The Stax thread (New) - Page 555

Hello again. Here is another question for you Stax addict fellows: how much does it cost to replace the 303/404 drivers in Europe? I have asked Stax Germany about this but they didn't answer, our relationship is not so good right now for reasons I will get into later....
Thanks a lot!

The BH has been dropped for good and it is the BHSE that will be the regular production model, though at a higher price then the pre-release units. Justin gave me a rough estimate that I don't feel comfortable posting here but it will be a bit more expensive.

I hope you guys don't stone me to death on this one, but is mating vinyl with stax oII mk1 bad idea? I mean, due to surface noise etc - will it punish my ears on such revealing setup?

I've been getting conflicting opinions on this... some say it's a bad idea, while some say if I clean my vinyl well enough, there shouldn't be any problem.

About using old push-pull tube amps . . .

I've heard it said a few times that you can drive an electrostatic headphone off any old push-pull tube amp by just hooking up some high-voltage capacitors at the primaries of the output transformers and adding a bias circuit.

Seemed like a neat idea, but until recently i hadn't had the opportunity to come by any push-pull tube amps. The local market is sparse and the ebay market is a bit rich.

I may have an opportunity to buy quite cheaply a Fisher Electra console stereo with an ELL80-based push-pull amp in it, that i could potentially use for such a project, so, I have some questions.

Do the output transformers necessarily need to stay in the circuit? Can they be removed completely or replaced with a resistive load or something?

Am i grossly oversimplifying this?

Justin said to me that it will be the BHSE that will be built for the future. It comes in 2 separate boxes - one for the amp and the other for the power supply. He said they will be exactly the same as the current 20 uints which he is still building unless he sees the necessity to make changes. Damn, the US dollar is just rocketing. If I do not bite the bullet and buy it now I could be paying quite a bit more.

Vinyl is fantastic on the O2. Once you get into the music the noise just fades away. Some headphones with a peaky high end or a tiped up top can be a problem with vinyl. The O2 does not have those problems. After listening to good vinyl it's hard to go back to digital. Take good care of your vinyl and get a VPI 16.5 record cleaning machine. It makes a huge difference.

Vinyl always has a problem with static. I hate the ticks and pops as well. At first I used all the expensive vacuum suckers and liquids to clean my records - it worked but I still prefer to use dish washing liquid. It has worked well for me so far. You may like to try it out as well. With the dish washing liquid you just have to be careful not to scratch the record when washing it. Once done quickly get a dry towel to soak up the water in the labels. Try one piece and see the results.

I tried that 40 years ago. It doesn't work worth a ****. Although the Palmolive dish soap did make my hands softer.

FL-electronic HiFi can probably help you.


cheers

Tom

Ok, thanks for clarifying.
The KGBH SE sure looks really promising, so its nice to see him building more than the 10 units he first decided to build.

Too bad its too late for me, as I have already found other ways to drive my Stax'en.

The output trafo's need to be in the circuit since they have a CT which the B+ is connected to. Even some electrostatic amps are designed this way (MJ, The Beast) but with a push-pull choke though instead of the output transformers. You will need to capacitor couple the output and probably even create a virtual CT with some high value resistors. I've been wanting to try this for a long time but the huge shipping costs involved have held be back as there is zero vintage gear to be had here.

The amp does indeed have a separate PSU and amp unit. An upgraded PSU could be available in the future and I will most likely build my own with a design that is being drawn up.

Thanks for the explanation.

I had a 2nd look at the console in question and now I'm not sure I want it. It turns out to be a later Fisher unit with all-tube am/fm tuner & preamp, but a solid-state output stage.

I had low hopes when i saw only two output tubes on the chassy, then high hopes when i saw the ELL80 described as a "dual power pentode, intended to work as a push-pull output stage in a single tube", and now just confusion after finding the parts diagram showing Q1 through Q4.

there are two small transformers on one end of the amp chassy, which i took for output transformers, but now i have no clear understanding of the amplifier topology and fear it may be worthless for 'stat use except with a transformer box. Those two little trafos could be the bipolar power supply for the transistors for all i know.

At $25, i could always just treat it as an ironic piece of furniture, maybe integrate a pc media server in the cabinet with a 22" LCD inside the lid . . .

FWIW it's precisely like this auction - except with the furniture still attached:

http://cgi.ebay.com/FISHER-E-49-MULT...QQcmdZViewItem

For 25$ you could just use it for the sockets and iron if it doesn't pan out but I don't think this would be a good choice. There were a lot of more traditional amps built so something like the Dynaco70 would do just fine and is cheap... very cheap.

Spritzer, you have other types of female jacks on the BHSE as well?

Mine will have two genuine Stax 5 pin outputs which required a custom front panel. I supplied the jacks so don't bother bugging Justin about them. I have no need for a either a HE90 jack or a normal bias output since I've settled on the Omegas as my weapon of choice.