Orthodynamic Roundup

[spritzer]

Thanks for the link as I love to read these old reviews. One has to question the amps used as the SR-3 is never harsh to my ears (and simply brilliant with the SRA-3S) and the ESP9 is... ehh.... enjoyable for a torture device.

I did enjoy him not understanding the Stax specs though...

 

[Faust2D]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta /img/forum/go_quote.gif You can see why Stereo Review's Julian Hirsch, in comparing the Superex (which he didn't know was a Stax in disguise) to the Koss, said the Superex/Stax sounded almost as good for much less money. No US dealer network in 1971? That explains all the SR-3 OEMs. It's also interesting that the importer for the review was Electrostatic Sound Systems, better known as ESS, the company that brought the Heil AMT mid-tweeter (and the first AMT headphone) to the world. Before they met Oskar Heil, they were selling transmission-line speakers with 'stat tweeters. It's also good to be reminded that the ESP/9 is that old. Not very many sources (none of them "consumer" grade), much less headphones, were at its level back then. Imagine a world without personal computers, no cell phones, no fuel injection and no decent tires, and you can maybe catch a glimpse of how bad sound reproduction in the average home was. You were better off listening to FM radio. Or reading a book like Kerouac's The Dharma Bums and dreaming of going to Italy to meet stylish women wearing sunglasses on Vespas. Or meeting Vespas wearing stylish women, either way.

This makes me want to get a good condition Koss and give it a listen, as well as SR-3, but I have a good I idea how SR-3 would sound as I had that Stagnavox headphone.

Wow, I like to read The Dharma Bums while listening to old Jazz with my SR-001, coincidence? I think not! Vespas and stylish women wearing sunglasses, no thanks, I am way over that, I want downtown NYC chicks in leather boots

Quote:

Originally Posted by spritzer /img/forum/go_quote.gif Thanks for the link as I love to read these old reviews. One has to question the amps used as the SR-3 is never harsh to my ears (and simply brilliant with the SRA-3S) and the ESP9 is... ehh.... enjoyable for a torture device. I did enjoy him not understanding the Stax specs though...

Yeah, but I can see how they can be confusing. I think Holt is a cool guy and good reviewer, too bad the magazine he stared turned into such crap. This issue was still self published and all reviews are written by him still.

 

[spritzer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faust2D /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yeah, but I can see how they can be confusing. I think Holt is a cool guy and good reviewer, too bad the magazine he stared turned into such crap. This issue was still self published and all reviews are written by him still.

There aren't many "normal" amps that can output 100v (the monster Krell amps can do about 200v but they aren't normal) so that should have caused him to rethink the 1000w number.

The only good part about Stereophile are the measurements but you also get those from HFN and without the idiot reviewers.

 

[Faust2D]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spritzer /img/forum/go_quote.gif There aren't many "normal" amps that can output 100v (the monster Krell amps can do about 200v but they aren't normal) so that should have caused him to rethink the 1000w number. The only good part about Stereophile are the measurements but you also get those from HFN and without the idiot reviewers.

Well he states that 1000W does not make any sense and he is not sure what this means. I like the comparison to horn speakers, as I feel that old stax have a bit of that good horn speaker musicality to their sound. I think there is also old SR-X review by him that is even more interesting. Old Stereophile was cool, now it's one big advertisement, what a disgrace.

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faust2D /img/forum/go_quote.gif This makes me want to get a good condition Koss and give it a listen, as well as SR-3, but I have a good I idea how SR-3 would sound as I had that Stagnavox headphone. Wow, I like to read The Dharma Bums while listening to old Jazz with my SR-001, coincidence? I think not! Vespas and stylish women wearing sunglasses, no thanks, I am way over that, I want downtown NYC chicks in leather boots Yeah, but I can see how they can be confusing. I think Holt is a cool guy and good reviewer, too bad the magazine he stared turned into such crap. This issue was still self published and all reviews are written by him still.

You know there is a used ESP9 for sale here...

 

[Faust2D]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeadphoneAddict /img/forum/go_quote.gif You know there is a used ESP9 for sale here...

Yeah I do, but I can get one much cheaper

 

[wualta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faust2D Wow, I like to read The Dharma Bums while listening to old Jazz with my SR-001, coincidence? I think not! Vespas and stylish women wearing sunglasses, no thanks, I am way over that, I want downtown NYC chicks in leather boots.

Well, the Vespas and and waspish women in shades were a dream for 1971. They're all grandmothers now, as are all the ESP/9s. As will all the leather bootchicks be. Not a bad thing at all.

As for Kerouac, glad to hear it. There are no coincidences. Go here to watch a 1959 color videotape of the late Steve Allen improvising on the piano as Kerouac reads. The clip doesn't show Allen's intro where he asks Kerouac if he's nervous, and Kerouac, who's obviously nervous but game, shakes his head, saying "Oh! No. Naw.Never."

