spritzer

What you haven't opened it up yet? Btw. I spy some of my handiwork sitting next to it...

Yeah, I've tried the HRT and it isn't bad but not terribly good either. Fine for that role but with access to far better DAC's I'll take a USB->SPDIF over it any day. I guess I've settled on getting an M2Tech Evo and building a new PSU for it. Now I just need to find someone who'll ship it here or call in some favors from my US friends.

Happy Birthday!!!

Any version of the Gilmore Dynalo (G-lite would fit the bill) or a M3.

The HD600 is far from a bad headphone and since you are a detail freak I would suggest something DC coupled and with enough power to breath some life into the phones.

Not necessarily, the male Rean mini-xlr's should fit in the current holes: You still need to add a switch if you want to use both types of inputs though... Edit: The stock pot is 50K

LONG LIVE ENGRISH!!! Prices do appear to be all over the map but it's hard to pin it down without the price in Yen. Looks to be around 400K Yen once you factor in what the Mk2's cost in the EU. That would be the SR-007 Mk2. The SR-007 was the 7th TOTL round model Stax made, the SR-Omega the 6th etc. That's at least my understanding of how the system works...

Pfft... real men custom order 4-gang pots just for the hell of it...

Odds of finding a split section pot like the one Stax uses are zero so you have to get a new knob as well or do some drastic mods to the current one.

RIP Gary

I blink and my torrents are here. Hell, the ancient boot drive in my server is the real bottleneck, not the FiOS connection.

Jude thinks RSA makes quality gear so no...

The WES is fully AC coupled so input, output and inter stage caps. Output caps should be avoided at all costs in amps like these since they do a lot of harm. That's why amps like the Egmont and SRX (ES-1/2) do sound quite good despite the often quite humble circuit design, only one set of inter stage caps. There is no way in hell though that a AC coupled amp will sound clearer than a DC coupled one. You can throw a ton of money at the caps but no cap at all will still win hands down. The whole issue of "tube sound" is always a bit alarming to me as it so often based on an utter misunderstanding of how these things work. Take for instance a comparison between a SRM-007t and SRM-717, the tube amp will sound "tubey" by comparison but is that due to the tubes or how the output stage is designed? What would happen if we keep the plate resistors and construct and single ended SS output stage similar to the tubes? Same deal if we keep the tubes (ok use something better than 6CG7's though) and add a CCS instead of the resistors. Will this have the "tube sound"? I'm not saying that tubes don't matter but things aren't this clear cut... I think all the parts are ready for a KGSS and it just needs to be assembled. Check with Justin though.

Tell me about it. Then on top of that I can't find any good bakers to work for me...

I'd say no. Even if we look past just how fubar the WES is in terms of design then the 323 simply has more voltage swing and is more immune to the load it sees. The WES has more power but that advantage is largely lost due to those stupid inductors and any DC offset present at the output.

Mine is still about 95% done in terms of assembly with the last parts (RK50 and some transistors) sitting on my desk. Who knows when I'll finally get a day off and can finish this beast...

You can't go wrong with a Stax setup.

APL? What about some of the newer Accuphase units? Their players have had digital inputs since the early 90's.

What are these head-phones you speak of?

To echo what the others have said, the KGSS can kill you so I would have somebody who knows what they are doing work on it. It's easy to blow it up just when measuring something. I would also scrap those Blue Velvet pots, the KGSS deserves so much better and channel matching with two pots is just a pain. The LM7815 doesn't look right though. Appears to have been tampered with but it is obviously working or you wouldn't get any sound at all.

Ehhh what is up with the 7815 regulator? Can you take a close up picture of the 4 small caps on the PSU board as that doesn't look right... To measure the amp connect the black probe to the GND connection on the PSU board and then measure all the PSU outputs on the PSU board except the bias. You can just touch the top of the screw with the probe and the correct values are printed on the board. Everything is DC so set it to the highest DC scale. As for the mica caps on the amp board, yeah the KGSS has compensation caps. For some people this is supposed to be a bad thing but they have clearly never opened up a Stax amp...

It's there without any input present so it doesn't appear to be the case.

Have you checked the DC offset and balance? Hum could be caused by a capacitor approaching end of its life.

I haven't but I do hope that they are alright.