[AudioCats]

l just purchased SR-009 and waiting for the package. I know you said 717 should be really good amp, but I did not find it yet. There is new KGSS Mini under $1000. How is it compared to 717?

congregations on the sr-009 !

 

[Menkau-ra]

congregations on the sr-009 !

I will receive them next week.
Need help with an amp

 

[AudioCats]

Due to the high voltages involved in electrostatic amps, I would recommend playing it safe and get either a used headamp kgss or a 717. It might take a while to find one but it is worth the wait.

or you can splurge and get that $5k BHSE in the classified. You will probably have nowhere to upgrade to after that
(therefore, you spend the extra $$ up front, and end up saving a lot of future time that you would have wasted "wondering")

 

[Menkau-ra]

Due to the high voltages involved in electrostatic amps, I would recommend playing it safe and get either a used headamp kgss or a 717. It might take a while to find one but it is worth the wait.

or you can splurge and get that $5k BHSE in the classified. You will probably have nowhere to upgrade to after that
(therefore, you spend the extra $$ up front, and end up saving a lot of future time that you would have wasted "wondering")

Just asking how much better the BHSE then 717 with 009 or L300 LTD? Is it a BIG difference or just 5-10% improvement?

The cheapest Headamp is $4k... What about Woo Audio WES? Or mjolnir-audio Octave V2 or TT? Are they any good?

 

[dukeskd]

Just asking how much better the BHSE then 717 with 009 or L300 LTD? Is it a BIG difference or just 5-10% improvement?

The cheapest Headamp is $4k... What about Woo Audio WES? Or mjolnir-audio Octave V2 or TT? Are they any good?

BHSE + 009 would be considered the pinnacle of an electrostatic system. I run that system, and it's amazing.

I also ran the 009 through an energizer off an speaker amp, it sounded good but the details were lacking.

 

[AudioCats]

Just asking how much better the BHSE then 717 with 009 or L300 LTD? Is it a BIG difference or just 5-10% improvement?

no idea, I have never heard 009 driven by 717.

...What about Woo Audio WES? ...

https://www.stereophile.com/content/listening-stax-sr-009-and-great-headphone-amplifiers-conclusions

 

[Tugbars]

Are you talking about this? https://www.ebay.com/itm/224475834032
Does anyone have an experience with this builder - JR Audio?

I have. I have used the Carbon built by him for 2 years with no problems. At some point because of my mistake, the Stax plug on the amp got damaged, myheadfi sent me a new one for free. Myheadfi also sent me the Carbon with a high quality Accuphase power cable(free). My experience with myheadfi was super good. I see that Birgir is constantly crap talking about JR's builds(He says things like the power supply made by JR blew up only in one week) but I never had any problems and I compared JR's Carbon to Birgir's Carbon too. JR's Carbon is a bit bright in treble range(maybe harsh too, whatever that means) relatively to Birgir's Carbon and there's a slight grain in JR's Carbon sub bass presentation. Birgir has revised his Carbon design 8 times since the last available DIY Carbon boards, probably the problems on JR's Carbon is based on the design differences. The differences are small honestly.

These are the parts JR used to build his Carbon with KG boards. I don't know how good is his component choices are, you guys can be the judge. Eventually I bought a second hand Carbon(mjolnir), I have 2 Carbons now, when I move to Netherlands I'll have more time to compare both to each other and sell one.

I wasn't intending to buy JR's Carbon first honestly, I was about to buy Birgir's Carbon. I asked IBAN etc from Birgir to do the payment, but he never answered my mail after that.

 

[Menkau-ra]

Is Headamp still making KGSS?

 

[AudioCats]

I have. I have used the Carbon built by him for 2 years with no problems. At some point because of my mistake, the Stax plug on the amp got damaged, myheadfi sent me a new one for free. Myheadfi also sent me the Carbon with a high quality Accuphase power cable(free). My experience with myheadfi was super good. I see that Birgir is constantly crap talking about JR's builds(He says things like the power supply made by JR blew up only in one week) but I never had any problems and I compared JR's Carbon to Birgir's Carbon too. JR's Carbon is a bit bright in treble range(maybe harsh too, whatever that means) relatively to Birgir's Carbon and there's a slight grain in JR's Carbon sub bass presentation. Birgir has revised his Carbon design 8 times since the last available DIY Carbon boards, probably the problems on JR's Carbon is based on the design differences. The differences are small honestly.
These are the parts JR used to build his Carbon with KG boards. I don't know how good is his component choices are, you guys can be the judge. Eventually I bought a second hand Carbon(mjolnir), I have 2 Carbons now, when I move to Netherlands I'll have more time to compare both to each other and sell one.

I wasn't intending to buy JR's Carbon first honestly, I was about to buy Birgir's Carbon. I asked IBAN etc from Birgir to do the payment, but he never answered my mail after that.

Thanks for the review, this kind of real world 1st hand comparisons are hard to come by. Much appreciated.

what kind of $$ was that used mjolnir carbon, if you don't mind sharing? ~3.5k? ~4k? ~4.5k? Does it have alps RK50 (big copper cylinder) or a TKD (black square plastic) volume pot? or a DACT?

and does your JR carbon have any kind of upgraded volume control? The web page shows the alps rk27 (blue plastic square) being the standard part.

any more photos of amps internals?

