mapstec

sorry for not having posted earlier, but I was glad to have washed my hands of all things AudioMagus... I received the MagiDac shortly after having gotten a modified Lite DAC-AH (modified to a passive output stage). My first impression of the physical enclosure: nice build, but why have a switch with a bulb at the end? seemed weird. Anyway, I put the DAC into the system, connected the USB and switched it on, left it running for an hour and sat down to listen: nice enough, but on my Starving Student I heard background noise. Ok, DAC was fed via USB from a Notebook, not ideal, so I switched to the USB-Link I otherwise used and fed the DAC via coaxial input. Still some background noise, almost gone when feeding a solid state amp, but still there... So I packed it back up and offered it for sale, if no one had wanted it I would have send it back. For the 300$ price tag the specs look good, and if you get a set without issues it might be worth it. I have the Lite DAC-AH which new is around 500$ and has no issues and at least the same quality of sound. I also own a "DAC-1", a simple Chinese DAC without USB input that sells for around 150$, the HK seller offers a parts upgrade (some caps and resistors) and if you add a USB link you still stay below 300$ and this combo blows the MagiDac away imho. I do not want to turn anyone away from this DAC, and if you live in the US and can afford to easily ship the unit back and forth go for the trial period.

Re Singlepower: Ah, but you missed the point, the suspense for how long it takes and in what bizarre ways whatever you ordered will be build is part and parcel of the whole experience, not to say expected...

Hmm, Poulsbo, Washington (98370) is the post office and incidentally the address for Audiomagus... Again, I have no problem with them having problems and thus taking longer, I have a problem with misinformation (did not want to call it lying in writing). I simply want my DAC (a product that according to the manufacturer / seller is available, not on backorder or anything!) and be happy with it, and not wait and see what the delay is "this time"...

I am soooo happy with audio magus - not! I received my tracking no on the 20th - item shipped on the 19th... so why does the tracking say that the item was "accepted" on the 28th? I mean, 9 days from printing the sticker to the actual post office... Believe me, it is not for lack of wanting to...

blessingx, did you get an update? On the 8th I got the blanket mail that they would start shipping that day... On the 10th I still did not see an update to my order (basically on the third day that they said they were shipping). I am now basically at the stage where I want to hate the product when it arrives (if it arrives?)... I don't mind the delay so much as the runaround we are giving... "We are shipping on Thursday", but they don't tell us which week...

Does the word "Vapourware" have any meaning? The Dac according to the web site ships out in 2-3 days... And has for quite some time now... No-one has seen the beast and at least for my order shipping has been delayed 4 times now, always to the next day, or the day after .... I WANT MY DAC! Sorry.... Just needed to vent my frustration...

After sending them a reminder I now have the information that the DAC will be shipped out Thursday...

ok, we are both strong... They did not acknowledge the order, no communication at all... I hate waiting!

ok, I am weak, I know it... Just pulled the trigger and ordered it (including clock upgrade). Will post impressions once I have it in hand.

After getting myself a pair of Jecklin Floats Model I needed to restore these: Before and after: Since I put another cable on them as well (Mogami 2893), I wanted to do a quick and easy test. I pulled the DIY Charlize out of the rack, added the PS1 as the player and hooked the Float up to the speaker out. While I have to say that there was some ground noise, this whole combo really rocks! David Bowie "The Man Who Sold The World" has been described as "Hard-Rock" but I never heard it this hard rocking! Before the Float was all Highs, Bass was there but not really coming to the fore. With the proper pads and the new cable the Float I is one of my favorite headphones. And if you add the other "cheap" components to this setup I have to say serious Mid-Fi has never been easier to achieve.

The pads are fine. I left them running over night and had a minute to listen to them this morning. They are really quite good, I would say on par with the dynamic headphones I have heard until now. I will spend some more time with them on the weekend and will try to post a more detailed review / comparison then.

Thanks spritzer, in that case I will refrain from opening them.

uuhm, Stax anyone? Seriously, I have no problem with a "bit" of customs / taxes when buying new gear... but something in between 20 and 40% seems inappropriate Add to that that I do not see why a used goods transaction inland is free and a used goods transaction across a border is not... Anyway now that we have defined a word that has nothing to do with headphones and might or might not describe the pastime of one or more users in the forum, can we talk about Stax, please? Pretty please? _________________________________________________________________________________ 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

God, I can get to love Electrostats Today I got the SRD6/SR-5 combo (I assume it is the Gold from the pictures I could find). Someone had replaced the in-cable and the speaker outs (horrid job), but still, you plug them in and it is good... They can not be compared to the SRM252/SR202 combo which simply does everything better, but I think these are really good rock phones, tight, fast, not too concerned with the details but, well, rocking. They project a way smaller soundstage, but again this is only right for a Power Trio or similar to bring down the house! My, this is the most fun you can have with your clothes on

Not really, chances are that when they are actual goods and you enclose an invoice it might be (a bit) faster, and I have to assume that not using the postal service probably is rather expensive...

