[funch]

Thanks. You can also check over at the Thunderpants thread, page 127/post 1895, and page 119/post 1781 for more info,
and pix of the first version.  Wiring is good old Mogami #24 with the covering/shielding removed and covered in nylon.
The sound isn't the most 'neutral', but they're a ton of fun, with plenty of bass, and great isolation. So far, I'm quite pleased.
 
The gel pads made a huge difference. I didn't like the sound with the stock pads and my first baffles at all. I think it's
the depth of the gel pads that made the difference.
 
Oh, and the belt attached to the headband is an absolute must. Pretty uncomfortable otherwise.
 
 I probably have $200 at most invested in these 'phones.
 
wualta - the Beyer gel pads were around $45 shipped, IIRC, and, although the 'phones are pretty heavy, they are very
comfortable.

 

[Armaegis]

There's a set of gel pads on the sale forums for $25 right now... 

 

[Lurkumaural]

Quote:

Oh, and somebody on that auction site is selling the ATH-RE70 with new miracle Retro-Face for $37 shipped, so one is on the way. Gotta know about that #$%# baffle.

 
I've been putting off investigating the RE70 as a prospective housing for months now, after I forgot to snipe a used one for like $19.  Do let us know what you find out.

 

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

Quote:

 
 

Pads are Beyer gels, with mounting plates of aluminum.
Simple twist-n-mount.
 
 

This looks nice. What size are those pads? I am thinking they would be good for my old Magnat headphones, if they would fit.
 

 

[yipcanjo]

 
Quote:

There's a set of gel pads on the sale forums for $25 right now... 

Thanks for the heads up! Grabbed 'em

 

[funch]

Quote:

This looks nice. What size are those pads? I am thinking they would be good for my old Magnat headphones, if they would fit.
 

They are 4" in diameter.
 
 

 

[rhythmdevils]

Does or has anyone found the HP50 driver to have grain in the treble?  I don't hear any grain at all with my YH3 in a modded stock enclosure, but my HP50 in my open back diy transplant has pretty bad grain in the treble with every pad and damping scheme.  Didn't hear it at first, but noticed it once I got other more glaring SQ problems taken care of.  If the word "grain" doesn't make sense to you, if a beat boxer were to explain it, they'd make a "ssssshhh" or "ttffff" sound for grainy treble as opposed to a clean "ssssss" sound for clean, smooth treble.  That's a bit more dramatic than it is in this phone but you get the idea.  It reminds me of the Sextett and it's only really present with cymbals, so it's upper treble.
 
Seems weird that an ortho driver would exhibit this, especially the HP50 but not the YH3.  It could be my enclosure I guess, but it's a pretty benign and simple design. 
 
I'm also not sure what causes grain, but I'm guessing rolloff has something to do with it.  I can bump up the treble in this HP50 driver to the point of sibilance, but it still sounds like the upper treble is rolled off.  I imagine there are other causes though like a decay issue.

 

[gurubhai]

I had similar issues(grainy treble) with my PMB-80.
Lining the entire cup with felt got rid of it so I suppose it comes from chamber reflection.
I usually do that as part of the '1st stage mod' but in the case of PMB-80 I initially ignored to do that as they are mostly open back & I didn't think the reflections would be significant.

 

[wualta]

If there's anything like a tunnel for the backwave to get through, there can be reflections which roughen the treble (FR graph looks like a seismograph). As far as I can tell from reading peoples' reactions to roughed-up response curves, I'd say it's probably the lack of smoothness they're calling "grain". I know that's one word I'd use. Reflections cause a comb-filter effect, which chops shards out of the response and adds little pointy peaks. You could call the subjective effect "ground glass treble". The higher the frequency, the more the sound beams straight out. Get lower and you have to be a bit more careful, especially if there's a short tunnel on the back of the 'phone.

