[scompton]

When the K-Mart stats showed up on eBay, I couldn't resist. I just can't imagine K-Mart selling high end headphones. Actually, I can't imagine K-Mart selling high end anything, let alone headphones

These are SR-3 clones with a self biasing adapter. The wiring of the adapter seems odd to me. It has the standard, 6 pin, normal bias jack. However the middle pin and top pin aren't connected to anything. Since I don't own a self biasing Stax adapter, I don't know if they are wired the same way. Unfortunately, the headphone cable is broken in 2 places. The left side is fine, but the right side has no sound. I'm not sure when I can get around to rewiring them. When I do, I'll post pictures of the inside. For now, here are pics of the outside of the headphone.

 

[ashmedai]

Well that's just some kind of awesome.

 

[moonboy403]

how much do they cost?

 

[ueyteuor]

yeah, i posted a thread about a pair on ebay a while ago.... i think someone on the thread won them..

 

[wonderwall]

I'm assuming these are from old-school K-Mart going by the logo.

 

[scompton]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ashmedai /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well that's just some kind of awesome.

$26.00 plus $10 shipping, plus what ever it'll cost me to recable them which should be too much.

They should sound fine as well once I recable them. I already own an SR-3 and Magnavox SR-3 clone, both of which I like. These may sound better than the Magnavox which have closed cups and according to Spritzer, poorly supported drivers.

These have very shallow ear pads that are just barely circumaural on my normal sized ears.

 

[dvse]

It's amazing just how much better electrostats were in the 70s compared to the horrible paper cone dynamics available at the time, indeed they are competitive to this day.

 

[krmathis]

Another sweet looking vintage headphone.

Can't go much wrong with that price, so why not...

 

[Golden Monkey]

Crazy...any idea when these were made? $26? Suck on THAT, Stax, lol...

 

[DrBenway]

Scompton, you are a true knight of the headphone realm. The notion of a KMart electrostat is too bizarre to contemplate. Was there a matching high-end 8-track player?

 

[G-man]

umm, i may be missing something, is k-mart like some cheapo shop like tesco or something? also, they look quite good, any idea of original price?

 

[DrBenway]

Woops.

 

[Golden Monkey]

G-Man, yeah...like Tesco pretty much. Not so Marks & Sparks...think "chav shopping".

 

[spritzer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Golden Monkey /img/forum/go_quote.gif Crazy...any idea when these were made? $26? Suck on THAT, Stax, lol...

Odds are that they were made by Stax (no way to be sure now but the similarities are immense) and cost quite a bit more when they were new. Think of these OEM's as crippled Stax SR-3N's...

 

[wualta]

Spritzer, are the clones definitely 3Ns? not 3s?