[nick n]

I think I just scored something very rare.
Not that the phones themselves are that rare, ( actually I think they are getting so ) but an unused 38 year old pair,  still in the box and never fired up sure is.( according to auction ) That's what I just scored on a buy-it-now. For some reason it never showed up in my searches before.I had to go for a quick walk to try to think it over , but the quick click of the mouse made my decision before I realized what I did lol. Never got a chance to get seated properly. Sort of like how they say you have a minute or two before your stomach tells your brain it's full.

Part of my self-justification was that these will not suffer from the degradation hopefully that can plague these electrets these days.
 
You know I sort of took the warnings in here seriously, but this is getting to be a problem. Attention new members: Watch and learn... be afraid.
I will now own 7 headphones since my first post, which was ONLY Feb 2 of this year, starting of course with the one pair I asked about an i.d. on.
I mean c'mon my Stax SR-5 's have not even arrived in the mail yet.
Those are posted here with pics http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/223263/the-stax-thread-new/15660#post_7505739
 
 I wonder if they should stay unused ( I can hear the cries of anguish coming my way ). Keep them for down the road. I don't know. All I DO know , is that I may have a headphone addiction, and that's no joke.
 
I was going to head over to Vancouver within the month and grab 2 pairs of Superluxes, the HD662DF and the HD668B. Maybe I should hold off.
Any opinions on whether or not ( if you were in my shoes ) these should remain unfired and in the box, as I will have the used Stax.
There was a set I know of that was missing the adapter,  maybe I should bite on those then keep the phones in the bag just use the  extra used set... I dunno.
Sorry for my enthusiasm here, but I have nobody else who understands me with this stuff. Honestly I really don't.
 Here's some pics from the auction.( NO that's not my pink sheet haha )
 
If this is in what you mods feel to be the wrong thread, feel free to move it wherever.  There wasn't too many 705 threads that i could see unless I search poorly. Maybe move it to the " Show Us Your Vintage Phones!" thread.
 
If there are any 705 owners in here that want a photocopy of the manual I will gladly send them out a copy free of charge when I get these. Just pm me.
 

 

[RexAeterna]

very nice score indeed. i say you should try them out of course unless you are just a collector and plan on selling them in the future. i was gonna get a pair of those but i lost my bid and i did not feel like paying more then 40 bucks for a used pair that i might need to do work on. you should try them out and let use know. not much people have pair of these far from what i know of. i heard that they benefit from lots of power so hope you have a pretty beastly speaker amp/receiver.

 

[nick n]

sorry deleted post

 

[BotByte]

I know the feeling of getting New-Old stock
 
I don't know the feeling with headohones, but I know with bike parts.
 
This one store was closing in my town, and I was real close with the store owner before he died and his son couldn't carry the store
So the kid gave me the whole stock of the building to clear it out Vs. paying someone to throw it all out.
 
Most was junk, but as I got into the boxs I found some parts like Zues hubs and Wobler rims brand new from the 60's and 70's. I even found a entire Bianchi still in the original plastic and box. It's hanging fully assembled on my ceiling at the moment and I can sell it for about $1500 at the moment. No... It is mine!
 
 
But great find man! If you want, you should put them in a glass case and hang them, and take them out for the occasional listen.

 

[Garage1217]

Very cool!

 

[DemonicLemming]

I say - fire them up and take a listen.  They look like a very cool set of headphones, and it's always neat to see vintage electrostat threads pop up.

 

[nick n]

I'm excited. Nakamichi HP-100's!
 
Turns out they had another set of 705's also in the same state. Unused in box. Guess what : I am an idiot and got that too. One set of 705's to use, one set to get stored away for a decade to age nicely like fine wine. ( pulls out headphones in 10 years and gets an earful of dead moths ) I don't understand what this place  as done to me. Do I have to purposely ban myself? it might be beneficial. Remo Williams brown-rice diet here we go.  Someone has to get that reference.
 
 ALSO I snagged a set of Nakamichi HP-100 Monitoring phones, also new in box.
The Nakamichi set really struck me as a unique find, both aesthetically and for rarity. Take a look at these
 

Man they look awesome!!! They just speak to me in some strange way. yeah I guess that may be subjective. I hope they sound the same way, and given the manner in which they approached their older audio equipment I may be in luck. I'll have to cross-reference dates from the manual or markings for the manufacturing date and where they fall within the company's history. Here's hoping

 
I know they had quite a run there with their stupidly high-end Dragon Turntables ( crazy stuff ) and Tape Decks ( just as crazy ), also some of their other stuff was quite good too.  The multi disc cd player is tempting. I think it was supposed to be near the top of the heap back in it's day.
Anyhow there was next to NO info on these save for a few scant mentions in here, so why not. At least now anyone who has a set can get a copy of the specs or manual from me.
 
