spritzer
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Posts posted by spritzer
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Wow... You're getting an APL too? My dream player is the 3.0 even though I haven't even heard it before. If its better than a X-01 Limited or EMM Labs stack, then it must be ridiculously good.
I'm not getting a NWO but a fully upgraded 3910. It will be fine in my headphone setup but I'll get an NWO when I switch to speakers.
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Don't APL Hi Fi also do DSD-PCM than some ridiculously fancy upsampling?
Yup, every thing is converted to PCM and fed through a 211kHz/32bit upsampler and then into the array of 32bit dacs. My player should be at APL in the morning for its 32bit update.
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There is a lot more experience in PCM decoding compared to DSD so PCM is a lot more advanced even though DSD is technically "better". If DSD won't die a quiet death then some real progress could made in the next 10 years.
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My SR-5NB is a long way off "stock" though - it has a wide PC-OCC cable and Gamma Pro drivers (with the original 2um membrane), and it sounds awesome out of just about anything <3
Pretty cool but I'm sure that the Gamma's have a 1.5um diaphragm. I think the NB could be better then all of the other SR-5's as the plastic is different but I haven't tested this theory.
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I'm certainly not going to reveal my sources but I can assure you it can be done. I just bought a SR-Sigma for 55$ and a Lambda Signature for 74$. There is often a chance that they won't work but then I'll just have some extra spare parts, no harm done. It is very much possible to put together a killer setup for 500$.
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There is only one option in my book, to find a Stax SR-Lambda and adapter for about 200$ (can be done!) add some vintage amp and one of the better 80's early 90's DAC's. Killer system for 500$.
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he's no martin short, thats for sure!
Burn!!!!
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The SR-007 should be right up your alley since nothing can do bass like they can and I gather you like the temporary bass heavy stuff. They can track even the most complex bass line long after the He90 and SR-Omega have turned into a bloated mess of reverberations.
Damn, you bought the RFT tubes from East Germany. Crimped plates and the dimple are true signs of their origins. They aren't bad tubes by any means and much better then all of the current production stuff but don't pay more then 100$ for a quad.
I'm just playing with my newest toy, the Jecklin Floats PS2's, and thinking up ways of making them better. Looks like a SR-007 headband with custom made forks and wooden housing for the drivers. Then I have to have some leather earpads hand made...
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1uf does present a problem and if space wasn't a problem I'd go for some large PIO vintage cap as some of them are very good indeed. The humble site seems to be ok and free of the hype that can surround these things and his recommendations are sound. You have of course read the 21 cap comparison that has been floating on the net and while it is far from perfect it is a good reference point along with the humble site and other feedback. I haven't heard those caps so I can't comment on them but you could always find some cheap Soviet stuff on ebay. The class capsule PIO caps are both small and pretty good (and dirt cheap) if you can find them in the correct value.
They are Vishay MKP 1841's that I used. I initially bought them as parts for my KGSS but since I buy a lot of extras I had some spare ones and a friend need caps in the value we tried them out and I was amazed at the result. They are certainly much better then the crap Wima is making so it's no wonder the Stax has been using them as couplers all these years even in the ultra expensive SRM-T2.
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I assume you're talking about SCR/Solen caps, but which caps do you prefer? I'm looking for some coupling caps myself, but heck are they expensive (V Cap TFT, Sonicap Platinum, Relcap TFT, SCR TFT, Mundorf silver/oil, Audio Note PIO, etc)!
Well some hand made Kondo silvers would be nice but they'll have to wait until I get a M7 or M77 for my speaker rig. On the budget end the Vishay MKP's are tough to to beat and a much better then most more expensive film caps. You can also try out some of the vintage Soviet PIO caps on ebay but they vary in quality. Going up the ranks the Mundorf Silver/Oils would be my next step. They are expensive but I really like how these caps sound and their 1200v DC rating is a huge plus for us in the electrostatic world. The V-caps are incredibly good but the price is starting to become silly as it would cost nearly 1k$ to outfit a Aristaeus. I still think that they are worth it but better used in the more crucial parts of the circuit.
