spritzer

Those will work perfectly. As for the football, yeah it is impressive but goes to show what you can do if you really want something. One funny post I saw was wondering about the current GDP numbers as 10% of the nation will be in France for the flipping game. There is already talk of leasing a fleet of planes to get as many people over there as we can...

The best part of this is the slashing of used prices. That means I can pickup one of these for next to nothing and expose Cavalli again for the piece of shit he really is.

No, it hasn't. Same shitty circuit too made even worse by the retarded SE-XLR converter.

So this is the second time this has happened, gotta love buying Cavalli crap. As for the LL1 sockets, it was just a matter of nobody measuring the Stax pins accurately and sizing the plastic cover for the socket correctly. Took 1 minute to fix that...

Their biggest problem is the real market for this stuff and how grossly they overestimate it. Sure they might sell a few units to the idiots who always follow the latest hype train but what's after that? The hype train moves on very quickly which is where companies like Stax come in. There is no hype, just steady sales all over the world with brand recognition that even the other big boys would kill for. That has certainly been my experience when talking to people from the large companies and Senn especially get very defensive when I propose a shootout between the two brands. They are also doing it all ass backwards, alienating the hard core fan base (aka the Mafia) which would only have helped in the long run. I've said it many times before but HF just doesn't matter any more. It's a place to discuss what ever hyped up crap there is this week and that's all. There is no depth so the people who actually care (and are the backbone of all of this) never go there anymore. Bring on the fucktards whose sole purpose in life is to cozy up to the MOT's to try and get something for free and feel important while doing it.

Funny thing is that we went through this same thing with the Hifiman abominations. They thought that the 5 pin XLR would somehow work but had to include a Stax adapter anyway. All of this is just so stupid, you need the fucking Stax plug anyway which the normal HF member would never understand. Instead they turn this into the usual "let's defend the manufacturer" instead of calling them on their crap. It's amazing that nothing has changed over there in all this time as we had the same shit 10 years ago...

Distortion alone (well THD) is pretty meaningless and says nothing about how it sounds. I also wasn't referring to this thing but their analog engineering in general. Seriously, look up the "balanced" headphone amp or their pre/power amps.

Nothing wrong with that.

Looks good and the only thing I would have done differently is to rotate the PSU 180°. That moves the AC wiring to the other side so it's not running with all the DC and output lines.

Just checked the thread on HF and I think Dan might indeed be retarded as he got zapped by a Stax plug? First of all, not on anything we or Stax have built. Any idiot knows we put protective measures in place so the risk of a short is non existent. I just love fear mongering like this which has no basis in reality as he's trying to sell the HF idiots onto his stupid idea. So he's going to include adapters anyway to use with the Stax standard and this is somehow makes it easier to source the plug? Yet he is working with some company on a custom plug but they can't make a Stax plug? I mean how stupid is this shit? Also, Stax don't own the plug even if they have used it for 57 years. It is a common design which was widely used back in the day but has only really survived on microphones. Any claims of payments to Stax for the use of "their" plug are just... well fucking stupid. Lastly, he thinks that people will want to use this in a portable setting? Making a portable amp is not easy and well past the know how of most amplifier manufacturers. Any idiot can make something like the King Sound M-03 as it is just opamps feeding transformers. Sounds like shit too... The reality is that most people want to use their portable phones at home. I've certainly received numerous requests to make a home amp for the Shure KSE1500.

Horrible analog stages is just the beginning.

That's always the best way. Naturally using the line out as we don't need to fancy dac's!!

The gain is indeed the real killer here. You can't have super low noise and high gain. Unless you know... magic!!

It would be even better if impregnated with resin to stabilize it. It could have some really impressive specs

I do predict we will see a normally driven HE1 at some point. I've certainly asked for it.. Ohh and I did request a quote for the HE1 system.

This is exactly the point, how hard is it to make a fully Stax compatible electrostatic.... well it's fucking easy. All the required specs are out there and if it is any good (read not Jade or King Sound) it will sell. On the other hand you have the Floats who nobody cares about any more. Seriously, there is no chatter about them at all. As for the amps, well I know for a fact that cheap electrostatic amps is a non starter. People just don't want them, they only want the really expensive stuff. These are also not the basically line level dynamic amps which can be made quite cheaply. There are no cheap high voltage transistors, even in bulk and opamps are only useful for the input of these.

More like solid milled silver housings and shit like that...

I know I look forward to taking them apart.

Happy birthday Kerry!! Now go and build something!!

Since we are on the topic of Darwin awards, turns out Mr. Speakers is now in the front running as he has decided the Stax plug just won't do and we need something new... Ever since he posted this nugget of stupidity a few hours ago my inbox has been flooded with people wondering if he's actually retarded. So his logic is that the Stax plug is somehow difficult and expensive so something cheaper is needed. Well as it stands this is probably the cheapest safe connector possible for the voltages present and its super low capacitance also helps a lot. They are also cheap and pretty easy to make as well even without going the Stax way of using injection molding. They also last for a long time, my 1961 SR-1's still work just fine with everything original. I've never met the man but everybody who's talked to him about his new phones says he has astonishingly little insight into what actually makes electrostatics tick and this further confirms that.

Good point.... "goes off to draw up plans to build a 39k$ amp and then measure it..."

Yup...

...and that signal to noise ratio. Not possible in the universe and nothing can measure that low but amazing none the less...

I love it!!! I also need a mill...

The B+ fed through a voltage divider will work just fine. Just be warned that it is an epic pain to get the Stax sockets out of the chassis.