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I once took an Audio-Technica electret that had transformers in the earcups and modified them to plug into a cheap electret energizer box for K-Mart electrets (Numark brand, I removed stock transformers entirely) and they actually sounded a fair bit better, imho. Might be worth a shot looking for cheap electret energizer for these and rewiring for a Stax plug or something.

ELECTRETES can't live long, in 15 ... 20 years the special coating ceases to work as in the beginning. this is not my opinion, this is the opinion of experts, that is why this line has not been developed....

 

[khbaur330162]

So I've had the opportunity to build a few KH-100's (transplanted YH-100's) and I feel I have a little bit of information to glean on everyone given my travels. I believe there are different production runs of the YH-100 drivers, not all are built the same. Let me go through the three variations that I've seen so far, there may be more:

First up is the first variation I ever found. It has matte flux plates, silver ground tab, not very shiny, sort of dull looking. I'd say this is the least technical, yet still sounds very very good.

This is what they measure like, mod list in the title.

Second up is the "shiny" revision. These have a noticeable glean/shine to the flux plates. Also flux plates have Green and Red wavy hue to them at times, obviously some post manufacturing process has been applied. Silver ground tab. I believe these are a later production and sound slightly more technical to me with more bass. (Center pin a bit abused on this driver because the left driver diaphragm had a crease in it and noticeable bass roll off. I eventually was able to twist the center pin and achieve much better bass balance with its partner).

This is what they measure like. Similar mods to the matte variant (no damping, Chinese pads, plated OCC Copper recable, same Sony housing).

Here is a second example of shiny revision:

Then we have my favorite variation, the Copper ground tab. It has matte flux plates, but unlike the first variation, as I mentioned, it has Copper ground tabs.

This is what they measure like, same mods:

Bit of mid-bass imbalance, but this is not uncharacteristic of YH-100's ime. To get a balanced pair of drivers is actually a bit odd ime, Yamaha QC was maybe not the best. These are the most technical of the bunch of what I've been able to get my hands on: most detail, most room acoustics, decent bass, cleanliest. I have not fully tested the various models for sibilance, but they all seem to exhibit slight excitement in the "sss," "chhh," "tttt" and even some treble regions at times given hot mastering, but this is mostly due to my mods and potentially able to be mitigated. Damping exacerbates the sibilance hence no damping on all models. Given Yamaha's use of Copper in previous generations (HP/YH-1000) I'm guessing the Copper ground tab variant is an early production, matte flux plates with Silver ground tab is mid-production, and shiny flux plates + Silver ground tab is late production.

I want to iterate that the differences between variations is somewhat small. I believe the largest jump in SQ is with the early production units (Copper ground tab) where the jump in detail and cleanliness is about as big as the jump between HP-1 and YH-100, imho. Most of the differences would probably be hard to differentiate within the stock enclosures. I feel my transplant process makes discerning differences between variations a lot easier due to added clarity and lack of housing distortions.

So, if you want my humble opinion, you like the YH-100's and indulge in collecting the various versions of them, maybe keep your eyes peeled for a Copper ground tab variant. You might be happy you stumbled on one.

-Edit-

Bit of an addendum. I find the shiny revision a little wetter and more vibrant than Copper ground tab. The Copper ground tab can be a bit dry or dull at times as reinforced with long listening sessions. I still think Copper ground tab ekes a tiny bit more detail/cuts a little deeper, but it's at a price of vibrancy.

Also, just to show you the effects of further center pin fiddling, I've been able to tune the second shiny revision measured to better match in the mid bass, see here:

 

[khbaur330162]

Looks like Yamaha is rebooting their Ortho technology:
https://www.itmedia.co.jp/news/arti...l=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Article was sent to me by @Philimon who saw it mentioned on another forum. Very cool, indeed. I sent Yamaha a message almost exactly one year ago asking them to reboot the YH-100 with neo magnets and a circumaural enclosure, they said:

Thank you for contacting Yamaha Support, I will definitely get this to the proper department so they could do the research.

Thank you again and we at Yamaha appreciate the suggestions.

but I had little hope they'd take me seriously. I doubt I had anything to do with the reboot, but it's still really really cool. I wonder what price range they will release their new beast in.

