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post #2236 of 23083
6/9/07 at 4:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by krmathis View Post
Johnny Blue. Yeah, it seems like you missed a great deal there.
A pair of the black Omega II and SRM-0717 (both unused) for £1,250.00 is a very good deal.

Oh well! Too bad you missed it.
A few months back a dealer here in the UK had an Omega II and SRM-717 on eBay for £1,500 buy-it-now, but somebody bid on it, the B-I-N disappeared, and it went for £1,660 in the end!

Ever since then, I've had a target price of £1,500 for such a system, but to see it for £1,250 and brand new/unused, and with the stand...

As I said:

Aaaaaaaaaargh!
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post #2237 of 23083
6/9/07 at 11:20am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by edstrelow View Post
I am curious as to why people think the Omega II is harder to drive than any other electrostatic. Is it that they are inefficient and need a big amp. Surely they are no less efficient than the Sigma pros?
It's to do with the stator-diaphragm spacing, the fact that PCB stators are one sided (the copper is on the far side from the diaphragm), and the dielectric properties of the materials it's constructed out of. It needs juice the way an old American big block V8 does, it's not an efficient engine even by the low standards of electrostatics.

While there's nothing inherantly wrong with that, good sounding power is expensive and it means the on-road cost of the O2 isn't as cheap as might first appear.
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post #2238 of 23083
6/9/07 at 12:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl View Post
...While there's nothing inherantly wrong with that, good sounding power is expensive and it means the on-road cost of the O2 isn't as cheap as might first appear.
Keep it up, Carl, this is what I need to read to get over my missing the OIIs/717 on eBay I mentioned earlier...

Yeah, it'd have been a complete waste of my money, I'd have to spend at least another £2k on a decent amp, right? Right? Please... !

(Why aren't there any emoticons of sobbing?)
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post #2239 of 23083
6/9/07 at 12:09pm
Instead of buying a set of O2s, just stuff handfuls of hundred dollar bills into a black shoe box and burn them in your stove. They're a curse, I tell you!

(said I, after pursuing their holy grail-like sound and already buying two perfectly good 1.5 kilobuck amplifiers, the end of said sojourn still not in sight.)

Seriously, the 717 combo would have just whetted your appetite for better sound from them (dry sounding, from what I've heard.)
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post #2240 of 23083
6/9/07 at 12:17pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny Blue View Post
Keep it up, Carl, this is what I need to read to get over my missing the OIIs/717 on eBay I mentioned earlier...

Yeah, it'd have been a complete waste of my money, I'd have to spend at least another £2k on a decent amp, right? Right? Please... !
Only if you want to extract the O2's full potential. It's hardly like it's a minnow when underamped.

Quote:
(Why aren't there any emoticons of sobbing?)
Ask and ye shall receive.

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post #2241 of 23083
6/9/07 at 12:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Downrange View Post
Seriously, the 717 combo would have just whetted your appetite for better sound from them (dry sounding, from what I've heard.)

I get wonderful sound with the 717 and O2's. You must let it warm up for 30 minutes. I like it better than my 007t. The 007t sounds great on my low bias Lambda's, Lambda Pro's and SR-XIII's.
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post #2242 of 23083
6/9/07 at 1:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by audiod View Post
I get wonderful sound with the 717 and O2's. You must let it warm up for 30 minutes. I like it better than my 007t. The 007t sounds great on my low bias Lambda's, Lambda Pro's and SR-XIII's.
Glad they're working for you! I haven't heard them with O2s yet, but they're pretty robust, from what I've heard.

By the way, I had the top off the 7tII today and noticed the tubes are 8FQ7. Probably a change made when they modified the heater/filament circuit for DC supply. Supposedly, the 8s are different in the shape of the plates, too. They're GE, and have no idea of their reputation, but, again, I love the sound of the amp.

Anyone want the set of new Raytheons (6FQ7) I bought to tube swap? I'll sell at my cost.
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post #2243 of 23083
6/9/07 at 5:32pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Downrange View Post
By the way, I had the top off the 7tII today and noticed the tubes are 8FQ7. Probably a change made when they modified the heater/filament circuit for DC supply. Supposedly, the 8s are different in the shape of the plates, too. They're GE, and have no idea of their reputation, but, again, I love the sound of the amp.
Is the heater supply in there alright with that? 8.4V/450mA is pretty different from 6.3V/600mA.
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post #2244 of 23083
6/9/07 at 7:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Downrange View Post
Instead of buying a set of O2s, just stuff handfuls of hundred dollar bills into a black shoe box and burn them in your stove. They're a curse, I tell you!

