[Ali-Pacha]

  Hi Ali,
 
I guess you're asking my opinion on wire mesh stator, right?  Personally, I do not think it's anything special.  I can try to build a pair just to see how they sound.  
 
Wachara C.

Invocation successful !

And thanks for the answer.
Yes, you're right. I've never seen such a mesh (arrangement, not speaking of material) for e-stat, and I'm too lazy to deep-google in order to fill my ignorance about it

Sorry for this nudge...did I just give you a new itch to scratch ?

 
Ali

 

[JaZZ]

  ...I guess you're asking my opinion on wire mesh stator, right?  Personally, I do not think it's anything special.  I can try to build a pair just to see how they sound.  

 
Hi Wachara
 
So where else have you seen such highly open stators with correspondingly low reflectivity (independent of the materials)?

 

[chinsettawong]

Hi JaZZ,

Wire mesh stators were originally used by Stax on its SR Omega. It's really nothing special, IMO. With all the small openings, I'm sure it's extremely difficult to align the two stators perfectly. The wire mesh also isn't very flat. So in terms of homogeneity of sound signal over the Stator's surface, I think the stators with perforated holes like SR009 should be better.

Wachara C.

 

[JaZZ]

Hi JaZZ,

Wire mesh stators were originally used by Stax on its SR Omega. It's really nothing special, IMO. With all the small openings, I'm sure it's extremely difficult to align the two stators perfectly. The wire mesh also isn't very flat. So in terms of homogeneity of sound signal over the Stator's surface, I think the stators with perforated holes like SR009 should be better.

Wachara C.

 
Thank you. So it's at least doable and not infamous to sound bad from the wire-based design alone. Well, my audio philosophy isn't per se looking for something special, but for something fulfilling specific technical and acoustic requirements. The Shangri-La's openness provides the low reflectivity I consider mandatory for a headphone and any sound transducer. Who wants inner reflections from walls, pole pieces, magnet arrays, stators, rear grills and housing walls instead of the mere direct sound! Perfection in this respect is certainly unachievable, but you can do much more than what's commonly done, and the harmfulness of near-field reflections is highly underrated.
 
Honestly, I can't reproduce the blindness toward the reflectivity of two large metal plates amid the cups of a headphone, perforated or not. There's a reason for the preference for acoustically open headphones. You could do a simple job and use perforated metal all over the place if it was really acoustically neutral...

 

 

[chinsettawong]

The reflection of sound inside the two stators is somewhat difficult to measure. Are you sure that the wire stator design has lower reflection?
If you really like the openness of sound. I would recommend you try JF style headphones. Without the earpads and with bigger transducers, the sound stage is much wider and much more open. Try it. You might like it better.

Wachara C.

 

[arnaud]

I may be able to do a quick simulation to compute what is this reflection coefficient and how different it is between a traditional perforated stator and something much finer / open akin to wire frame.

Agreed with chinsettawong that if you really are after lack of reflection within earcup cavity, float should be considered (the akg-1000 successor, mysphere 3.1 has got me very curious, especially since they worked on the design to increase LF output compared to the k-1000). The k-1000 imaging is just extremely uncanny.

 

[astrostar59]

Hi JaZZ,

Wire mesh stators were originally used by Stax on its SR Omega. It's really nothing special, IMO. With all the small openings, I'm sure it's extremely difficult to align the two stators perfectly. The wire mesh also isn't very flat. So in terms of homogeneity of sound signal over the Stator's surface, I think the stators with perforated holes like SR009 should be better.

Wachara C.

 

 
 
It looks a bit crude. See the mesh distort up and over the frame. I am not so convinced by the build quality myself. I would need to see and hear the system to know for sure. The other thing that is odd, why does Fang list the frequency response of the HPs from 7hz - 120khz? Stax don't rate that high I don't think. If the HPs let through energy that high up the spectrum it could be dangerous. 
 
I read somewhere KG said for an electrostatic amp to drive above 20K it needs a LOT of amps. And TBH why would you want to go above the hearing limit anyway, to damage your ears, expose them to digital artefacts?
 
I am also curious how Fang got the 300b to do the voltage swing, even if it is push pull we would have roughly 700v swing? Is that correct. The better Electrostatic amps are pushing 1,400v swing. The website is high on pretty photos but low on text / details.
 
