[chinsettawong]

You should just go ahead and do it.

 

[100VoltTube]

The tungsten carbide or the single-sided drivers?

I can easily make a single sided driver, but making it sound good would be hard.

The tungsten carbide idea is sort of a joke. I can't even begin to imagine how much it would cost. The material costs alone would be large, but the cost of getting it milled... Maybe if I upgraded the motor in my CNC machine, got a few diamond bits, and some sort of system to keep the carbide cool, I could do it myself, but that's still hundreds of dollars.

There's a reason we all use FR-4. It's not perfect, but it's cheap and easily cut.

 

[chinsettawong]

What do you mean by "single sided driver"? Is it the driver with only one stator? Why do you want to build that?

If you are looking for something challenging and possibly fun, try double diaphragms.

 

[Muamp]

Single sided stators go back a long way, but never really took off.
Sonoma has just brought the idea back to life with their Model one, which also has a few other novel innovations.
Not sure about it myself.... but I like some of the other aspects of the model one.

100VoltTube: You said FR4 is not perfect....... I think it is pretty dame close though. I have spent a lot of time trying to better it with other materials on the CNC and with PCB fabrications, I still go back to FR4. Ok,... If you have access to gold plated ceramic sheets, then yeah have a go. Better still, send some to me!

David.

 

[100VoltTube]

FR-4 is perfect for our purposes, but *in theory* there are more stiff options that can be cut to more ideal shapes, without sacrificing the field. One example I personally find intriguing is Tungsten-carbide, as I'm sure you know. It is far stiffer than FR-4, and it is fairly conductive, but would work *best* with a gold coating. It, unlike FR4, could have the holes rounded for improved aerodynamics, while still retaining the electrostatic field around the holes.

But... FR-4 makes, by far, the most sense for a normal person to use.

With a single sided diaphragm, there is no stator between your ear and the diaphragm to screw up the sound, but it is inherently nonlinear, so it would need an inversely nonlinear amp. Sonoma, I belive, use DSP, but you could just use tubes at nonlinear operating pionts.

 

[wppk]

Hi there
still going on with different tests on srx and on lambdas.
for srx : i remade a full pro model, meaning used pro membranes in pro drivers coming form pro gammas ( le'ts call it the purepro model. compaired to my three others srx turned to pros with normal membranes and adaptative rings, there is a big difference. the volume is lower on the pure pro and the sound is very noticeably better on the three other models.

about lambdas : still trying to mend the sound membrane. couldn't succed well yet, even if i found a way to tense the membrane on a drum, bigger than on my previous messages. But i notice a point that is surely intersting. the tension is not giving a 400hz resonance when hitting the membrane with the lamda pro.here is a soundile
http://cielapeute.com/ec/320.mp3
in which you'll be able to hear that when slightly knocking at the metal ring when the original membrane is on it, the frequency is 320, and not 400 as usually admitted for the tension. I think is it a good information.
good continuation to all of you

 

[wppk]

If you are looking for something challenging and possibly fun, try double diaphragms.

hello Wachara. I have tested it in a srx driver. no positive results. Once I had a dull sound, and secondly no sound at all.

 

[Jaab]

hello Wachara. I have tested it in a srx driver. no positive results. Once I had a dull sound, and secondly no sound at all.

Hi wppk,
when you modify the driver normal bias to pro, do you modify also the connector?
(removing the central plug)

 

[chinsettawong]

Hi Wppk,

Frankly, I haven't investigated into Lamda series that much to make any comment. But it seems that the diaphragm is glued on the quite thick copper spacer rings. By changing its bias voltage from normal to pro, do you also somehow increase the spacer thickness?

About the double diaphragms, tell me more about how you do it.

Wachara C.

 

[wppk]

Hi wppk,
when you modify the driver normal bias to pro, do you modify also the connector?
(removing the central plug)

Hi Jab. If you are talking about the wire, I don't use the original wire, I used a lambda wire, then there is no central plug.

 

[wppk]

Hi Wppk,

Frankly, I haven't investigated into Lamda series that much to make any comment. But it seems that the diaphragm is glued on the quite thick copper spacer rings. By changing its bias voltage from normal to pro, do you also somehow increase the spacer thickness?

About the double diaphragms, tell me more about how you do it.