Any one else own these that hasn't chimed in yet?

 

[rhfactor1]

I would leave one in the box and sell as new in the FS Forum. Just a piece of advise; don't tell anyone in this thread how much you paid for them. You could proably start at an asking price of twice what you paid for them. The second pair I would try like you said and I'm sure you could always sell them also as like new condition. If past experience is any judge you'll need to break them in for an extended period of time (I have an old pair of Signet TK-44 electrets that were made in the Stax factory for Signet). And FWIR all AT electrects were made in the same factory. If the sound quality is anything close to mine the mids and highend are truly spectacular but the lower midrange to the subbass is fairly thin with very little body. But I really don't think the the SQ is bothersome unless you're a real basshead. So great news on the score for the headphones.and Happy Listening.

 

[buggalugs]

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you on these Nick; they had a reputation for the electret capsules to depolarize after a few years (let alone 30+!).
To be fair to other potential purchasers do try them out - you'll soon know if depolarization has taken place by a distant weedy sound.
Best of luck.  

 

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

Quote:

I'm excited. Nakamichi HP-100's!
 
Turns out they had another set of 705's also in the same state. Unused in box. Guess what : I am an idiot and got that too. One set of 705's to use, one set to get stored away for a decade to age nicely like fine wine. ( pulls out headphones in 10 years and gets an earful of dead moths ) I don't understand what this place  as done to me. Do I have to purposely ban myself? it might be beneficial. Remo Williams brown-rice diet here we go.  Someone has to get that reference.
 
 ALSO I snagged a set of Nakamichi HP-100 Monitoring phones, also new in box.
The Nakamichi set really struck me as a unique find, both aesthetically and for rarity. Take a look at these
 

Man they look awesome!!! They just speak to me in some strange way. yeah I guess that may be subjective. I hope they sound the same way, and given the manner in which they approached their older audio equipment I may be in luck. I'll have to cross-reference dates from the manual or markings for the manufacturing date and where they fall within the company's history. Here's hoping

 
I know they had quite a run there with their stupidly high-end Dragon Turntables ( crazy stuff ) and Tape Decks ( just as crazy ), also some of their other stuff was quite good too.  The multi disc cd player is tempting. I think it was supposed to be near the top of the heap back in it's day.
Anyhow there was next to NO info on these save for a few scant mentions in here, so why not. At least now anyone who has a set can get a copy of the specs or manual from me.
 
Any one else own these that hasn't chimed in yet?

This is where the japanese headphone site comes in handy. You might also prefer to use babelfish with it.

 
Quote:

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you on these Nick; they had a reputation for the electret capsules to depolarize after a few years (let alone 30+!).
To be fair to other potential purchasers do try them out - you'll soon know if depolarization has taken place by a distant weedy sound.
Best of luck.  

Are these particular cans the source of that old reputation? Many old electrets work very well despite their age.
 

 

[buggalugs]

The reason for my concern is because many years ago I had some AT ATH7 phones bought new (more years ago that I care to recall) that were quickly superceded by the purchase of some Stax Lambdas. I kept the AT's as a spare phone. Some years later when the Stax's were traded up I dug out the ATs and found them virtually useless, nor could I find any repair facilities. Enquiries at that time indicated that these AT phones (the ATH 705 was the very first of the line) did have a problem with early depolarization. BTW I always found that electrets promised a lot but delivered nothing like the performance of a full electrostatic phone.
But as I said I wish Nick well with his buy.

 

[nick n]

Thanks for the support and information on your experiences. It's what makes this place the best forum of any type out there.
 
Of course I would be fair to any potential buyer especially in here, no question on that front. I was thinking I would document them being opened and tested the once, at the time of selling of course in a small vid file. Anyhow that's all for later on down the road.
I just had to take that chance and am aware that they may not even work.

