Orthodynamic Roundup

[mypasswordis]

Hot damn, that's a lot of mods already.

What a great way to start off the new year. I'm learning Paganini Caprice No. 24 to celebrate.

Looks like mine isn't going to arrive before the new year, though. Because it hasn't.

 

[mypasswordis]

...

 

[smeggy]

I'm sure you'll have fun when it arrives, they're fun cans and easy to tweak.

 

[mypasswordis]

Oh yes, I'm sure I will, too.

Happy New Year's.

There's a certain other headphone I bought that will need tweaking as well... I'm the one who ended up winning that lonesome set of ESP10 of which functionality is currently unknown.

 

[smeggy]

Ack!
Have fun with the ESP10, I actually like the ESP9, once the pads were replaced with something less painful anyway

 

[spritzer]

The ESP10 fitted with some SR-007 pads is a very different animal and a lot more comfortable.

 

[mypasswordis]

I'm not quite prepared to spend three or so times the price I paid for the ESP10 for SR-007 pads. Would you happen to have a set of used pads you'd want to sell me for cheap(er)?

I have to rewire it to the Stax standard so I can plug it into my SRM-1 and see if it actually works, first. I don't remember what the spec'd bias voltage is for these things... I only have two options so I'll just guess.

Watching the ball drop for the millionth time was fun. I kind of want 2009 glasses since they're the last year for the glasses to work properly until the year 3000.

 

[Planar_head]

Smeggy,

It seems that you didn't take off the stock damper, do you think they may need it? Or you could try and see if it gives you any more damping headroom?

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/3788649-post1744.html

 

[wualta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faust2D What other amps with headphone out and ability to drive transformer boxes do you have? Pics would be nice.

I pasted in a photo of the HA-7700's insides into my earlier post. One of the things I like about vintage Hitachi, aside from MOSFETs, is their placement of headphone sockets on their power amps, not on their preamps. At first I thought they were nuts, but this philosophy comes into its own with orthos. Here's one of my favorites. Sounds great, has DC offset servo and rock-solid MOSFET sound: Hitachi's HMA-8500 Mk II, and ya gotta love those proportions.

This is the one that a Hitachi brochure claimed was the world's first MOSFET power amp. Usually you see it in deep chocolate (almost Technics) brown, but for you silver-face fans, the Hitachi HMA-7500:

How about a Sanyo? This is their Plus Series P55 freon-cooled MOSFET amp hard at work on a Yamaha YH-1:

The Sony VFET TA-5650 integrated has had some embarrassingly nice things said about it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dBel84 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I do think we should add to F2D's wiki vintage amp section.

You should, you should. Plus the headphone sections.

Quote:

Originally Posted by smeggy /img/forum/go_quote.gif Light and comfy too. I think we're gonna be friends.

Not sure if you're talking about your wife or the headphones, but good luck either way. Win-win.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JadeEast /img/forum/go_quote.gif Jumping FOTM sidegrading Ninja, I want the the new 50rp. Oh and a Early 80s Yammy amp.

How about a late '70s one? VFET outputs, one of the best amps evar.

No headphone jack on the B-2, though.


Quote:

Originally Posted by sacd lover /img/forum/go_quote.gif The comfort is a real plus.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad everyone finds the T50RPv2 so comfy. I've always found them a little clunky, as you'd expect from something that's pretty much all business, and I wonder what summertime will bring.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DefectiveAudioComponent /img/forum/go_quote.gif I listened a bit more to the HOK, and it's got a bit of that closed-in-a-box felling now. I'm not sure what to do about that. It wasn't like that without the new pads, I think....

Did you close off the back of the cups with tape? Try opening them up again. And yes, buy more T50RPs.


Quote:

Originally Posted by smeggy Yikes, I just turned up the EQ +10db @ 32Hz

Artificial cojones! Well, as we found out years ago, this headphone can take brutal EQ and just ask for more.


Quote:

Originally Posted by smeggy Easiest mod to sweetness evar.

I squirted Ovaltine out my nose when I read that.


Quote:

Originally Posted by mypasswordis /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm the one who ended up winning that lonesome set of ESP10 of which functionality is currently unknown.

Well, I've always been curious about the 10. It seemed to come and go so quickly. I hope it proves more reliable than the 9. Ack indeed.

Oh, did anyone here get the Pioneer JB-100 electret 'phones that ended 3 days ago? They're the ones that look like somebody lightly modified a Sony ECR-500.