Wachara C.

i didn't change the bias voltage on lambdas. only on srx. and I only tried two diaphragms in an srx, just adding one in the driver body.
and on srx, as explained previously with photos, I use added rings to compensate the facte that the rings are too thin. there is originnaly an added metallic ring in normal bias drivers of the srx, but it is not enough if turned to pro. one has to add a ring on the other side. and the biiig problem is that it never works the same for all drivers. I mean, if you use a plastic ring and it works on one driver, it will not work on the other. you have to try lots of different things before you're done, and also, the way you re mount the driver is very important. on some, you have to take care not to make the body parts perfectly fit, nor you will have an imbalance, and on others, you have to press very strongly on the parts of the body before screwing them back, on the contrary. It takes lots of tests before it gets reliable and stable.
I have notivced somthing important : drivers are said to be the same between the pros and the normal. but they are not. They are somehow différent. I cant see the difference, but I can notice the result : if you use a pro body, and try normal membranes in them, the souns wil be weak compared to when you use pro membranes in pro bodies. If you use normal membranes with added rings ( as it must be in order to work fine) the sound is even weaker. But if you use a pro membrane or a normal membrane with added rings in a normal body the sound is louder, and the difference in sound pressure between the two goes higher when you increase the volume.

 

[chinsettawong]

Well, there is nothing mysterious about the drivers. All you need to do is to check the actual spacer thicknesses in pro and normal bias drivers. Whether you try to put a normal diaphragm in a pro driver or a pro diaphragm is a normal driver, you just need to make sure that you get the correct spacer thickness for your bias voltage. Do that, and you'll get consistent in loudness everytime.

 

[wppk]

well... it doesn't work this way for me.
as I said, if I use the pro spacer in a pro driver, the sound is weaker than using a norm spacer in a norm driver with added rings. with the same thickness in the end. I mean, I add rings to norm spacers. so it reaches the thickness of the pro spacers. if I put this result in a norm driver body I have a louder sound than the previous system. If I put this same result in a pro driver body, the sound is weaker and not as good. this is then the same thickness of the spacer ( norm spacer plus rings) in both drivers.
also, as I said too, when I use norm spacers in norm driver, if I double the concept, meaning I add the same paper ( or wathever else tested) rings to have the pro thickness in each driver, one works fine and not the other.
and even more : only talking about the norm paper added spacers in a norm driver ( then, turned to pro), if there is an imbalance, it is not coming form the thickness of the spacer. It changes and I can cure the issue when adjusting the parts of the driver body. I am sure now that many of the people who have imbalance issues with their srx can solve this in two ways : the way we all know, which is recoating the diaphragm, and the one I am facing and explaining : finding the good fitting of the two plastic parts of the driver. with or without added rings inside.

 

[wppk]

also, the fact that the sound is weaker in pros with pro spacers in pro drivers, ( pure pro, then), is not an issue. it is just the original sounding of the pros.
what is not "normal" but not an issue nonetheless is that I get a better and louder sound with norm spacers in norm drivers, added with rings, then, turned to pros. This is just what I discovered.
when there is an issue, it comes form the fitting of the drivers body, the thickness of the added rings. Some drivers work with thicker added rings one the right can, for instance, than on the left one. If not perfectly fit and not with the good rings, you will get an imbalance, or repetitive ticks that are not coming form dust.
the other issue, as you said, can be noises coming from dust in the driver,but it is very easlily solved with pulsed air, in an srx driver.
other issues in turning them form norm to pros is that the thin wires on the drivers are very fragile and easily break. the very small screws are easy to loose, too...

 

[wppk]

what I noticed, too, with my turned to pros drivers, (let's call them TPD if you don't mind) is that ,as said already, it needs a lot of patience for them to perfectly fit, but also that it needs a long time of testing. one set will work for two days and will not keep working well. then I have to reopen it and re-fit the plastic parts of the driver. like tuning a piano, not so because it has moved since I previoulsy tuned them. After a few times, it does'nt move anymore, the headphones don't need more fixings. I think the reason is that the recoating (I always recoat when I turn them to pro) product is evoluting. Maybe it gets other properties when driyng on the long go ? don't know for real. but that is what I imagine. because there is no other reason why it could change in time and then stop changing.