It's worth the experience and fun of it.  It will be interesting to run them through the Chesky Records stuff to test their capabilities, not to mention comparing them side by side with my recently arrived Stax SR-5's, which in all aspects appear to be working beautifully.
 I would never expect these to sound exactly like the Stax SR-5, but am very curious to see what their own unique signature may be like and appreciate them for what they are assuming they have a correct sound that is... My crazily-audiophillic  uncle has had a set of AT-6's (? or was it the 7's like you mentioned I think )  and was mentioning that they sound great to this day, but that he wouldn't mind a wider soundstage. Going to be interesting nonetheless especially when the 4 new EL84 tubes get here for that other amp I want to run them off.
 

 

[scompton]

 
Quote:

This is where the japanese headphone site comes in handy. You might also prefer to use babelfish with it.

 

Are these particular cans the source of that old reputation? Many old electrets work very well despite their age.
 

 
Interestingly, the picture on that site doesn't match the Nak in the auction.  The ones on the Japanese site look a lot older. 

 
Quote:

The reason for my concern is because many years ago I had some AT ATH7 phones bought new (more years ago that I care to recall) that were quickly superceded by the purchase of some Stax Lambdas. I kept the AT's as a spare phone. Some years later when the Stax's were traded up I dug out the ATs and found them virtually useless, nor could I find any repair facilities. Enquiries at that time indicated that these AT phones (the ATH 705 was the very first of the line) did have a problem with early depolarization. BTW I always found that electrets promised a lot but delivered nothing like the performance of a full electrostatic phone.
But as I said I wish Nick well with his buy.

I have at ATh-705 and and ATH-8.  Both of which work fine.
 

 

[nick n]

Just unpacked these.
I routed them through the Stax SR-5 speaker hookups- [ speaker out ] -of the Stax SRD-6 transformer box. I assume this is simply a passthrough. Anyhow I turned the dial on the Stax to the speaker  setting to send the signal to the AT 705's black box. That box has no power of itself it draws from the amp it connects to.
I plugged in the gorgeous supple feeling cord that reeks of quality, and plugged in the phones. The cord is so soft and pliable it almost feels like one of those silicone fishing lures
 Hol..leeee #@$$. These are better sounding than my Stax SR-5's ! ( which were used ) Maybe it's just me I will have to do a side by side  instant swap which should be easy as they are both next to each other and its a simple dial.
EDIT
I can swap these 2 within a few seconds.
So far these have a fuller bass then the Stax, but the Stax have a slightly wider soundstage. There is less brightness or clarity on the highs with the Stax compared to these.The Stax are circumaural whereas these have thinner pads that rest on the ears. I'll see if this changes over time.
 
 
The bass is definitely there just clean is all I can say about it, everything is absofreakinglutely crystalline clear. ( 10 -25000khz range +/-3bd ) And this is only literally into the first few minutes of listening.  As far as soundstage I will need to sit with them a bit. I am not the greatest at descriptions, but I know when I hear the greatest, at least in my collection and experience so far

The absolutely miniscule B&K frequency response graph shows an almost perfectly flat line with a tiny upwards swell at the very top end. I will honestly need a magnifying glass for the numbers on each side.
 
So there is so far no background " weediness " or channel imbalance. These are very light for the size ( 250 grams ), the pads are decent ( uses AT HP-15 replacements apparently ) and looking at them it is nice to see brand spanking newness. No marks, clean. perfect 100% condition. And the design and aesthetics I could look at these all night without picking them up.  Yeah I'm a sucker for shiny stuff you should see me in the scrap metal bins from time to time.
 Sorry for rambling but it's just that I was worried about them not being ever fired up before. Nothing to worry about so far it seems.
 
I would assume these will need some time to settle in?
I am guessing it might be best to devise some sort of cover as well to stop the dust from getting into these. Is that assumption correct? They must sell those covers or are they primarily a DIY thing.

 
"...Interestingly, the picture on that site doesn't match the Nak in the auction.  The ones on the Japanese site look a lot older..."
 
I just had a look at the ones on that Japanese site and those are the HF-100, not the HP-100 model I got. Not sure what the difference is , unless there's someone who can read Japanese..
.( anyone? )

 

[Mountain-ear]

Nick  (or anyone else who can help) -
 
I have a pair of AT 705s that I recently unearthed.  Can't find any information about the connections and I don't recall which wire goes where.  Can you provide the proper colors for R+, R-, L+ and L- ?  I'm a newbie so I don't think I can PM the original poster directly yet.  Thanks.
 
Steve