.

 

[smeggy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Planar_head /img/forum/go_quote.gif Smeggy, It seems that you didn't take off the stock damper, do you think they may need it? Or you could try and see if it gives you any more damping headroom? http://www.head-fi.org/forums/3788649-post1744.html

I may head further down this road later, though I'm not sure they need a lot of damping, more resonance control as I feel most of the trouble they have is housing related. I don't know if removing the default fabric will help if you just go and slap a ton of felt over it anyway. Now that the housing is tamed and they have more mass they sound good. Currently they weigh nearly twice what they did. I'm all about rigidity and mass loading before tweaks.

The driver is not like the slack slappers on the Yammys where they need a good bit of damping to tighten them up, these are good sounding as they are, much like the Wharfedale so I'll see how they go.

 

[mypasswordis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta Oh, did anyone here get the Pioneer JB-100 electret 'phones that ended 3 days ago? They're the ones that look like somebody lightly modified a Sony ECR-500.

A little too raggedy for my taste and I am not a master earpad fabricater, unlike a bunch of people here. If I had known they were close to an ECR-500 I might have gone for them. What I should be telling myself is I have way too many headphones and I recently bought too many so I should stop. I should.

Also, freon-cooled amps are cool (until they break/explode and release the freon which is a greenhouse gas, the opposite of cool).

 

[smeggy]

That Yammy B-2 looks sweet!

 

[spritzer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mypasswordis /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm not quite prepared to spend three or so times the price I paid for the ESP10 for SR-007 pads. Would you happen to have a set of used pads you'd want to sell me for cheap(er)? I have to rewire it to the Stax standard so I can plug it into my SRM-1 and see if it actually works, first. I don't remember what the spec'd bias voltage is for these things... I only have two options so I'll just guess.

No spare pads but some of the AKG pads (240 I think) are rumored to work just fine.

I believe that Koss used a bias of around 400-500v but they work just fine off a Pro bias Stax output. They do use the same plug as Stax but sadly it can't simply be rewired as the cord is dual entry and some of the wires would end up on the wrong side. I made an adapter where I swapped the wires but you could also just cut into the cable and swap the wires.

 

[Faust2D]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta /img/forum/go_quote.gif I pasted in a photo of the HA-7700's insides into my earlier post. One of the things I like about Hitachi is their placement of headphone sockets on their power amps, not on their preamps. At first I thought they were nuts, but this philosophy comes into its own with orthos. Here's one of my favorites. Sounds great, has DC offset servo and rock-solid MOSFET sound: Hitachi's HMA-8500 Mk II, and ya gotta love those proportions. This is the one that a Hitachi brochure claimed was the world's first MOSFET power amp. Usually you see it in deep chocolate (almost Technics) brown, but for you silver-face fans, the Hitachi HMA-7500: How about a Sanyo? This is their Plus Series P55 freon-cooled MOSFET amp hard at work on a Yamaha YH-1: The Sony VFET TA-5650 integrated has had some embarrassingly nice things said about it. How about a late '70s one? VFET outputs, one of the best amps evar. No headphone jack on the B-2, though.

Nice amps

Where do you store them all?

Can you tell me more about that Sanyo amp? Looks very interesting.


Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta /img/forum/go_quote.gif Oh, did anyone here get the Pioneer JB-100 electret 'phones that ended 3 days ago? They're the ones that look like somebody lightly modified a Sony ECR-500.

 

[mypasswordis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spritzer /img/forum/go_quote.gif No spare pads but some of the AKG pads (240 I think) are rumored to work just fine. I believe that Koss used a bias of around 400-500v but they work just fine off a Pro bias Stax output. They do use the same plug as Stax but sadly it can't simply be rewired as the cord is dual entry and some of the wires would end up on the wrong side. I made an adapter where I swapped the wires but you could also just cut into the cable and swap the wires.

As always, things are never as easy as they seem... and I knew it'd come back to bite me before the end. I admit that I actually owned a fair number of dynamics at some point, which included two K240 Sextetts that could have done with new pads. The cheapest place I can find pleather pads in the US is 33 bucks shipped from Full Compass. I still don't know the issue with ordering directly from AKG and am too lazy to find out.

About the adapter... maybe I could just cut off the plug and rewire the retermination. Not a great way but should get the job done, unless I can't remove the old wires in the plug.