March 21, 201610 yr The ESP9 headband also works a treat with these. Gotta love anything that has nails in it though...
March 22, 201610 yr Thanks for that info! Those pads look nice, and for a nice price. Your description of sound is exactly how I would describe mine, so I guess driven single-ended the sound is similar to what I am hearing now. I don't have a problem cranking mine, but then again I have it hooked up to pro bias. Nails and big red LEDs FTW. I'm tempted to make the LEDs work again, and get the same red pads (well played, Tinkerer)... maybe paint the cups matte black. Also tempted to get some LED light-up sneakers for that extra swag factor.
March 23, 201610 yr On 3/20/2016 at 0:15 AM, mypasswordis said: Hope you snag the ESP9 and report back! Well, I did win for UKP62 - or about $90. It has a pair of Koss replacement ear pads, so I'll get a chance to see how bad the foam filled ones are. I've already ordered Brainwavz ones (in black!) for a venerable old pair of PRO-4AA's which they apparently also fit. The original fluid filled ones were as hard as a rock and of course empty.
March 24, 201610 yr Have fun restoring them and be careful with the energizer. No bridged amps and it is the definition of a rats nest...
March 24, 201610 yr Ah - thanks for the heads up. With something of that vintage I'll be looking carefully at the rats nest before I even turn it on, particularly dried out electrolytics and the such. It has apparently shipped, so will soon see what I've taken on. Just restored a pair of PRO4AA's. They were in fact the first headphone type I ever bought back in 1974; I recalled they were pretty good so I picked up a cheap pair on eBay. Fairly good condition all said. Foam damping in the cups was dust, so have used a chunk of speaker damping in each after cleaning out the cups. Dried out hardened fluid pads which I've replaced with Brainwavz (bit of a struggle, but I wasn't taking no for an answer). Then the cable that goes through the headband went intermittent - so I've spend a fun hour or two replacing that. Not perfect in sound quality by a stretch. Excellent bass extension, but evidence of a midrange hump and recessed treble. That was in a shootout with (old) Beyer DT990 and AKG K701 both owned since new. All in all I rather prefer the DT990 in terms of overall balance - the K701 is just too bright, kind of the opposite problem of the PRO4AA. But all in all, given the date I bought my original pair and what else was on the market at that time, I think I chose wisely with the old PRO4AA.
March 28, 201610 yr On March 25, 2016 at 11:23 PM, padam said: Nope btw Happy Birthday Larry! Thanks On March 25, 2016 at 11:20 PM, DefQon said: Was that Larry in the video as in HeadphoneAddict? Wrong Larry
March 30, 201610 yr ESP-9's turned up. Both headphones and energizer are in great shape. There is only one mains transformer, mounted on the rear panel, and orthogonal to both signal transformers. I have no idea how that is wired up to the voltage multipliers, but it seems to power up fine though and the headphones do not make any untoward noises - with no signal as yet. Common ground on the inputs. Zener strings are 4 x 180V, so it looks like the bias voltage is ~700V. Looks like a good UKP62's worth for a bit of fun, and possibly some half way decent sound quality. Expect I'll have to open the backs of the phones to check for dreaded sponge degradation at least though.
March 31, 201610 yr Done. It was like tar. Washed down the boards with alcohol and toothbrush, cleaned everything else carefully, and reassembled with some speaker wadding where the foam used to be. Diaphragms hold charge really well, so leakage seems to be minimal. So far so good; close to putting music through them.
March 31, 201610 yr I've bought a lot of vintage headphones on ebay and sadly the vast majority of the time the cable is intermittent, for dynamic/ortho types. Electrostatic headphones seem to have longer lasting cables. The old esp6-10 drivers seem very bulletproof. I wonder exactly how they differ... my guess is they are way more similar than not.
March 31, 201610 yr "vintage" is sexy these days, but the bottom line is it generally means old and the wear and tear that goes with it. Same with cars....an old car is cool but you better be prepared for a lot of drips on the driveway... The dictionary should have "fixer upper" in the definition for vintage... HS
March 31, 201610 yr I've lost count of how many basket cases I've received over the years. Buying vintage is a huge risk but so many people don't want to face that.
March 31, 201610 yr Well, the good news is that the ESP-9's are working just fine. Centered image, clean sounding, no hum problem (some have that, apparently). Of course they are transformer based, so have the limitations associated with that. But hey - for sixty quid (~$90) it is difficult to go wrong, unless as you say you end up with a basket case.
April 1, 201610 yr Most of my truly WTF headphones have been dirt cheap so I just viewed them as a learning experience. Glad the ESP9's are working as they should. Not bad at all but one could argue that the Stax sets of the same vintage are better. Certainly more comfortable. Something for this thread though, as most know the new Orpheus had a name change last month (HE1060 to HE1) but what Sennheiser kept to them selves is an embargo on actually calling them "Orpheus". They are not meant to be called that in any official publication or by Senn representatives. Not sure what is going on there but this is a complete change from the earlier days. Ohh and me having this info has nothing to do with me asking how much a set would cost me...
April 1, 201610 yr There is an old Orpheus on eBay Germany at the moment for Euro24k item 301907794353. And another for UKP17.5k item 141918737646. Don't all rush now. At least the old ones don't have the silliness of the knobs and tubes magically sliding out of the case of the new amp.
April 1, 201610 yr Author 36 minutes ago, Craig Sawyers said: There is an old Orpheus on eBay Germany at the moment for Euro24k item 301907794353. And another for UKP17.5k item 141918737646. Don't all rush now. At least the old ones don't have the silliness of the knobs and tubes magically sliding out of the case of the new amp. They also do sound a whole lot better with the DIY T2 as well. Gotta to love DIY T2 for making every set of Stats that I have sounding their very best.
April 6, 201610 yr Picture from show in Warsaw (the same where Padam was.): In short, old Orpheus still rocks
April 6, 201610 yr Author 59 minutes ago, spritzer said: Well the HE90 doesn't rock as it has abysmal bass performance... Out of the T2, it is quite capable Birgir.
April 6, 201610 yr Sadly no. Even on the Carbon is isn't capable at all and suffers from all the same issues as it did on the BH back in the day.
April 8, 201610 yr On 4/6/2016 at 0:10 PM, spritzer said: Sadly no. Even on the Carbon is isn't capable at all and suffers from all the same issues as it did on the BH back in the day. Sounds fine on the Aristeaus too me but it never ever sounded good on the BH, IMO.
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