There are other caps that I've spent some time with such as the AN Copper and Silver models, Jensen copper foil and some of the teflon caps and all are great but I can't compare them directly like those other 3. I'd really like to try some AN silvers for an extended period of time but they cost to damn much and I don't like to support AN UK...
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Interesting. So the took a proven design and put it into a pretty box with lots of shiny stuff, and made it worthy of the HE-90's.
What I don't understand is, if the design did not use $$$ from Senn's R&D department and the headphones are pretty good in the detail department, but there isn't really anything too expensive in the build materials, then why would it be a losing venture at $15K in '95 for the set?
\The amp is far from worthy of the headphones. It does cover up some of the HE90's shortcomings but that's not a good thing in my book but it's clear the Sennheiser should stick with headphone design.
They did not loose money on the amplifier. Although the R&D to do that stupid
multi output switcher in a box that size was not trivial either. Fact is the electronic
parts inside the he90 including the circuit boards were of very low quality.
The onboard bitstream dac was even worse.
Justin's amp sounds better, is quieter and better built than the original.
I own one, i should know.
They ate it bigtime on the headphones. Special machinery to make the ultra thin
glass stators. More special machinery to etch the holes in the glass. Even more
machinery including very large vacuum chambers to put the conductive film on the
stators. For a world wide total of less than 100 units. 20 to 30 of which never left
the factory.
These days for a company like Sharp or Samsung who is making the same kind of stuff
for lcd panels this would be a slam dunk. On the otherhand Sharp just spent 5 billion
on a new plant in mexico to make and coat the glass so the setup costs are not cheap.
The Aristaeus is a large step up but I'm going to find out just how good it can be loaded with caps that aren't French made crap and some tweaks here and there. I just can't bring my self to buy one of the 12 Aristaeus amps I can have and hack it up. It's far to pretty.
There were about 340 HE90's made in total with who knows how many spare drive units stored away. Still the investment is insane when compared to the thousands of SR-007's sold.
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no, not really. check out the very first episode, he had different speakers. i remember finding out what they were a while ago and they seemed pretty high end to me.
They were Audiostatic long throw electrostatic speakers without the wings. Great speakers that look too cool at least much cooler the the Martin-Logan crap
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The SR-Omega is gorgeous. In my top 5 best looking headphones
They are simply stunning in person. Its quite sad that something this beautiful and well built is this fragile...
The SR-Omega + KGSS sounds so good I'm wondering why I have other headphones, or need other amps. This is definitely the best-quality sound I've heard from a headphone, along with the HE90. I would rank the SR-007 a small step below the Omega and HE90 due to its darker sound.
As good as the HE60, 4070, R10, L3000, PS-1 and K1000+Cary 300SEI are, those are the Big 3 for me.
Well, the SR-Omega is discontinued and there's always the possibility that it stops working. Maybe I shouldn't listen to it often.
You should hear it with the Blue Hawaii... there is mad synergy there. It's clear that the KGSS isn't doing the SR-007 justice since you find them darker then the SR-Ω. They do actually sound pretty similar with the SR-007 a million miles better at everything...
I think not using them is the worst you can do to them. That will cause much more stress on the drivers when they are indeed used. If anybody knows about a broken set please let me know as there ways I'd like to try to fix them permanently...
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Have you tried putting omega 2 pads on them? I think the deeper pads well help alleviate some of the comfort problems with the SR-5
I haven't tried that though I might try some O1 pads as I have some extra ones. The SR-007 pads were pretty bad on the SR-X though...
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They really are quite good, especially the Gold versions or N (NB for the black one) as Stax called them. They are more euphonic then the other phones but still manage to convey the essence of each performance. Only if the comfort was up to the Lambda level...
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I only open mine if there is a lot of dust on the back grill. You can get new earpads from Audiocubes if yours are a bit worn.
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Stax went the same way as Quad because they lost money on some of the production lines while others produced most of the revenue. That is a very stupid way to run a business.
There is nothing original about the Orpheus setup except the highly diffused earpieces. Every He90 owner needs to swap the L & R inputs from time to time to see how odd these things really are...
