, it's an 8K$ amp that measures and sounds worse than a SRM-323S and has less power. Also worse components and build quality. My initial reaction to hearing a WES at CJ'10 was to ask Jack if it war broken. That sums it up nicely enough...

Same size IRC as the dual fet we put on the KGSSHV board. Almost impossible to solder...