 

[rhythmdevils]

The enclosure is pretty clean, I posted a picture of them a while back, they are like ghetto fab LCD-2's.  Totally open back.  And I've tried putting acoustic foam inside the pad enclosure like folks do in the T50 thread, and I've tried putting a ring of acoustic foam around the driver on the back side on top of the wood, and none of these changed the grain.  But there's already nothing for sound waves to reflect off of.  I'm pretty sure it's coming from the driver itself.  Maybe it wasn't cut out for being in an open back, but I doubt it.  I don't think it could be from rough response because it's the smoothest ortho I have heard from bass to mids, nothing sticks out at all.  But maybe the treble gets choppy as it's rolling off. 
 
I'll post new pics soon, it looks better now than before.
 
ok here's the old picture.  I've closed all the vents with wooden plugs and they have W11 pads now. 
 

 

[gurubhai]

I just transplanted my HP50 drivers in the PMB-80 shell. The only mods are the stage one(felt-foam-felt) & closure of the vent around the drivers to get a driver-baffle seal. I am using the W11 pads too.The initial impressions are that I don't find the treble to be grainy though I would need some time to confirm this. They are actually sounding pretty good overall.

 

[wualta]

Time to start blaming RD's amp and his cable and his upbringing and EMI from local cellphone towers..

 

[gurubhai]

On the subject of rough treble, Purrin measured the CSD waterfall for a modded T20v2 posted here.
Can we blame it on reflex dot ?

 

[wualta]

Everybody knows that everything can be blamed on reflex dots! They must be destroyed!
 
Sure is a weird pair of plots, but without knowing what he did to the T20v2 (did he really remove all the damping and stick on a dot, and that was it? that might partly explain the hellacious boost from ~7 kHz on up), it would be hard to know what's going on. I know I don't see the increasing amount of "distortion" 200# seems to see in the graph. The channel mismatch is puzzling too.
 
I agree with Armaegis that it would be very interesting to see the plot of that headphone with the dot removed. 

 

[Faust2D]

Quote:

Here's those scans from the PWB Electrostats I just got in the box. This is the same headphone as the one pictured below, which I also have( that pic is from the first set auction ). This model appears to be the E.S.2. line, which from reading the included paperwork seems to be a line of Electrets. The same headphone throughout but with slightly differing transformer box setups. This setup I just got is the baseline model,  but I am not complaining at all.  Just least classy looking. (  just took that pic of the adapter ) Listed as the Budget Version. Type P.1. No speaker outs on this model. Just on the higher 2.
 
I'd really like to get a working pair of E.S.1. 's with a transformer box ( anyone have any they want to part with? even more variations of this is cool hit me up with a PM ) that have the same exposed pins as Stax, and I assume to be a full fledged Stat. ( bias needed ) There's a picture of those up on the Wikiphonia site.
 
I want to start a PWB ( or is that P.W.B. ) collection over time.
 
Thought you'd be interested in the scans of the paperwork, the pricelist is especially droolworthy and chock full of goodness. To me anyhow. I'm posting the scans directly because all to often when seeing old posts and hitting the links=== *blah* ===link dead. Of course those prices are for British Pounds in '78, not Dollars.
 
I'd try to open them up for a peek at the insides but last attempt it seemed they were sealed up good no method of opening nor seams to be found that were open-worthy.
 
Box itself is simply a white cardboard thing with a black sticker/white lettering that says : PWB Natural Sound Professional Electrostatic Ear Speakers. That's it
 
 

 


Quote:

Extra cool! Have you seen the other bits of Beltiana? like so:
 

 
From left to right, it's the electret being tested (and not being shabby about it), then an ad for it, then maybe the ES1, then finally the rare and goofy Dyna-X. Now we know it competed in the same price range as the Wharfedale Iso. Problem is, of course, and you saw this coming, it's so stinking rare that only one Ortho Roundupper, JadeEast, has one. Farz I know.

Oooooo! I need to add these to the wiki. Cool stuff.