The Stax Thread III

[complin]

Compared to what?
Other headphones?
A live performance vs recorded track you know?
Quote:

 
Well with my set, I find the highs to be excellent, the lows to be acceptable and the mids to be so-so.
My take is with instruments the mids are ok, with lower octave male vocals it sucks. Higher female vocals are acceptable.
Just my perceptions, I've upgraded to a SR-407 and the mids are signifigantly better. Not exemplarary tho....

 

[complin]

Suggest you compare to one of the older Lmabda's like the 202?
 
Quote:

 
This IMO is what I hear on the 207's and probably the headphone's biggest weak point... I really love the balance of the headphone otherwise, but for certain songs with up close vocals, it can be quite evident.  Of course, for some other songs, it may enhance the experience.
 
From what I've been reading, it seems like many Lambda models share this characteristic.. are there any Lambda models which doesn't have that slight bit of that raspy/shouty vocalmidrange peak?

 

[complin]

Well on the russian web site there is a claim that the development of this runs into 100's of thousands of $$$$$$$?
 
I really do hope we are not heading into mikhail rotenberg singlepower territory again 

Quote:

Hi, here is an estimate of the price of high-end Russian electrostatic amplifier, very exclusive and without concessions, the "Demograf" amplifier: 25,000 to 50,000 Euros.
 
 

Link : http://www.homecinema-fr.com/forum/casques-haute-fidelite/club-des-heureux-proprietaires-de-casques-stax-t29819561-4740.html

 

[eric65]

Quote:

Well on the russian web site there is a claim that the development of this runs into 100's of thousands of $$$$$$$?
 
I really do hope we are not heading into mikhail rotenberg singlepower territory again 

 
Thank you to not be confused the Polish language  with Russian,
 
The website is Polish, and assertions of price data are greatly exaggerated.
 
Oingo Boingo himself has said earlier that the advertised price was excessive.
 
For the record, the Demograf manufactured by Dmitry aims to go further than the $ 16,000 amp Orpheus HEV90.
 
Simply!
 
 
http://hifiphilosophy.com/?p=6192
http://hifiphilosophy.com/?p=7503
 
Eric

 

[spritzer]

There are some shades of Mikhail in that build and the build quality is pretty bad (zip ties to hold a transformer... seriously??) and the price is nowhere near 50K€.  Pointing to the HEV90 as an example of expensive things is just idiotic as Sennheiser are the kings of charging way too much.  I also don't think anybody with any sense would call the HEV90 a good amp. 
 
A better case would be the Single Power ES-2 which cost 20000$ and was worth about 1000$.  That's the cost of the boxes, the rest was all thrown away when they were rebuilt to work properly. 
Quote:

Isn't the KGBH = BH? 

 
It is but there is a commercial version of the Blue Hawaii made in Russia by Flux Lab.  I posted over there about it... 
 
I do have a lot of concerns about the Russian version though as I highly doubt it is stable without the comp caps in place.  I'm also not sure if they are actually running it at full power as the boards never accommodated that. 
 
Quote:

[size=10pt][/size]
 
 
[size=10pt]recently bought a pair of 404/Sig having a small imbalance issue.[/size]
[size=10pt]Turned out that the left speaker didn't say much at all; in fact one had to listen to the left channel only to determine that it produced any sound at all.[/size]
[size=10pt]Following Spritzers advice on fixing imbalance issues: playing music continuosly for a couple of weeks, didn't help.[/size]
[size=10pt]I had it plug'd in for almost three weeks without any significant improvement.[/size]
[size=10pt]Decided to take a closer look at the ‘faulty’ driver. [/size]
[size=10pt]To me it looks like the drivers two protection filter was removed and poorly applied again … also there seems to be a gap between the driver and the baffle …[/size]
[size=10pt]…any suggestions?[/size]

 
If just the dust covers were removed then you shouldn't have imbalance issues but why on earth were the covers removed, that is the bigger question.  Now there is pretty much zero chance that the drivers are free of dust so personally I'd replace them. 

 

[livewire]

Quote:

Compared to what?
Other headphones?
A live performance vs recorded track you know?

I think I said it right there in the last post you quoted. (SR-407)
Also with the ESP-950 (using same source and amp)
My observations are based on other stats that I own.
FWIW I have listened to most of the Stax flagships built in the last thirty five years.