(said I, after pursuing their holy grail-like sound and already buying two perfectly good 1.5 kilobuck amplifiers, the end of said sojourn still not in sight.)

Seriously, the 717 combo would have just whetted your appetite for better sound from them (dry sounding, from what I've heard.)
Yes, yes, yes, Downrange, this is what I wanted to hear (read!)...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl View Post
...
Ask and ye shall receive.
There IS a Stax God after all (and there was me, thinking it was spritzer... ).
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post #2245 of 23083
6/9/07 at 8:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl View Post
Is the heater supply in there alright with that? 8.4V/450mA is pretty different from 6.3V/600mA.
I haven't read anywhere that Stax changed the tubes, even Stax says they use the 6CG7. They might have changed it in a later revision but why not use a better tube if you are going to change it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny Blue View Post
There IS a Stax God after all (and there was me, thinking it was spritzer... ).
Nope I'm not God. I'm just an insane headphone collector that just snagged a SR-X Mk2
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post #2246 of 23083
6/9/07 at 9:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl View Post
Is the heater supply in there alright with that? 8.4V/450mA is pretty different from 6.3V/600mA.
Carl, best I can figure is that's the heater PS difference Stax is referring to in the 7tII brochure which says: "The heater power source for the vacuum tube makes use of a power circuit of the DC ignition type using an electrolytic capacitor and a high-speed Schotky barrier diode, bringing further improvements in the S/N ratio."
They also said they beefed up the main power supply (transformer is larger and it uses beefier capacitors). I took lots of pictures while inside today and am planning to put all this in the shoot-out review I'll post up when the KGSS gets here. No one has really done a detailed test on the new 7tII, as far I've been able to find, so I'll jump in.
Doesn't look like basic design (four dual triodes) changes, so not sure what they gain soundwise by going to the 8FQ7's, if anything.
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post #2247 of 23083
6/10/07 at 3:00am

The 717

Quote:
Originally Posted by audiod View Post
I get wonderful sound with the 717 and O2's. You must let it warm up for 30 minutes. I like it better than my 007t. The 007t sounds great on my low bias Lambda's, Lambda Pro's and SR-XIII's.
That it also my experience. The best amp Stax has made since I started with my first Staxes in 1983. The 717 is very neutral and the question of dry or wet
character is up to the source component and the recording technique.

Combined with the 02´s the resulting reproduction can be compared to what you get from active ATC speakers.

Tom
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post #2248 of 23083
6/10/07 at 5:56am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny Blue View Post
There IS a Stax God after all (and there was me, thinking it was spritzer... ).
He's just being coy, he knows he is.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Downrange View Post
Carl, best I can figure is that's the heater PS difference Stax is referring to in the 7tII brochure which says: "The heater power source for the vacuum tube makes use of a power circuit of the DC ignition type using an electrolytic capacitor and a high-speed Schotky barrier diode, bringing further improvements in the S/N ratio."
That's talking about the filtering used on the heater surply (a Schotky bridge for rectification followed by an RC filter). What I want to know is if the heater surply can handle putting a tube with completely different heater requirements in there without choking. Not all tube gear can.

Quote:
Doesn't look like basic design (four dual triodes) changes, so not sure what they gain soundwise by going to the 8FQ7's, if anything.
There is no electrical difference between the two besides a different voltage/current mix for the heater (although there could conceiveably be construction
differences that affect the sound).

Quote:
Originally Posted by bralk View Post
That it also my experience. The best amp Stax has made since I started with my first Staxes in 1983.
I dunno... SRM-T2? SRA-14S?
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post #2249 of 23083
6/10/07 at 7:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl View Post
There is no electrical difference between the two besides a different voltage/current mix for the heater (although there could conceiveably be construction
differences that affect the sound).
Stax could have bought a large supply of NOS tubes for less then they buy new 6CG7's now. There isn't any other good explanation for doing this.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl View Post
I dunno... SRM-T2? SRA-14S?
The 14S is basically a SRM-1 in a bigger chassis so the T2 gets the honors.
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post #2250 of 23083
6/10/07 at 7:25am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by spritzer View Post
The 14S is basically a SRM-1 in a bigger chassis so the T2 gets the honors.
It also has a completely different power supply (big transformer, super-shunt regulation, lots of capacitance, etc). The point was that the 717 ain't the best amp Stax has made since 1983.
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