spritzer

This is the problem with the release of any product that is so hyped up. To make matters worse we have people who have unrealistic expectations due to lack of experience with similar products. Just look at the whole shit storm around the HD800 which was mostly kicked up by people who clearly had no idea how Sennheiser builds headphones. Add to this the whole "newer must be better" BS and it is a right mess... As for HPA, sure I could have been nicer or more diplomatic but that's really not who I am. I call people out on their BS but I also have no illusions that I'm somehow immune to the same scrutiny. My gear or my impressions are also not holy or beyond reproach. Hell, what was the first thing I did with my new 10K$ source, even before I had heard it? Have Kevin rip it apart and give a firm "mehhh" verdict. That's indeed why HC is such a great place, people are called out on their crap but it doesn't go any further than that.

That one was 100% stock. Lovely headphone too...

Sleep is overrated...

If there is a feedback loop which adjusts the input voltage then it should be fine. The sensitivity of these sets is above 100dB for 100VRMS so they will be pushing 115+dB at their breaking point, well out of range. Some people are more sensitive to this then others but while measuring this will be easily evident. I'm more worried about how the bias and ballast resistors will alter the sound even though the change in bias is relatively tiny.

Happy Birthday Marc.

Because the drivers are wired out of absolute phase compared to the Stax sets. The HEV70 might be inverting which is why they did this. Best way to fix it is either install the Stax plug properly or use a an adapter that is wired correctly. One thing that should be noted about these phones (HE60 and HE90) is that there is potential to damage the drivers while under testing. The HE90 clearly states in its specs that max input voltage is 1000V P-P which the BHSE will easily reach when fed a high enough input voltage. Now under normal usage this wouldn't be a problem but testing does expose the limits. What is the output voltage of the test gear Tyll?

Indeed but I deal with this in my business as well (baking). Cheaper can't possible be better and I've found that the general public has very little knowledge of how the retail business actually works (markup, dealer costs etc.). Stax are notoriously cryptic and I've had much better luck with Sennheiser in this regard. There certainly doesn't appear to be a new Orpheus in the works...

It's the age old issue with every consumer product. If you want to be taken seriously then you have to have a price to match. No way in hell the HE Audio Jade cost anywhere near 1500$ to make but since it was setup against the SR-007 then that was the price range it had to be in. Also one of the reasons why the Koss ESP950 is never considered as one of the greats. Far too cheap at 650$ with an amp...

For me this is just yet another instance of HPA throwing out "impressions" with no handle of how things work and with dubious motives. Even if we look past the ludicrous claims of power and take these impressions at face value (i.e. moar loud, moar bettah) then would anybody here not note the gain of the amp, the output voltage of the source and whether the connection is SE or balanced? After all, these are all factors which directly have a say in how loud the amp is. Two amps with the same gain (say 60dB) will sound different even off the same source if one is fed a balanced signal and the other SE just due to the different output voltages. Now there are other factors which come into play such as whether the source is really balanced or if the balanced output is simply fed through a crappy opamp phase splitter like so many of the Japanese players (Esoteric for instance, even for the silly expensive stuff). Now add in different sources, no direct comparisons and even "I once heard..." and you end up with pure nonsense that feels a lot like the crap we are trying to get away from on HF. Others have also pointed it out to me that these are predetermined impressions for what ever reason he may have. Stuff like the "009=he60" certainly has no basis in reality, ditto for his comments on the KGSS. Certainly that particular KGSS since it is just a bit special. Who knows but I for one have seen just how crazy Larry is and there is a reason why he was on my HF ignore list for a long time. Now back to the LCD-3, it on a balanced Dynahi vs. the 007 on a KGSSHV would be a very interesting comparison.

Not sure, could have been in that Stax video or something one of the distributors forwarded my way.

There is really no end to your delusion, is there? Your posts were pretty much worthless since they lacked even the slightest bit of common sense when it comes to comparing amps, let alone doing comparisons over a length of time with different sources and other unfamiliar equipment. Now you being clueless is nothing new, just a bit sad. Hell, you had NoNoNoNoNoNo build an amp for you and promoted Warren Audio as something besides a scam. Does anybody notice a trend here?

I think it is at least double that but there have been so many versions that I may have lost count. From what I gather it will be more like the WES then the ESX (using the same tubes as these amps) which is not a good thing in my book.

