[VGoghs earfrmsc]

  Hi, I hope this is the right place for this. At the moment I own the Lambda Nova Basic and an SRM-Xh. I would like to move up the stax ladder by buying used gear, piece by piece. By budgeting 350 pound per piece of equipment and selling old , what can I expect to get for my money, in terms of hardware and in sound improvement? Also what should I buy first, earspeakers or energizer if that matters? I would like to improve my set up yearly say, should I follow a well worn path of stax ownership, or buy when the price is a bargain, and maybe have one piece thats well ahead SQ wise of the other. Maybe you done it how i ask, were there pitfalls along the way? Any info would be gratefully recieved, or redirecting to another thread for that matter.  Thanks in advance.

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[Michgelsen]

  Hi Michgelsen,

The hum is coming from the unit while the sound output is completely clean. I just want to make sure the 323S transformer is not delaminating or something. Do Stax amps quietly hum or are they typically silent?​

 
My 717 is silent, but the transformer of the T1 I had before also buzzed a little. It could very well be that a segment of the transformer has lost its glue contact, or in other words: yes, a segment has likely delaminated. Is this a problem? Not really, I think. Obviously Stax amps cannot be built to the same high standards as some of the beautiful DIY amps around here, so transformer quality is likely not top notch, but good enough.

 

[NoPants]

 
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lamda signature then 323S

 

[carbonfet]

Figured I should share the amp I've been building for the past months. Excuse the phone camera quality.
 

 

[NoPants]

nice job, what peek screws are you using? 

 

[carbonfet]

  nice job, what peek screws are you using? 

 
Thanks. The peek screws are M3/15mm socket head ones, here on solidspot.

 

[Jones Bob]

Figured I should share the amp I've been building for the past months. Excuse the phone camera quality.

Nice build!

 

[Rayzilla]

  Figured I should share the amp I've been building for the past months. Excuse the phone camera quality.
 

Are all of you guys that are building these electrostatic amps very experienced at this? At my school, one of the science teachers does an after school activity where they solder circuit boards. Can I give a go at one of the more simpler amps, or do you need a lot of experience to be playing around with these?
 
On a side note, the 009 are good for my health. I can see that I will be eating less junk food while working away with them on because I keep 'farting'. And it is because of the snacks but also not because of the snacks. lol
 
I am really enjoying them now and will stop thinking about the KGSSHV until the timing becomes more realistic.

 

[NoPants]

any of the amplifiers can be built if you know how to solder and you use the proper tools for the important stuff. simplest one I can think of is the octave? maybe the original kgst design as well.

someone built the t2 as their first amplifier but it's not recommended without assistance. if you don't know how to solder I recommend you get someone to hold your hand because working with hv isn't trivial

not sure about what other conceptions you might have but don't expect to save money by building these

 

[kugino]

any of the amplifiers can be built if you know how to solder and you use the proper tools for the important stuff. simplest one I can think of is the octave? maybe the original kgst design as well.

someone built the t2 as their first amplifier but it's not recommended without assistance. if you don't know how to solder I recommend you get someone to hold your hand because working with hv isn't trivial

not sure about what other conceptions you might have but don't expect to save money by building these

yep, like nopants says, if you have some soldering skills, can follow directions, and know how to use a MM, you should be able to build most of the DIY stax amps. i was going to build one myself, but decided to commission someone to build mine as 1) i don't have enough time to build one at the moment and 2) i wanted the casing to look nice. casework is probably the most difficult part of the build, especially if you want it to look "professional" and neat. 
 
and to reiterate what nopants says, DIY in this case does not mean inexpensive. these amps are pricey, whether you build it yourself or have someone build it for you.

 

[Michgelsen]

 
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If you go around shopping for different (vintage) Lambdas, remember that these steps will be mostly 'sidegrades' instead of upgrades. Upgrades would be stepping up to the 007 or 009.
For amps, there is a clearer upgrade path from small to medium to bigger Stax amps, and finally to biggest DIY monsters. If you do decide to go try different Lambdas, I would strongly suggest that you try them with one of the Stax tube amps somewhere along the way.

 

[Earspeakers]

Any consensus on Stax break-in?
 
I find myself liking my used units better than the new ones. Smoother, refined and more integrated. Could easily be my imagining as those are conveniently the terms I'd use to describe an older, broken in unit. However I happen to have an anomaly, a NOS/NIB 404 Sig. Now I'm very familiar with the 404 as its one of my favorite, being a near perfect match for chamber music which is a large part of my diet. I have a 404LE and 404Sig, both used and well broken in. 
 
This 404 NOS however sounds somewhat rough compared to the other two. It also has a lot of "Stax farting" (plastic frame noises). But without doing a blind A/B I think I can say it does sound younger than the other two, which if true lends credence to the theory that Stax do break in. 

 

[Earspeakers]

  Figured I should share the amp I've been building for the past months. Excuse the phone camera quality.

 
Nice, looks like the one I'm building (we probably got the chassis from the same source?) You might be aware there's some theory that a Delrin volume shaft extension is preferred over metal, due to the heats involved. I'm going metal at first, possibly Delrin if it proves an issue. 

 

[astrostar59]

  Hi astrostar59,
As you might remember, i was planing to test the TotalDac after my friends are ready to give it to me.
Situation changed as they send it back to France after they finally got the Pavane. All of them realized the Pavane as best sounding DAC in the test cycle.
 
Comparing to the TotalDac there is explicit less distortion on the Pavane as it was told to me.
Next thing was that a cd-drive was better in sound quality than the Windows and the Mac Computer.
 
This is very surprising but i know that some of them has similar hearing preferences so i will accept this statement for now.
Now i wait to get the Pavane as a competitor to the Esoteric D-02 in near future.

Hi Karlgerman
Do you know which DACs your friends had in the house? I see you said the Pavane and the TotalDAC but any Esoteric or DS DACs? I find it interesting how the Pavane and TotalDAC are different, both are R-2R. Did they run them as Non Oversampling 44.1? The key to get the best out of Redbook I have found is feed the R-2R DAC with pure 44.1 bit perfect from the transport or PC software. Let the DAC do the digital processing only. I use Audirvana+ in standalone and it kills my transport (CEC belt drive CDP).
 
Let me know if you know!

 

[yawg]

 

  Through the headphones, or coming from the device itself?
   
  Could be simple, harmless transformer buzzing if it's coming from the device itself.
   

Hi Michgelsen,

The hum is coming from the unit while the sound output is completely clean. I just want to make sure the 323S transformer is not delaminating or something. Do Stax amps quietly hum or are they typically silent?

 

This seems like mechanical hum to me. I had some, too from the transformer in my Cayin DA-2 DAC. Just removed the mounting screws of the tranny and wrapped it in bubble foil. No more hum.
 
Both my Stax amps (SRM-3 and SRM-T1S) are totally quiet.