[thinker]

The Phenomenon amp 420V is designed for Phenomenon headphones (i did mention this earlier),the Phenomenon V5 versions are easy to drive, i don't know how the amp sounds with Stax phones, i will try later.I have listened now for several hours with Canorum V5/PH amp but honestly haven't heard yet a Stax set up to play on this level.I use a huge Abbas audio NOS dac in front of the chain and the result is like listenening to reel to reel masterband recorder.It's stunning how deep you can dive in the musical landscape with this combo.

Spritzer is the master of crushing not to mention how he was asking on he's website 6500 USD for a HE-90 clone with a Lambda driver inside.The Carbon amp 6500usd is almost empty inside and he offers the same amp in different sizes....,i'm just waiting, wich might be possible, if you are the master ,to get a Carbon crushed in a matchbox sized box.
And just wondering how far this has come, an indian electrostatic headphone maker is asking/buying/begging permission from Spritzer to get he's phones on the market.

 

[tigon_ridge]

@thinker There's Carbon, and there's Carbon CC, which only comes in only one size: BIG. The CC version is the only one that costs $6300 w/o RCAs, so you're being very misleading. An amp with a bunch of unnecessary things stuffed inside (such as a fan that adds EMI and blows around hot air) isn't necessarily better.

I don't know why you brought up your amp in a Stax thread when you haven't used it on any Stax headphones, nor have you compared it to any Stax amp for driving your Russian estats.

 

[soren_brix]

@thinker There's Carbon, and there's Carbon CC, which only comes in only one size: BIG. The CC version is the only one that costs $6300 w/o RCAs, so you're being very misleading. An amp with a bunch of unnecessary things stuffed inside (such as a fan that adds EMI and blows around hot air) isn't necessarily better.

I don't know why you brought up your amp in a Stax thread when you haven't used it on any Stax headphones, nor have you compared it to any Stax amp for driving your Russian estats.

Infact, @thinker's impression might be very, very true:

but honestly haven't heard yet a Stax set up to play on this level

It's stunning how deep you can dive in the musical landscape with this combo.

,
this might very well be the result of the amp generating a lot of THD,

Looking at the pictures, it seems like the high voltage supply is very weak in comparison to the Carbon, also it looks like most of the CCS's has been omitted from the circuit, and this will result in a great deal of modulation and thus more THD; way, way more THD in comparison to a Carbon.

Nothing wrong in preferring a special flavor of sound, however electrostatics is much about accuracy, speed, low distortion etc, so why buy something really expensive and tweak it to a "level" that is easily obtained from much cheaper equipment?

 

[JimL11]

Well, aren't almost all PC power supplies equipped with a fan? That said, I don't see a vent in the case as an in/outtake for that fan. What's the point of having an internal fan, which adds electromagnetic interference beside sonic noise, if all it'll do is circulate warm air around the amp?

True, lots of PC power supplies ARE equipped with a fan - but not hi fi amplifiers, which is what I was thinking of. Some hit fi amps are equipped with a fan, for example, the original Krell KSA-50 - but that is to cool the amplifier heatsinks, not the power supply.

 

[JimL11]

The Phenomenon amp 420V is designed for Phenomenon headphones (i did mention this earlier),the Phenomenon V5 versions are easy to drive, i don't know how the amp sounds with Stax phones, i will try later.I have listened now for several hours with Canorum V5/PH amp but honestly haven't heard yet a Stax set up to play on this level.I use a huge Abbas audio NOS dac in front of the chain and the result is like listenening to reel to reel masterband recorder.It's stunning how deep you can dive in the musical landscape with this combo.

Spritzer is the master of crushing not to mention how he was asking on he's website 6500 USD for a HE-90 clone with a Lambda driver inside.The Carbon amp 6500usd is almost empty inside and he offers the same amp in different sizes....,i'm just waiting, wich might be possible, if you are the master ,to get a Carbon crushed in a matchbox sized box.
And just wondering how far this has come, an indian electrostatic headphone maker is asking/buying/begging permission from Spritzer to get he's phones on the market.

So, the "improved Carbon" isn't really a Carbon, uses a noisier, switching power supply which is only capable of supplying a quarter of the power (at most) of a KG Carbon power supply, and hasn't been compared with a KG Carbon on Stax headphones - all posted on the Stax thread.

