spritzer

An ego boost...

Could very well be. Teflon and metal-film resistors are best marketing success stories in hi-fi that are not caused by idiot reviewers. You should really try cables without any teflon and some good wire. The Lambda Pro's are amazing headphones and show people just how bad most dynamics are but they are still a black mark on the Stax lineup. The SR-Lambda is a true successor to the SR-X Mk3 fame and the SR-Signature carries on that legacy. I'd love to listen to an ES-1 and tuberolling isn't an issue for me but using tubes like the 12XX7's and tetrodes isn't the way forward. Stats need more power and I really do hope that Eddie Current does design and build a 845 based amp as he's a very good designer and will hopefully come up with something that is better while expensive. I was thinking about building one but I'd much rather not spend the money on something that is possibly worse then the Blue Hawaii and certainly very close. DHT's are only way forward but the cost of something like that is prohibitive for a no compromise design. Designing the case alone is a huge headache due to the extreme heat a thing like that will throw off. Right now I'm more focused on a cheap tube amp for the Stax community that would also power speakers such as the Japanese Masters amp but with DHT's for output all under 1k$.

I wouldn't go much above 14AWG solid core but that's the recipe for a good PC. I use Furutech connectors (as I need Schuko plugs and they are the cheapest good ones there are) and soft silver in teflon tubing all properly damped. Plug it into a dedicated line and who needs power filters

Of course I meant Stax... \ My brain is really not functioning all that well today SP is best if you buy into the hype that endless tuberolling will solve anything

Now that I've mostly got rid of this damned flu and me back to 30% brain function we can continue this discussion. My first point is the different construction of the phones and the simple reason why the Pro's are crippled by design. The HE60 has a open back and completely sealed baffle (if the rubber o-ring has been replaced or fixed otherwise they are severely compromised) while the Lambda Pro's have a partially sealed backwave. The thin layer of faux fiberglass has a huge impact on the sound and was put there by Sennheiser to combat some issues they were having in the bass and HF. The Pro's were the last Lambda to have the backwave diffusion and the difference is profound with it removed. The only conclusion that I can reach as to why the you think the He60 is inferior is that the ES-1 is punishing the more resolving headphone. This is nothing new in the hi-fi world and the design of the ES-1 does suggest this. This is pretty much the same deal as with the Stax amps as they dull down the sound and makes you draw the wrong conclusions like I prefer the HE90 on my heavily modded T1 over the HE60 but on the much more resolving Blue Hawaii the tables are turned. This holds true with a wide range of sources as I've been using a lot of different CDP's these last few months with my Meridian mostly out of order. You gotta love friends with expensive surplus gear...

The cables I reterminated were a few years old but they had stranded wire, what looks like a normal in wall wiring. They might use solid core in their more expensive cables but why they use such massive connectors I can't fathom. The skin effect is horrible and all that ferrite is killing the HF but then again they are supposed to be so musical...

A Lambda with a clean midrange? Now I've heard everything! It's clear that you lot like a hyper euphonic sound and that you are never getting from a Stax headphone or a Stax optimized system. You could with some horrible tube rolling and bad IC choice but the phones are going to fight you every step of the way. It's obvious we come from two totally different schools of thought on this subject.

The last one is next week AFAIK.

Amazing how exactly? It doesn't matter what I use to drive these phones, the character is always the same. From the SRM-Xh up to the BH and the HE60 smokes every one of the Lambdas, even my favorite open SR-Lambda.

He90 fanboy...

The Lambda Pro's are the black sheep of the family and this has been known since they were released. The Stereophile review(J. Gordon Holt wrote it) said you should definitely listen for a while before you buy and noted the same flaws I hear. The midrange is very recessed, the highs are either bright or dull depending on frequency and the bass is detached from the rest of the spectrum and very uneven as well. The good ones are the SR-Lambda, Lambda Signature and SC1 of the Lambda range, SR-Sigma, SR-X Mk3, 4070 and of course both Omegas. The choice between them will often depend on the music used as acoustic stuff isn't as demanding as close miked, heavily mixed music and system setup is crucial. IC's will make or break a Stax setup. This can not be stressed enough and always plug the amps directly into the wall without any power filters. Both setups you mention you are describing the amps and not the headphones. If you like the He90 then you should try to find a SR-Omega to listen to as they are similar but the Stax coming out on top in key areas. They aren't as diffused and the soundstage, while overblown and unreal is closer to the real thing, the midrange is better with nearly the same magic as the SR-007 and the bass is extended and deep with only a slight confusion when things get tough as the drivers can't dump the excess energy into the housing and then the head. They are still slightly uneven in the upper midrange as the He90 but it is a rare artifact.

It was my understanding that Audiogon refused people to advertise their CDSA and Signature setups after they made a deal with Emm Labs. There was a thread about it on AA with sellers posting that their ads weren't accepted if they contained any EMM gear. There was always a very healthy used EMM market but it has completely vanished. Edit: Found one: http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/shady/messages/3410.html and another: http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?forum=general&m=488196&highlight=audiogon+emm

The Pro's are some of the worst phones Stax has ever made so you should hear the good ones... I can only listen to them for a few minutes before getting some other set that actually isn't so alarmingly flawed.

They are about 100$ more or that's how I'm pricing the stuff I'm selling.

He isn't actually alone as AKM and Esoteric work with him and let him in on information they wouldn't normally share. A case in point would be the engineers from AKM coming to the US to hear his new player... It's basically the drive feeding a buffer where the data is slaved to a master clock and upsampled and fed through an array of AKM dacs. From there it goes to a transformer coupled output stage so it's only a transformer and the tube in the signalpath. All linear psu with R-core transformers and point to point wired with soft silver wire. The transformers are amorphous core Lundahl. Even though the PCB's are SMD they are still hand soldered as it sounds better then a wave machine. It's true about the ass kissing but thats a nasty side effect of this and applies to most manufacturers. I would personally never buy dCS as it is very expensive for what you are getting and EMM is a horrible company as they used Audiogon to manipulate the used market for EMM products.

That's true but both have a vested interest in DSD (both are big in the pro sector) and neither can match the APL in engineering.

I saw it but I decided to give somebody else a chance as I need a new source more then a second SR-Ω. Now if I only could find a used UX-1...

Go custom all the way you can get a lot of parts for just the dealer fees on a normal amp. You should choose the amp to match the speakers you are going to use so once you settler on what you want you can find the amp to match. More power is often the wrong way to go as a 20w tube amo will crush a 200w SS amp when faced with the insane load of an electrostatic loudspeaker and it will sound much better.

He's the exception

I wouldn't call a APL NWO3.0GO cheap and they do it for better performance. DSD will sound much better in 20 years time but now it's better to convert over to PCM.

There is a reason why DSD is converted over to 24bit PCM in many players. Still DSD is in its infancy while PCM is more then 60 years old

Using more then one output device will always give you some non-linear artifacts as they can't be perfectly matched. This has nothing to do with distortion as SET's have that in spades but it is second harmonic and we like that. SET's are also simpler as there is no need for a phase splitter so you can spend more money better parts but p-p will give you more power. You can have a 50w SET with the right tubes but that will cost a lot of money. Spend the money on power and output transformers and what ever is used to couple the amp, either caps or transformers. You can also go vintage and discard electrolytic's completely in the PSU and use really big paper-in-oil's instead.

I'll just use my bias supply's to protect me...

It grows!!! Arghh...

It's bad news indeed but I can't believe they are supposed to sound like that. The drivers are identical so this shouldn't happen.