The fog thickens......

 

[JaZZ]

The reflection of sound inside the two stators is somewhat difficult to measure. Are you sure that the wire stator design has lower reflection?
If you really like the openness of sound. I would recommend you try JF style headphones. Without the earpads and with bigger transducers, the sound stage is much wider and much more open. Try it. You might like it better.

 
It's not just reflections inside the two stators, but also on them – not least between the inner stator and the ear. Now imagine an electrostatic membrane without anything in front and at the back of it – it would approach free-field listening, since the membrane itself is so soft and lightweight that it wouldn't reflect the sound to a comparable degree. Electrostats without the stators would be the ideal headphone drivers in my book. The second best design apart from this utopic one would indeed be a mesh of thin wires; roughly estimated it represents just 20% of the cross-sectional area of a typical perforated metal-plate stator, and the round profile may further contribute to a lower reflectivity. Add to this the supposed adverse effect from air acceleration à la compression drivers in the form of modulation noise, which the wire-mesh variant will barely suffer from. If you place a metal mesh in front of a dome tweeter, at a distance of 1 mm, it will sound louder/brighter and more aggressive. It's not clear which has the greater effect: reflection-induced decay or air acceleration, but I'm sure both are at play.
 
Thanks for the Float recommendation. If possible I will do an audition, but actually I'm not looking for another heaphone. I have heard the original Float and liked some aspects of its presentation, especially the opulent detail, but it sounded too sharp for my taste and lacked low bass, similar to the K 1000, maybe in an even more irritating manner. From what I gathered the new one is slightly better in this respect, but probably not enough for my taste. Does your wording in this context mean that you, Wachara, aren't interested in a music reproduction free from artificial add-ons yourself? I must concede that reflections are relatively inoffensive compared to other artifacts such as distortion and may even be beneficial with their ability of masking harshness in less than ideal playback chains, even from amplitude-response issues of the headphones themselves.
 
 

I may be able to do a quick simulation to compute what is this reflection coefficient and how different it is between a traditional perforated stator and something much finer / open akin to wire frame.

Agreed with chinsettawong that if you really are after lack of reflection within earcup cavity, float should be considered (the akg-1000 successor, mysphere 3.1 has got me very curious, especially since they worked on the design to increase LF output compared to the k-1000). The k-1000 imaging is just extremely uncanny.

 
That will be interesting, Arnaud! Don't forget ear-stator reflections!
 
 

  It looks a bit crude. See the mesh distort up and over the frame. I am not so convinced by the build quality myself. I would need to see and hear the system to know for sure. The other thing that is odd, why does Fang list the frequency response of the HPs from 7hz - 120khz? Stax don't rate that high I don't think. If the HPs let through energy that high up the spectrum it could be dangerous. 
 
I read somewhere KG said for an electrostatic amp to drive above 20K it needs a LOT of amps. And TBH why would you want to go above the hearing limit anyway, to damage your ears, expose them to digital artefacts?
 
I am also curious how Fang got the 300b to do the voltage swing, even if it is push pull we would have roughly 700v swing? Is that correct. The better Electrostatic amps are pushing 1,400v swing. The website is high on pretty photos but low on text / details.

 
Yes, I tend to agree, it looks a bit crude. I'm not here to defend HiFiMan's build quality, it's just the «optimal openness» that fascinates me. The metal mesh may even have long-term stability issues if it's not protected against mechanical impacts. But let's assume that the image reflects the prototype stadium. And after all Stax has managed to build a flawlessly working Omega series (don't really know if there were any defects in this context, though).

 

[astrostar59]

Originally Posted by arnaud /img/forum/go_quote.gif

I may be able to do a quick simulation to compute what is this reflection coefficient and how different it is between a traditional perforated stator and something much finer / open akin to wire frame.

Agreed with chinsettawong that if you really are after lack of reflection within earcup cavity, float should be considered (the akg-1000 successor, mysphere 3.1 has got me very curious, especially since they worked on the design to increase LF output compared to the k-1000). The k-1000 imaging is just extremely uncanny.

