spritzer

The 727 is only pretty bad in comparison to other amps so if you don't do that...you are ok. For me the biggest issue is the lack of engagement and excitement from the amp. It's just so dull and lifeless stock. See here is the usual crap with every new electrostat, they are always world beaters. The first impressions are always "best evah" but it never holds any water. The HE Audio stuff was great...nope it was horrible. The King Sound showed up Stax...nope...far from it really unless they were showing Stax how things should not be done? Now the Mr. Speakers Voce, read the meet impressions and they are stunning!! Talk to people who know something about electrostatics and they pretty much horrible. I just wish somebody would just take a set of the best 'stats out there and actually try to improve them without all the BS. Here's the rub though, for something so simple they are fucking hard to get right. As for the driver size, who on earth thinks that a larger driver is better? Sure the Stax SR-1 drivers were way too small but anything larger than the 009's has very dubious qualities. How is the driver supported, how do you deal with the internal vibrations of the driver, how much does it flex etc. A smaller driver will always outperform a larger flimsy driver...

Could be static buildup due to shipping. That has happened a few times for me and it should clear up. Could also be something wrong with the driver...hard to tell.

The amp is a real glorious piece of shit. So of all the amps out there that they could "borrow" they picked... drumroll....the Koss E/90!!!

Yeah...these. According to some they are the second coming but any discussion about them is banned on some of the largest forums in Russia so probably plenty of shilling going on. To me they look like a bad DIY project...

This is a good idea. Shame Stax dislike me so much as I'm the worst fanboy ever... I got one of the first 507's (way back in 2012 I think) and hated them from day one.

Too funny... The fit is just fine bu the sound signature is just vile. Basically, they are really really bright and forward. If you go while back in this thread you can read where I bought a set of 4070's from Japan and they sounded horrible. Turns out the drivers had been replaced with 507 units so...yeah. I was quick to find a set of 404's to rip the drivers out of.

I hate the 507's and wish them death and destruction... the L500 I don't mind so much.

Did you miss out on the glorious T8000? No...? I'm sure they will release something else as this seems more of a cash-grab for me. The 404LE uses the same pads as the SR-507 so they are still stocked. The SC-1 is exactly the same as a regular SR-404 in every way to the older Signature pads would be what they shipped with. The current brown pads are a bit different but they are all that's stocked now.

It's ported. From what Stax have posted they don't use the L700 drivers, just the stators and it looks like normal L300 pads as well. Now whether this is good or not...we'll see.

So Stax just unveiled their 80th anniversary products, a special limited L300 and a black and gold SRM-353X... Pretty underwhelming but hey, at least it is something. The L300 is limited to 800 units.

The 404LE's are leather and the older shape used on the prototype Lambdas. The 404 uses the same fake leather stuff as the LNS back in the day and the same shape as all the Lambdas used.

Yes and no. The drivers are probably the same but the earpads do make a difference. Both are nice though.

They are great and so are the 207's. 404LE's are also excellent.

They changed the voicing of the drivers or even just the glue for the drivers. Hard to say but SR-404's can sound very different from one another and they are all but identical to the 303's.

Excellent. You might remember my hatred of the King Sound earpads and I finally found a good match for them with the custom pads for my own design. Much smaller opening there and more height. I saw those "electrostatic" pads advertised on a used Ether on HF and was shocked to see them. That amount of open area is just going to cause problems...

One question...did it have these pads? https://www.mrspeakers.com/shop/accessories/ear-pads/ether-electrostat-ear-pads.html If so, it is the same crap as the King Sound. Massive open area in the earpads which creates all kinds of issues.

They are more different than an upgrade. It really does depend which version of the 303's you have though as Stax tinkered with them at some point in the production.

No it's 10ma.

Nahh...it's balmy 2°C out now!!

Makes one wonder what is inside the Shangri-La and the Mr. Speakers Voce cables...

It's warm to the touch, not hot at all. I've had the first one running 24/7 now for a few weeks and no thermal issues at all.

I want what ever these people are taking...

I'll see what I can do about that. There are three amps in this batch with one being for me so two up for grabs. I have parts for a few more but this isn't a pleasant build...

Here's to the next 15 years!! I like it a lot.

Not sure if we have a KGSS thread but I'll just post this here. So last year it dawned on me that I built my first KGSS amp 15 years ago and something had to be done to celebrate that. It started off pretty mild with me reworking Justin's old KGSS board file, changing parts as needed, updating and the like to what we do now. Then it hit me, that's too easy so I went off the deep end. I wanted to do something unique so why not the smallest high performance amp I could possibly do? The KGSS offers some advantages over the KGSSHV here, fewer parts due to the resistor current sources in the third stage. Now there are performance issues, we all know that but this is how the KGSS was back in the day. The plan was to be authentic so 2SK389 input devices and the only major change being a switch to 2SC4686A's from the 2SC3675's as they are simply superior and fully insulated to boot. Power supply is similar to the old KGSS and is a reworked one from my cheap KGSSHV. 2SA1627A based CCS with the regular fet output for a +/-350V output. The output stage current is set to the standard KGSS setting which is ideal for this tiny chassis. So how tiny...this tiny... Pictured here in the KGSS normal habitat, with a SR-007BL mk1 and a Stax HPS-1. I did say it was tiny... 21cm wide, 29cm deep with the knob and just 7.5cm tall. That doesn't leave a whole lot of internal room so very strict transformer specs, about 15 drafts of the fully through hole amp boards to make the ground plane work and for it all to fit strict height requirements of the parts used. So here are the internals... Now you can please excuse me, I'm going to go and listen to some early 2000's music on the 007Mk1's...