 

[GREQ]

Looks like Yamaha is rebooting their Ortho technology:
https://www.itmedia.co.jp/news/arti...l=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Article was sent to me by @Philimon who saw it mentioned on another forum. Very cool, indeed. I sent Yamaha a message almost exactly one year ago asking them to reboot the YH-100 with neo magnets and a circumaural enclosure, they said:

but I had little hope they'd take me seriously. I doubt I had anything to do with the reboot, but it's still really really cool. I wonder what price range they will release their new beast in.

That's huge.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

ELECTRETES can't live long, in 15 ... 20 years the special coating ceases to work as in the beginning. this is not my opinion, this is the opinion of experts, that is why this line has not been developed....

This is interesting. I guess it applies to microphones as well? I never heard this idea until your post.

 

[Philimon]

I messaged HF moderation team to give @khbaur330162 a custom title for his unceasing love for Yamaha orthos and to recognize the potential that his email last year perhaps sparked Yamaha to reboot their ortho lineup.

 

[Philimon]

Shout out @CEE TEE for being source of Yamaha news link.

 

[Philimon]

I sent an email to Yamaha media asking for more info. Will update if they respond.

Would be extraordinary to see them message Matt and come full circle on his original email.

 

[myheadHz]

ELECTRETES can't live long, in 15 ... 20 years the special coating ceases to work as in the beginning. this is not my opinion, this is the opinion of experts, that is why this line has not been developed....

While I think this is probably the case in general, I think it is more about how the electrets are stored over time. I have a number of electrets which no longer work (very weak if any sound), but also a few which sound consistently as other owners have said theirs sounds. Echo ED-1000, Philips N6325 and Sony ECR-500 to name a few. All of which are from the 70's (so thats 40 years and still going strong) all of which I got in near mint condition, so I suspect they were either well looked after or never used and not stored close to other strong magnetic fields (or something like that).

Channel imbalance seems to be a reoccuring problem in some of the other electrets I have which probably are dying.

 

[B7RS4]

Agree, storage condition plays a huge role. My ECR400, 500, aurex 810, ATH-8 and K4 work just fine after all the years. It also depends on where the bias is stored as well, seems like backelectret are less likely to die in my experience (aka spending too much time browsing auctions sites)

 

[Takarajima]

Yamaha's new headphones were named "YH-5000SE" and displayed in the Autumn Headphones Festival 2022 yesterday. Source: https://news.mynavi.jp/article/20220918-2457605/

Price estimated between $3,000 and 3,500-ish (Japanese domestic price). US price could be higher perhaps?

50mm orthodynamic (circular magnet) driver ("New Orthodynamic Driver" as per Yamaha) with 34 ohm impedance. 320g weight.
Detachable cables, too.

Other pics from the cited news:

Drivers and cups look a bit smaller to my eyes than current planar totls. But I may be wrong.

 

[Philimon]

The drivers look beautifully constructed. That is the Yamaha difference. Excite.

Its hard to tell if the drivers are single or double sided magnet. And hard to tell if these are center pinned and/or non-tensioned. Modern planars are generally tensioned (aside from T50rp and Final Audio D8000).

Looks like they went for what looks to be a more open magnet pattern which Im guessing was not possible back in the day due to weaker magnets.

The spiral tracing has some interesting characteristics compared to the wavy pattern used by modern planar companies (aside from Final Audio who used ex-Yamaha employees supposedly to help design their drivers). I cant explain the difference but if a vintage ortho ninja would then that would be appreciated.

The price! Way out of my budget. I was expecting it to be less than Final Audio since Yamaha is a bigger company with economies of scale. Ill wait until its vintage then get one.

 

[GREQ]

Its hard to tell if the drivers are single or double sided magnet. And hard to tell if these are center pinned and/or non-tensioned. Modern planars are generally tensioned (aside from T50rp and Final Audio D8000).

I think this image, pretty much confirms double-sided magnets

 

[Philimon]

Hmmm. Maybe they’ll sell to me replacement drivers…

 

[GREQ]

I'm more curious about the open nature of the design.
Is this the world's first fully 'open' free-driver type full-size-planar???
By the looks of it, it's designed more like a dynamic, with full venting on the sides around the driver, instead of the whole driver pushing a sealed volume of air.

If they've solved the linear-bass problem, this could be huge.
A full size planar with actual soundstage??