[MrTechAgent]

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[MrTechAgent]

....reserved....
By the way, one of the best looking headphones

Thank you, Sir.

 

[donpablo]

I assume you asked to learn about the cavity depth, it's about 22mm from the lowest point to the Earpad's highest point. It's plenty deep to accommodate most ears.
The Earpads of the RR1 are bespoke and made for the Headphone, they are relatively thin compared to other Headphones but are Engineered to be so for Acoustic reasons. Ergonomics were kept in-check with the cavity depth, caliper pressure and weight distribution in mind.

Here you go -

Yay! Thank you. I asked to 'check' if the place between removable part (this with pad) and the rest of headphones is properly joined together. Because for example in Stax sr-l300 there are small slits between plastic parts causing sound leakages.
Thanks for additional measurements (also important) anyway

 

[MrTechAgent]

Today is another Story post.

This time, it's about @Kaldas Research's machinist, Mr. Sachin.

Many believed that the CNC revolution would end the Legend of the Master Craftsman. A mere program would end the precision of human skill. Well, we disagree.
Mr Sachin is a fascinating man. With an Aerospace past, he was solely responsible for machining Jet Engine parts from scratch. Mr Sachin indirectly served for the Indian Air-Force for over four years. Mr Sachin then moved onto working on 5-Axis Machines in the U.A.E. for his extraordinary skill in machining Titanium. He joined Kaldas Research in 2016.

If one needs to witness Man and Machine harmony, Mr. Sachin with his CNC's is a sight to behold.

His expertise has enabled Kaldas Research to develop and manufacture every single part of the RR 1 Conquest, from the chassis components to the Transducer elements completely in-house.

We also salute Mr. Sachin for his service and contributions to the IAF.

A true Master Craftsman.

We spent over a year perfecting tolerance matching for our Stators and Spacers. Our spacers have an average accuracy of 0.005mm across 200-250 points. Which is as good or even better than a very experienced and highly respected Electrostatic manufacturer.
During the development of the RR 1, we made at least 4 different variants for the Transmission assembly. Two of which we think are completely novel and patentable. The RR 1 doesn't employ either of those due to the significantly higher Manufacturing cost. We will introduce those Transmission systems for future products.

In our CNC fleet we have one 3-Axis HAAS Automation VMC and another 3-Axis Kitamura. Also a 3-Axis Inventables Carvey that I keep at my office for quick prototyping. We also have access to 5-Axis systems although we don't own any 5-Axis, yet...

We still think the RR 1's driver is a peach to look at. Maybe Science can be Art?

 

[chinsettawong]

Very nice looking stator. What material do you use for making it?

 

[MrTechAgent]

Very nice looking stator. What material do you use for making it?

You commenting here is a great honor for me, Sir. Your contributions to the community are a treasure.

The Stator is Aluminium, around 0.8mm which goes through multiple flattening operations to make sure it's faced to the correct dimension, something not required on FR4.

 

[chinsettawong]

The stators look very nice.

 

[musicday]

When would you expect/predict that comercial production will start ? I am sure many are thrilled to read when then can place an order for this extraordinary affordable electrostatic headphone.

 

[VRacer-111]

Just curious, is the stator/spacer housing made from a polycarbonate?

 

[MrTechAgent]

When would you expect/predict that comercial production will start ? I am sure many are thrilled to read when then can place an order for this extraordinary affordable electrostatic headphone.

Hi,

Production has already started but we are limited by our output. We make every single part ourselves and that does take time. Electrostatic transducer elements are extremely sensitive to tolerances as the entire transmission system is highly precision machined.

We have more demand than I personally ever expected but this is the place where I think a lot of new Companies fail. Trying to ramp out lackluster units that hardly pass QC just to make a quick profit. I'm trying to be more methodical with my Manufacturing.

The biggest failure and fear for me is sending out a lemon due to haphazard and rushed production. My entire family history is in Manufacturing and I take it quite seriously.
Nevertheless, we will be officially launching at CanJam SoCal and will most definitely start taking orders by then.

Thank you for your support. I hope you understand.

 

[MrTechAgent]

Just curious, is the stator/spacer housing made from a polycarbonate?

No, it's PMMA (Acrylic)

 

[TheDuke990]

I'm looking forward to hear that nice headphone in the near future. I wish you the best for your courageous and ambitious project

 

[legopart]

Beautiful headphones!
Why did you choose the electrostatic technology (over dynamic or another types)?

 

[MrTechAgent]

Beautiful headphones!
Why did you choose the electrostatic technology (over dynamic or another types)?

Hi,

That's a great question.
Before starting the "Conquest" project, the biggest goal for me was to incorporate my own in-house Drivers. If that criteria wasn't met. It was over.

Making an Electrostatic transducer is fundamentally simpler than an Electrodynamic transducer which requires automation and several other specialized tooling which is far more expensive than an Electrostatic transducer system. As I said before, I like to make every single part in-house. We even use our own Diaphragms. My family business is in Polymers and we have been in the industry for over 30 years. We supply our raw material to FIAT, Gillette, TATA, Colgate etc.

So, the RR1 is almost 98% made in-house and I'm quite proud of not outsourcing my Manufacturing. Electrostatic was fundamentally the only option with the resources I had at the time.
Not to mention the inherent advantages of the system itself such as negligible inertia, linear excursion patterns and longevity. Electrostatic headphones have no reason to fail apart from the coating which can be re-done whenever it fails in the future (which is rare) with current Solvent technology. I own an original STAX SR-1, one of the handful in existence today and it still works after more than 50 years which is a testament to Electrostatic technology and STAX, a company I personally highly respect.

We won't be exclusively making Electrostatic though. I can't tell you what it would be at this time but it won't be another Isodynamic. We are not interested in that technology.

Hope this answers your question!

 

[MrTechAgent]

Just a little fun today, in honor of "THE KING" or the Sony MDR-R10. A headphone I enjoyed for two years before it was cursed by the Headphone gods and had the ubiquitous and catastrophic driver failure. Having owned the CD3000 and spent a long time investigating the reason of failure, I concluded that it was an Engineering oversight by the designers of the R10. The Voice-Coil leads are just a little short in respect to the displacement length of the transducer. I even reported this to the people who designed the driver when I met them in 2016 but they were quick to deny my findings. Which is fine, it's their prerogative.

Nevertheless, Conquest V R10.











I will be completely reviving the R10 soon, the Zelkova cups will be bored out and Titanium fixtures will be engineered to accommodate a custom driver. The R10 will maintain it's original look from the outside. I will open a up a new thread and keep all the CAD files/process of the restoration open-source. I just need to find the time to finish it.

More Measurements :

1) RR1 VS SR009 VS LCD2 VS HD600 (Taken on Mini-DSP EARS) - https://www.head-fi.org/threads/kal...500-electrostatic.900147/page-3#post-14807895
2) RR1 & SR007 MKII & Meze Empyrean (Taken on KEMAR) - https://www.head-fi.org/threads/kal...500-electrostatic.900147/page-2#post-14782792