Well, the diaphragm is naturally attached to the charge rings/spacers at the edges but I wouldn't call them clamped due to the over all diaphragm tension and where the stators are. The typical Lambda driver (or SR-007, HE60, HE90 etc.) has the stators suspended above the film some distance away from the edges. The only headphone I can think of with any clamping inside the driver is the Micro Seiki but that was due to the diaphragm material they used. Headphones do things a bit differently compared to ESL given the much smaller driver size and far lower bias voltages. No matter how much you stretch the film in a large speaker you are going to run into issues with the whole assembly not being stiff enough to withstand that tension and the film moving. That's why you have spacers (Clearspar or something like that in the M-L crap) to keep everything in alignment while spending as little as possible on the speaker assembly. You also have the normal issues of large perforated metal pieces being used as stators (again M-L) and these will overlap the edges where the diaphragm is glued.

My rant wasn't targeted at you Frank but rather the people out there who are selling amps and do know fuck all about electrostatics (Ray, Rudi, Woo and Cavalli). That said, a primer to go into the details is needed but Kevin and I are swamped beyond belief. I've yet to finalize a basic guide to electrostatics for Tyll and I started it in July. Way too many things to do and no time... The simple fact is that electrostatics do soak up a fair bit of power and Stax even had to find a way to cool the SR-009 stators as them heating up is naturally a very, very bad thing. Notice the hole in the center of the drivers, that's for cooling them. With the 007 this isn't a problem since they are sitting on the FR4 substrate.

Colin would be correct since the only thing you can look for at these levels are the amps simply not being able to perform adequately. Sure, in direct A-B comparisons you can pickup small differences but these have much more to do with distortion etc. Stax are also lowering the gain of the amps from the looks of it. There is certainly no need for the 60dB these days and lowering it can only yield better performance. These specs aren't something any manufacturer would post. Just see how many speaker manufacturers flat out lie about the most basic specs and they would never post the exact impedance plots for their speakers. That's why we need places like Hi-Fi News who do measure this. Same thing applies to the headphones as one would have to measure each of the sets.

Well my resistors are now in Dhaka but I think it would be a good idea to replace all of the battery units. Sadly there is a lot ignorance when it comes to other regions. For instance a PM I got over there complaining about my bias boards having gone up in price with time. It's not like the USD has lost value or anything like that...

Allied Electronics used to do this all the time though they just sent my packages to Israel. I mean IL and IS are pretty much the same thing... right?

I see dbel has taken the Cavalli course on electrostatics: "I know fuck all about the subject".

I want one as well... It will. The stock bias is 540V with a 10M ballast resistor. Anything else that that will alter the measurements in unforeseen ways.

Well, I just found out what is holding up my resistors... they are in Dubai... Somebody at Mouser made a slight error as to where I am in the world.

Bloody Fedex... hurry up with those resistors!!!!

It's truly astounding just what little people understand even about the very basics. Larry is comparing based on memory with no regard taken as to the specs of the source, gain of the amp and judging how powerful an amp is based on how loud it plays. I'm sure most will see just how stupid this is. While we do use voltage swing as some arbitrary benchmark for amps it is all but worthless in reality. It says nothing about what's going on in the amp at these voltages (i.e. how it handles the load), it's just the rail voltages (or single rail where that applies like the GES/WES plus many others) minus the natural losses that incur. If this was the sole benchmark then the KGSSHV would rule them all with the +/-500V rails or roughly 1900VP-P. It does but there is much more to it then just that. One of the roots of the KGSSHV design came from an email Kevin sent me some years ago listing transistors he found that would allow the normal KGSS to run at much higher voltages, certainly +/-450V if not higher. That led to a discussion of what is really needed to drive these transducers and the demanding load they present. The main "selling point" of the KGSSHV is that it fixes how the third stage is handled (adds a CCS where the old one uses resistors) which was the main weakness of the old design. The new PSU is also a very worthwhile addition but the extra voltage swing isn't really needed IMO. It does certainly no harm and it moves the normal listening range even further from the limits of the amp. The gain is still the same so to make this amp clip you have to feed it a lot of voltage and say goodbye to any headphones connected to it since they won't survive these voltages. Years ago Kevin asked me what I wanted to see in new designs and my reply was something like this: "More voltage would be nice but above all else we need more power" More power brings better load tolerance so the amp is less of a factor. This is the same direction Stax have been going in for the last 40 years. The SS amps they had 37 years ago used a single rail voltage with resistors for the load and output caps. In 1982 the SRM-1 Mk2 arrives with dual HV rails so it could be fully DC coupled but the resistors are still there. Later they are also replaced and the latest amps all feature improvements to the other stages, same as the KGSSHV. Indeed. Your sig is very fitting now...

...and the polarity of the drivers fixed?

Slowly coming together...

Power and volume aren't the same thing and any layman that thinks that is as ignorant as you are. You also seen to have no grasp what gain is and think that an amp with higher gain is somehow more powerful. You also have no idea what clipping is and how it presents. Seriously, go read a fucking book!