 
​I just thought of something. (loving this theorising BTW). You know how when you walk near a metal fence that has multiple horizontal wires. In a high wind it howls, at a high frequency in fact. Sounds spooky but anyway, it generates a frequency of it's own depending on the amount of wires and the speed of the wind. I wonder if sound waves could have the same effect? If not audible, then could be tidal eddies of sound from the metal effect? All metal has a resonance and an interaction / oscillation. Just how much that occurs and how if affects (in this case) sound waves / air pressure / movement I can only guess.
 
Pulling back from that, why try to design a new mesh? Why not use a grid like everyone else. Has everyone else got it wrong, or is it just to be different. One way IMO to reduce any interaction in a screen like this would be to laminate 2 together. So in Stax 007/s case sandwich 2 together like laminated glass. very strong indeed.
 
Having said all this, the 009s have a regular pattern mesh, seems fine.

 

[chinsettawong]

Hi JaZZ,
 
You might not have known that I made a few pairs of Float style headphones, and I really like them.  
 

 
The soundstage and openness are marvelous.

 

[purk]

  Hi JaZZ,
 
You might not have known that I made a few pairs of Float style headphones, and I really like them.  
 

 
The soundstage and openness are marvelous.

Your DIY headphones are marvelous!

 

[JaZZ]

  Hi JaZZ,
 
You might not have known that I made a few pairs of Float style headphones, and I really like them.  
 

 
The soundstage and openness are marvelous.

 
Fascinating headphones, Wachara! I absolutely believe you that they sound great. Congratulations on such an achievement and to your designing skills! DIY electrostats! Yes, I know, the principle is quite simple, but the execution is another story. BTW, how is the (low-)bass reproduction with these two pairs, in view of phase cancellation?
 
So I get it, you absolutely appreciate openness, which equates to minimized near-field reflections. That's maybe my greatest concern with both speakers and headphones. Therefore my DIY attempts look a bit DIY, since maximum damping effect clashes with optimal aesthetics.
 
     
        Transformerless ribbon supertweeter (active membrane size 8 x 25 mm)
    
 
 
Transformerless ribbon transducer, usable from 600 Hz up, in a two-way system (prototype stadium)
 
 
As you can see, the entire front surface is lined with absorbing textile (black velvet around tweeters). You barely see that on commercial speakers, and if, not in this noncompromizing form. B&W's Nautilus represents a speaker that isn't much dependent on front damping measures (since it renounces a classic baffle exactly for avoiding near-field reflections on it), although in my opinion the residual bare surfaces around the drivers, especially the tweeter, would benefit from them as well.
 
 
I'm not into speakers anymore since quite a while, but have modified two Stax headphones (Lambda Pro and Signature Pro drivers), animated by the Sigma. Primary goal was angled drivers, but with clearly smaller angles than the Sigma's: ~35° for the Lambda drivers, ~21° for the Signature drivers. Numbers and assignments are arbitrary, I just wanted to try different approaches.
 
     
 
Since they are meant to work on a sealed air cushion between drivers and ears, they need housings with reflective walls, so they won't sound as open as your two models, but in turn possibly offer better low-frequency extension. After all I've taken extreme care for inner damping, all bare surfaces are lined with pieces of carpet wrapped in black velvet. Sadly I couln't do the same with the stators... But just saying, even the wires serving as rear grilles had an audible impact, and not a good one, but I didn't want to renounce their protective function.
 
Marcel

 

[chinsettawong]

Wow!  Those wooden frames look really nice.  Have you tried listen to them without the earpads?  They should sound very nice.  
 
Wachara C.

 

[JaZZ]

  Wow!  Those wooden frames look really nice.  Have you tried listen to them without the earpads?  They should sound very nice.  
 
Wachara C.

 
I have tried that in a prototype stadium without any housings, just a wire grid instead. No chance to get decent bass from them that way.

 

[icebear]

  ....
 
It looks a bit crude. See the mesh distort up and over the frame. I am not so convinced by the build quality myself. I would need to see and hear the system to know for sure. The other thing that is odd, why does Fang list the frequency response of the HPs from 7hz - 120khz? Stax don't rate that high I don't think. If the HPs let through energy that high up the spectrum it could be dangerous.
...
The fog thickens......

 
Any frequency range info without indicating the linearity range e.g. [0/-0.5dB] is worthless.
Maybe it's -20dB at 120kHz ? Interesting to check with a pet bat if it hears any differences