 

[thinker]

Infact, @thinker's impression might be very, very true:




accuracy, speed, low distortion etc, so why buy something really expensive and tweak it to a "level" that is easily obtained from much cheaper equipment?

second hand market is crowded with "perfect" expensive amps ,obviously something is missing, the same with expensive Dacs like Dave etc.i got to listen to Dave for a while and thought
myself how far away musicality is compared to a good NOS dac like Abbas.But Rob likes to sell you million taps and maybe tomorrow 2 million tabs

 

[harris4crna]

Just want to add a comment to state how happy to have joined the Stax 009/BHSE family. I can honestly state I have reached musical nirvana. Matter of fact, much $$$$$ later, I can honestly say I have reached my
Pinnacle. I know we all say this at some time in our audiophile career, but I just cannot imagine needing anything else within my audiophile setup. The Stax and BHSE combo took years to pull the plug, but got a good deal and jumped on it. Glad I did, now I know what you all have been saying for years, this truly is the end game for HPs.

 

[headinclouds]

The connection with this thread is that these are all Kevin Gilmore circuit designs for Stax ES ear-defenders.

I have taken this picture today because I have never had all of these builds together before.

From the left KGST, Blue Hawaii, KGSShv Carbon and KGSShv Cube.

The Grounded Grid cannot be with us today as it is providing bliss to a gentleman in London.

All are very, very good, there is not a weak design amongst them, credit to Kevin.

Question. Where would the high level headphone market be now if it wasn’t for Kevin and Birgir?

 

[buzzlulu]

Question. Where would the high level headphone market be now if it wasn’t for Kevin and Birgir?

Amen

 

[Ali-Pacha]

Blue Hawaï SE FTW. Got it 3 years ago, done with chasing some head-fi unicorn since that.

Ali

 

[MrTechAgent]

Spritzer is the master of crushing not to mention how he was asking on he's website 6500 USD for a HE-90 clone with a Lambda driver inside.The Carbon amp 6500usd is almost empty inside and he offers the same amp in different sizes....,i'm just waiting, wich might be possible, if you are the master ,to get a Carbon crushed in a matchbox sized box.
And just wondering how far this has come, an indian electrostatic headphone maker is asking/buying/begging permission from Spritzer to get he's phones on the market.

Are you an imbecile?
If you knew Birgir or any of the other guys who have contributed to the Electrostatic world, you wouldn't talk such garbage.

 

[thinker]

Are you an imbecile?
If you knew Birgir or any of the other guys who have contributed to the Electrostatic world, you wouldn't talk such garbage.

I'm waiting to getting permanently banned from Head-Fi community but this doesnt happened yet .

The term imbecile is a mental health issue ,if you don't know you can check it out here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbecile

There are other forums out there to discuss these kind of problems

Mafia and the godfather Spritzer is a platform to anything

 

[Tugbars]

you just seem to be advertising russian electrostatic products here. You are saying that Dima's amp is better than Carbon without giving any details.For you, Perun is the ultimate end-game yet you hesitate to share any measurements done with Perun.

also you said "carbon has been improved" Everybody is building their own Carbon nowadays. Only Birgir is using his own boards(I don't now about Soren), everyone else is using KG's 0.64 version circuit boards. Birgir's Carbon is at 8th version.

 

[JimL11]

Actually, spritzer rather liked the Phenomenon headphones. And on the Phenomenon website, the amp is listed as having a maximum output of 430VRMS (no frequency specified), and a frequency response of 1Hz - 35 kHz. By comparison the Stax SRM-727 has a maximum output of 450 VRMS at 1 kHz, and a frequency response of DC - 115kHz. This suggests that the Phenomenon uses +/-350V power supplies, or thereabouts.

While either amp can play loud enough to cause permanent hearing loss, by comparison a KG Carbon should be able to put out around 600 VRMS with +/-450V supplies. The reason for having such capability is not so much to destroy your hearing, but rather that at normal listening levels the amp is just loafing, and has ample capacity to accommodate peaks without clipping. Studies from the 1950s demonstrated that classical music, for example has a ratio of average to peak levels up to 17 dB, which is 50 fold in power, or 7-fold in voltage terms. So a forte musical passage which measures 90 dB on an averaging SPL meter, may contain peak levels of up to 107 dB.

 

[thinker]

you just seem to be advertising russian electrostatic products here. You are saying that Dima's amp is better than Carbon without giving any details.For you, Perun is the ultimate end-game yet you hesitate to share any measurements done with Perun.

also you said "carbon has been improved" Everybody is building their own Carbon nowadays. Only Birgir is using his own boards(I don't now about Soren), everyone else is using KG's 0.64 version circuit boards. Birgir's Carbon is at 8th version.

Perun measurements are here somewhere on forum and they are excellent.Dimas amp is excellent, very musical,i cannot go further until i get it tested with Stax phones.Compared to Stax amps the difference is huge with Canorum.
No interest where phones are produced but have mentioned Russian phones often because they are interesting,something between pro and DIY and they are very musical.The Libratum V3 phone you can already compare with best Stax phones,the latest
version V5 is coming soon maybe in 6 months.An indian electrostatic phone is also interesting but who needs a positive opinion from Spritzer