[studeb]

Any idea how long the charge will last? i have a pair of Stax SR-60 that are still going strong, but i was curious about membrane charge life.

Does anyone else think these Sonys look an awful lot like stax gear? Headband, earcup holders, and the 5 conductor flat cable on the 880 all look Stax like.

 

[Meyvn]

Call me crazy, but the 500 reminds me distantly of a Grado HP1000.

 

[wualta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by studeb Any idea how long the charge will last?

At least a human lifetime, as long as you don't boil them.


Quote:

i have a pair of Stax SR-60..

Do you mean a 30, 40 or 80? Grado makes the 60.

 

[E.B.M.Head]

Stax also made a SR 60. Look here: http://www.fl-electronic.de/neuklang/staxsr84.html (scroll a bit down)
You can find them quite often on german eBay.

 

[theseanxu]

bah old thread.

 

[wualta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by E.B.M.Head Stax also made a SR 60. Look here: http://www.fl-electronic.de/neuklang/staxsr84.html (scroll a bit down) You can find them quite often on german eBay.

Interesting! They don't show up on the English page of the Stax Brand History list, but from looking at them, they're what was sold in the US as the SR 30.

There's a link to a thorough explanation of electret principles and manufacture there for German speakers.

Maybe Stax called it an SR 30 here in the US to avoid a conflict with Grado. Thanks for the info!

 

[Carl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta Maybe Stax called it an SR 30 here in the US to avoid a conflict with Grado. Thanks for the info!

Then why release a SR-80?

I think it's just another case of Stax renaming things for no logical reason, a la Alpha/Gamma.

 

[wualta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carl Then why release a SR-80?

Dunno..[draws circle in dirt with toe of shoe].. maybe the Grado '80 hadn't been released yet. Dunno.

Seriously, since I don't know when Grado started making the 60 and 80 (although I should; I own one of each), I have no idea. But something of a weird legal/superstition-type nature must've happened, since Stax started with the SR-40 electret, then improved it and called it.... the 30. Which was released concurrent with the 80. Argh!

Quote:

I think it's just another case of Stax renaming things for no logical reason, a la Alpha/Gamma.

I think there's a sinister conspiracy afoot. But you're probably right.

 

[wualta]

Sorry to have to do this to a comfortably dead thread, but I've found my old e-buddy Axel has added the ECR-800 to his amazing site, The Vintage Knob. Cutaway diagrams and everything, with Japanese captions.

Apparently Sony got the diaphragm thickness on the 800 down to 2 microns. Did they do a back-electret configuration (see post #57 below)? They also found that different color wire sounded different. Shades of Peter Belt. Sony provides an explanation that you'll find interesting. It's all here:

Sony ESPRIT #30: ECR-880 & ECA-80

Still have never seen an 800 in the US. More's the pity.


.

 

[Duggeh]

Always good to see a thread bumped where Carl had commented (comparatively) recently.

I miss Carl.

 

[Faust2D]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sorry to have to do this to a comfortably dead thread, but I've found my old e-buddy Axel has added the ECR-800 to his amazing site, The Vintage Knob. Cutaway diagrams and everything, with Japanese captions. Apparently Sony got the diaphragm thickness on the 800 down to 2 microns. Did they do a back-electret configuration? They also found that different color wire sounded different. Shades of Peter Belt. Sony provides an explanation that you'll find interesting. It's all here: Sony ESPRIT #30: ECR-880 & ECA-80 Still have never seen an 800 in the US. More's the pity.

The ECA-80 box looks very complicated, much more than any Stax transformer box that I have seen.

 

[wualta]

Notice two things: there's a bias voltage (200v), which means this isn't an electret headset but a "real" (ie, external-bias) electrostatic, and what some have called an amp is really just a fancy transformer box.

This also means the ECR-600 was a "real" electrostat.

 

[Faust2D]

I did see the 200v bias, slightly lower than a normal Stax socket. Will my SRM-1 drive it?

 

[spritzer]

Thanks for the update and forcing me to find one of these to try out...

 

[Faust2D]

You need to find PMB-1000 first