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Those that haven't payed 70-100% in import taxes shouldn't really be commenting on this. Am I going to pay 70% on my new 8k$ CDP? Not a chance in hell but it looks like things are going to change here soon.
Well, I had payed 1070 Euros including the costs of return shipment for the repair, and Rudi threw some very nice NOS tubes in for free in order to temper my anger after he had realized that threatening me wasn't the best idea.
Compared to the prices of Stax amps in Germany I wouldn't exactly call it nuts especially when you take into account that I was able to sell it for 1140 Euros about half a year later via ebay.de.
The sad part is he can price his amps this high because of the crazy Stax prices in Europe but there is no reason why they should be so expensive. The parts quality and build quality in the Rudistor amps is much worse then the penny pinched Stax amps and their only saving grace is a slightly better tube compliment...
I am wondering if I need to do any kind of service on the SR-5?
Does it make sense to take them apart and clean them inside?
And if so, can someone point me to a guide for doing so?
Thanks
To open up the SR-5 you remove the pads by pulling them off (they could be held in place by two pieces of adhesive) but should come off easily. There are 3 screws underneath and once they are gone the housing splits in two. I see no reason to open them up as unless you want to clean them properly and then stay far away from the drivers...
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C'mon, it's not that bad.
I once did own a Rudistor amp with a very special self destruction circuit.At first glance it was admittedly horrible, but it's not true that Rudi doesn't understand it.
He even tried to explain it to me, a layman.The slow blow fuse was extremely slow though if you ask me and therefor the only way to stop the amp emitting dark smoke like mount etna was to pull the plug out of the wall but what do I know.
Besides of that I do rate the amps better than you here at this forum.Sonically they are certainly not that special as Nik, Markl et al hype them but the amps for dynamic cans I've owned are quite decent for low Z cans and I did like the Egmont better than the Stax amps for the Lambdas.
I agree though they are too expensive for what they provide (basically decent mid-fi), but what is not? I've always found for instance the Meier amps, the Headroom amps, the Lehmann BCL, the CEC amps, the Vincent amps and last but not least the Stax amps overprized as well, at least in central Europe.
The Egmont is pretty simple with a floating output stage with no ground reference so it should sound better then a Stax amp but the sound will change a great deal with the tubes as they age and change. Also paying 1400euro for something like that is just nuts.
I watched the thread about your Egmont adventures with excitement but like so many before, it disappeared.
The best way nowadays IMO is to underdeclare the value and to ship it via USPS/DHL.The latter means low customs handling fees (UPS for instance is extremely expensive).Underdeclaring means to keep the declared value above the threshold where they might suspect fraud.When I import $1500 headphones I ask the seller to declare it to be worth $150.In the eyes of a customs officer $150 is already expensive and lazy as he is he won't research the real value.
This way it slips through fast and without hassles.
That's what I would do as well....
.... .... it's also wise to have a record of payment for the declared amount as so two Paypal transactions would be wise... What kind of criteria is required for converting a speaker-based tube amp into an electrostat amp? I'd love to try this with a 45 or 2A3 amp.
You need a push pull amp and you tap into the signal at the primary of the output transformer so you need to bypass it (or turn it off) and then put a capacitor on each phase and even a resistor bridge to create a 0v point between the + and - outputs. It would also be wise to put a resistor in series with each cap to limit ultimate current.
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Thanks for clarifying that. I say they are badly designed as the electrostatic amps clipped and behaved in bad manner, something even the HEV70 isn't guilty off...
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Spritzer - I think that Ray and Rudi should really be in their own group, separate from Peter. They have completely different issues...
Even though you had good results from dealing with McAlister you are the minority. Badly designed and built amps that are really still in the prototype form and not ready for a public release. He could get better though while the other two are just getting worse...
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how do I get an SPL measurement with my Stat setup?
Neil
It's a bit harder doe to their dipole nature but if non accurate measurements are find just measure between the drivers. If you want to be hardcore buy a Head acoustic headphone measurement dummy head...
I have heard the angels sing - dCS Paganini system + Arcam FMJ CD36
in Home Source Components
Posted
The player was originally modded with a digital input as well as XLR and RCA outputs, both available with the flick of a switch.