I have to agree with Cosmopragma, the prices in Europe are high, but they actually are the prices people are paying! If you follow a few "high-end" auctions on ebay.de you see that people are willing to pay ridiculous prices. They do not know any better, they might not have a credit card or paypal account, have heard that the warranty is not valid in their country, want to have a dealer close by and presto you arrive at prices that are inflated compared to what you can get elsewhere. I live in Switzerland, where the customs process is painless. I made the mistake to mail two small speakers (the actual drivers) to Germany, as a letter (!) and marked as a gift (!). It took 5 weeks for the recipient to get them.... Compare that to walking into a boutique where you are greeted by a nicely turned out sales rep who does his best to make you feel important, and suddenly most people buy at prices that you and I would not pay even if we had the money.... Plus many of us void existing warranty (recabling anyone?)

I am at 12 + 3 on the way to me... does that already count for something? Oh, and as yet I have enough floorspace

Final price translates to 720$. From the pics it looks like serial is A55**. But then again I wanted a version that had both standard as well as pro output. I will let you know more when it arrives.

at least this thread has reached HF proportions, you can not even for a few hours without a few new pages to read through Anyway, just to let you know that I scored the SRM - 1/MK-2 + Lambda Pro from the german ebay auction. Looking forward to having them and comparing them to the STAX SRS-2052 setup. Now all I need (ok, would like to have) is a SRD7 Pro and a Koss ESP-950 recabled to have a real nice rounded zoo. Ah, the joys of collecting...

Got a question: what would you pay for a SRM - 1/MK-2 with a Lambda Pro? what would you pay for a SRM Monitor? Would either amp be "better" then the SRM252?

Thanks Listening to David Bowie (Station to Station) right now.... All I can tell you that so far this combo is very involving. Of course this is not the end-all, for starters on this CD (that has been gently remastered and thus is not that loud) I need to crank the amp rather high, and I will need to see how I get on with the leather pads etc... Still, this is better then I hoped!

Shit, I knew this was going to happen, i just knew it Reading all about the nice electrostat sound, enjoying a K340 immensly and always looking for something new I wanted to try some Stax... I watched ebay for some time, but the prices are sooo inflated it is not funny! So in the end I went the pricejapan route and ordered the smallest set... at roughly 40% of the local price! About 20 minutes ago the nice post man rang the bell (7:15 AM) and I ripped the package apart in my haste to get the goodies set up: First impression, build quality is nice, the headphone feels solid, the amp looks so tiny... Of course I have the 100V version living in a 220V country (Switzerland) and so (a point in favour of the small version) I only had to replace the wall wart. Stax does a dirty thing here by reversing the polarity compared to almost anybody else! I would like to know how many systems have been fried because people plugged in any adapter they had, and only worried about the 12V.... Anyway, the amp lit up (phew...), I connected the rest of the stuff, put some music on and the phones on my head and :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance: Mind, the stuff is barely out of the box, not burned in, nothing of the sort.... I can not really put my listening experience into words, but let me tell you that at the moment I think this system does everything right!!!! (Just for reference I have here a Beyerdynamic DT880, a Proline 750, an AKG K1000 and the aforementioned K340), and just for pure listening pleasure this Baby-Stax already holds its own!! So, if someone wants to try, this "cheap" solution is the way to go, I think. I am looking forward to the system burn in and I am also looking forward to a set of SRD6 / SR-5 (hopefully Gold) that I snagged a few days ago and see how that compares. Anyway I now have officially paid my entry into the Stax club and I can tell you I am very glad I did!!

\ I have been promised a schematic in PDF that as yet has not arrived... And I still need to figure out a way to open the HER2000... will keep you posted. Sorry

spritzer, will do, but that will take until the afternoon. Thanks

I just snagged myself an Electret combo of Sennheiser Unipolar 2002 / HER 2000. They sound pretty good, but sadly they are imbalanced (left needs about one third boost...). I took the headphones apart, but could not find any problem, but I wonder about the control box. Does anyone have any technical information on the control box HER2000? Or does anyone know if the speakers can be run any other way, without the control box or with an adaptor to a Stax amp / energiser?