 

[Faust2D]

By the way this is the recommended components list from that issue, not surprising both Koss and Stax are in the class A

The new hot on head-fi can Beyer DT48s is in class B, don't you just love this?

Sorry for thread hijack.

 

[spritzer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faust2D /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well he states that 1000W does not make any sense and he is not sure what this means. I like the comparison to horn speakers, as I feel that old stax have a bit of that good horn speaker musicality to their sound. I think there is also old SR-X review by him that is even more interesting. Old Stereophile was cool, now it's one big advertisement, what a disgrace.

They do sound a bit like old horn speakers and this was something which Stax was aiming to mimic. The only partially open baffle to make the sound bounce around a dead give away.

Btw. Thanks for reminding me to relist the SR-3 I had for sale. The buyer backed out nearly two months ago and I completely forgot about them...

 

[sachu]

well i got to blame dBel and yogi for getting me back to the headfi scene ...i have been buying lots of new material for DIying and also bargain hunting for Ortho headphones.

A Yh1 escaped me by a day on craigslist for 25$.

However, i managed to snag a Yh-100 today for 30$, with original box and all.

I have them on me listening to Portland's Helio Sequence and Steve Wynn. wow oh wow..what donald and Yogi had been saying has been vindicated and more.

I am totally in to this now. I can't wait to dig through this thread and get to work on listening and modding the Yh-100 accordingly and put the new SFI drivers to work on some donor headphones (got a Pioneer monitor 10 for 20$ on fleabay)..

More to come..right now..am going to go back to reading up on this thread while i listen to my newest pair of headphones.

 

[JadeEast]

Sachu a secret ortho handshake

 

[sachu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JadeEast /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sachu a secret ortho handshake

hahah..i had to go through a few pages before i knew what the secret handshake was about..

back at you Jade

 

[ludoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sachu /img/forum/go_quote.gif However, i managed to snag a Yh-100 today for 30$, with original box and all.

Wow! Probably the best deal on an ortho in recent times.

Quote:

I am totally in to this now. I can't wait to dig through this thread and get to work on listening and modding the Yh-100 accordingly and put the new SFI drivers to work on some donor headphones (got a Pioneer monitor 10 for 20$ on fleabay)..

Search results for the yh100 are here. As wualta recently said, they are not easy to damp.

I found out on mines that the key to a successful (or partially successful at least) damping are the earcup vents: if you manage to damp them properly after removing the almost useless black pieces of felt, and manage to use the damping to also keep the driver still and absorb its vibrations, ou are halwfay there.

Also important is fixing the driver to the baffle, I used very thin lines of bluetack and it seems to work well. Then you just have to experiment with felts, one disc on the back of the earcups to absorb reflections, and one or more against the driver held in place by the stock foams. At least, that's what I did on mines. Pics to come next time I open them, probably tomorrow if the cable arrives and I manage to find the time to recable them.

As for cables, I recabled my second set of HP-3 last night with some Tasker TSK1044 I had around, and I can partially understand what wualta says about cables making little difference to orthos: the sound improved considerably after the recable, as the stock cable is really crap (and/or oxidized), but the differences with the Mogami are minimal. So I guess any half-decent cable will work better than the stock one.

 

[wualta]

Sachu, welcome, as I used to say, to our little corner of the madness. Great score on the YH-100; they haven't gone for that little since 2006. You must've found 'em locally. Tell us where you live so we can all move there, since obviously there's a rich pocket of Orthodynamics in the area.

The YH-100 is a challenge because it improves so much at first that you think you're done, but no, there's just a little more improvement you know you can get from it, so you go get some new superdense felt you've discovered and pop it open again, and sure enough, it's even better than before, so you think you're done, but no....

The better a headphone becomes, the easier it becomes to hear the flaws. Once you fix those, a bunch of smaller flaws show up. Anyone who's tried to restore an old negative in a photo-editing suite knows how this works all too well. The flaws all have sub-flaws, and on it goes. Other headphones give you a clear indication that they're done improving (some, like the run-of-the-mill PMB-built orthos, tell you this right away). The YH-100 keeps leading you on.

Unless you have highly trained ears or a lot of excellent headphones for comparison, you'll be chasing your own ongoing ear-education with the YH-100. It's that good and that maddening.

That's been my experience, anyway, and I think others will agree.
If it were easy to work on, this wouldn't be a problem, but Mario Bellini didn't make it easy. I'm still waiting for the headphone with the hinged baffle and flip-out driver.

Don't let this put you off. You're going to have fun. It's always fun when a mechanism responds clearly and unambiguously to the care you give it.

 

[Kabeer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sachu /img/forum/go_quote.gif However, i managed to snag a Yh-100 today for 30$, with original box and all.

Welcome to orthos, and what a great find

.
Do keep us updated when you find a good damping scheme for the YH-100.