 

[soren_brix]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spritzer /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Originally Poster by soren_brix
 

 
[size=10pt]recently bought a pair of 404/Sig having a small imbalance issue.[/size]
[size=10pt]Turned out that the left speaker didn't say much at all; in fact one had to listen to the left channel only to determine that it produced any sound at all.[/size]
[size=10pt]Following Spritzers advice on fixing imbalance issues: playing music continuosly for a couple of weeks, didn't help.[/size]
[size=10pt]I had it plug'd in for almost three weeks without any significant improvement.[/size]
[size=10pt]Decided to take a closer look at the ‘faulty’ driver.[/size]
[size=10pt]To me it looks like the drivers two protection filter was removed and poorly applied again … also there seems to be a gap between the driver and the baffle …[/size]
[size=10pt]…any suggestions?[/size]

 
Spritzer:
 
If just the dust covers were removed then you shouldn't have imbalance issues but why on earth were the covers removed, that is the bigger question.  Now there is pretty much zero chance that the drivers are free of dust so personally I'd replace them. 

According to the seller, the driver had an imbalance problem. He claims to have removed only the protection filters just to inspect the driver for any hair/dust that might have caused the imbalance ...and reapplied the protectionfilters and everything looked neat and fine ...

 

[eric65]

Hello,
 
The Russians know the beautiful music, know how produce that beautiful music, and enjoy the beautiful headphone and beautiful amps to play this beautiful music, like the Americans and French.

 
http://www.bolshoirussia.com/
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hYIN2N7-nI&feature=player_Embedded
 
http://www.homecinema-fr.com/forum/casques-haute-fidelite/club-des-heureux-proprietaires-de-casques-stax-t29819561-4770.html
 
Eric

 

[milosz]

Quote:

 
Do you really have to desolder that caps to test them? Seems like a hassle. Also, what is the cheapest multimeter that you can recommend for doing such things as measuring caps, general use, measuring low numbers as the voltage/amperage going through dynamic headphones, and of course being fairly future proof?

 
You can sometimes test caps in-circuit, but it depends on the circuit - for example if a bunch of caps are wired in parallel it is not possible to test just one...
 
Cap tester -  see  http://www.peakelec.co.uk/acatalog/jz_esr70.html  the Atlas ESR-70 is a good basic unit.
 
For a multimeter, DVM, there are a bunch of decent ones out there.  The Velleman DVM850BL is a decent unit, you can get these for around $15.  Please be advised these are only usable / safe up to 600 volts DC
 
The Fluke 115 is a great pro-quality multimeter.  For about $130~$150  you get a meter that measures capacitance as well as the usual volts / ohms / milliamps.

 

[davidsh]

Thanks for your help. It seems fairly expensive, I will loan equipment from my neighbour when I need it (he is former electrician)

 

[Piotr Ryka]

There is not only the Demograf on electrostatic market. I've heard two other very interesting things – Dubiel Accoustic Euridice and LRT.
Euridice is complete tube amplifier, generally better for SR-007 than any Stax amplifier besides SRM-T2;
LRT is very sophisticated version of old Stax "adapter for earspeakers" with which and my ASL Twin-Head preamplifier paired with Restek Extent dual mono amplifier Stax SR-009 sounded better than with Orpheus or T2.
 

 
Euridice
 
 
 

 
LRT
 
 

 
ASL Twin-Head and Restek Extent with Accuphase DP-700

 

[Chris J]

Thanks for your help. It seems fairly expensive, I will loan equipment from my neighbour when I need it (he is former electrician)

Your electrician neighbour probably doesn't own a capacitance meter.
Electricians don't run around measuring capacitance!
They don't understand audiophiles.......

 

[alota]

Quote:

 

 
LRT
 
 
 

please, you´ve a link for this amplifier?

 

[AnakChan]

Quote:

please, you´ve a link for this amplifier?

 
More info here :-

http://www.head-fi.org/t/615186/stax-transformer-upgrade/30#post_8594781

 

[davidsh]

Quote:

Quote:

Thanks for your help. It seems fairly expensive, I will loan equipment from my neighbour when I need it (he is former electrician)

Your electrician neighbour probably doesn't own a capacitance meter.
Electricians don't run around measuring capacitance!

They don't understand audiophiles.......

I asked him yesterday. He has got a fairly expensive multimeter that can measure caps. Dunno if it goes further than just the capacitance value.