 

[chocolates]

the RK50 is an audible improvement but i don't believe JR amps have them - i think they all use RK27 unless otherwise specified

just curious but are there any buyers still interested in STAX headphones? i've got a couple lambdas i do not use (due to sticking with my SR-007) but can't seem to find any buyers over on reddit; seems like many people aren't even aware of what they are

 

[Aurosonic]

For the last seven months I have been running a convolution filter in Roon with my SR-007 MK1's. I used the .wav files prepared by oratory1990 specifically designed for the SR-007. Previously I had tried multiple forms of DSP and always reverted back as the results were never satisfactory. This was the first time I preferred the sound with DSP applied. A couple days ago I became curious about applying filters designed for other headphones and how they might affect the sound. Jaakko Pasanen was kind enough to compile profiles for nearly every headphone out there, complete with the .wav files and frequency response graphs. Thanks to him and oratory1990, we have a massive menu in which to choose different "flavors" for our headphones. Looking through the various profiles and accompanying graphs we can see the equalization being applied. Most of the filters did not look to be favorable for the SR-007, but I discovered the SR-009 filter looked promising. It's fairly similar to the SR-007 filter, but with a larger bump in the lower frequencies. I downloaded the .wav files and compressed them to a .zip file.

Roon makes it very easy to apply different filters. I would play a portion of a track to acclimate to the SR-007 filter, load the SR-009 filter in the DSP menu, and resume. This allowed for nearly seamless switching between filters. I would go back and forth several times to confirm my findings. The result: big difference. Looking at the frequency response graph of the SR-009 filter you see a gradual increase below 150 Hz leading up to the typical Harman bass shelf below 40 Hz. As you would expect, the SR-009 filter is undoubtedly bassier and more "fun" sounding than the SR-007 filter. I also notice more forward mids, which brings added presence to vocals. Overall sound is much more lively and engaging without sacrificing the great resolution and imaging of the O2's. The SR-007 filter may be more "accurate" and I may eventually revert back to it, but for now I am getting tremendous enjoyment from the SR-009 filter. To those that say electrostats can't do bass I challenge them to have a listen to this.

Some are not a fan of Harman target curves, but if you find the SR-007's lack bass or lack "excitement" give the SR-009 filter a shot. Given the favorable results I experienced I'm curious to try other filters. I may find one I like even more.

 

[Tugbars]

Thanks for the review, this kind of real world 1st hand comparisons are hard to come by. Much appreciated.

what kind of $$ was that used mjolnir carbon, if you don't mind sharing? ~3.5k? ~4k? ~4.5k? Does it have alps RK50 (big copper cylinder) or a TKD (black square plastic) volume pot? or a DACT?

and does your JR carbon have any kind of upgraded volume control? The web page shows the alps rk27 (blue plastic square) being the standard part.

any more photos of amps internals?

Sorry for the messy pictures first of all.

The volume pot seems like it's a RK27.
This is the other side:

power supply, a closer look.

I paid 3600$ for the Mjolnir Carbon.

 

[Tugbars]

For the last seven months I have been running a convolution filter in Roon with my SR-007 MK1's. I used the .wav files prepared by oratory1990 specifically designed for the SR-007. Previously I had tried multiple forms of DSP and always reverted back as the results were never satisfactory. This was the first time I preferred the sound with DSP applied. A couple days ago I became curious about applying filters designed for other headphones and how they might affect the sound. Jaakko Pasanen was kind enough to compile profiles for nearly every headphone out there, complete with the .wav files and frequency response graphs. Thanks to him and oratory1990, we have a massive menu in which to choose different "flavors" for our headphones. Looking through the various profiles and accompanying graphs we can see the equalization being applied. Most of the filters did not look to be favorable for the SR-007, but I discovered the SR-009 filter looked promising. It's fairly similar to the SR-007 filter, but with a larger bump in the lower frequencies. I downloaded the .wav files and compressed them to a .zip file.

Roon makes it very easy to apply different filters. I would play a portion of a track to acclimate to the SR-007 filter, load the SR-009 filter in the DSP menu, and resume. This allowed for nearly seamless switching between filters. I would go back and forth several times to confirm my findings. The result: big difference. Looking at the frequency response graph of the SR-009 filter you see a gradual increase below 150 Hz leading up to the typical Harman bass shelf below 40 Hz. As you would expect, the SR-009 filter is undoubtedly bassier and more "fun" sounding than the SR-007 filter. I also notice more forward mids, which brings added presence to vocals. Overall sound is much more lively and engaging without sacrificing the great resolution and imaging of the O2's. The SR-007 filter may be more "accurate" and I may eventually revert back to it, but for now I am getting tremendous enjoyment from the SR-009 filter. To those that say electrostats can't do bass I challenge them to have a listen to this.

Some are not a fan of Harman target curves, but if you find the SR-007's lack bass or lack "excitement" give the SR-009 filter a shot. Given the favorable results I experienced I'm curious to try other filters. I may find one I like even more.

Try Susvara filter.

 

[shabta]

The thing that concerns me about JR builds is that the price he charges ( I haven't looked for a year or so) on Taoboa (pre myheadfi seller markup) are so low that you couldn't get a carbon for that cheap if you built it yourself. So that means he's using a lot of chinese knockoff parts. He also makes lot of knock off amp and advertises them as DNA Stratus or Wells Headtrip. So while it make sound ok at first, those capacitors, resistors etc may fail or go out of spec very quickly compared to buying quality parts.

 

[Tugbars]

The thing that concerns me about JR builds is that the price he charges ( I haven't looked for a year or so) on Taoboa (pre myheadfi seller markup) are so low that you couldn't get a carbon for that cheap if you built it yourself. So that means he's using a lot of chinese knockoff parts. He also makes lot of knock off amp and advertises them as DNA Stratus or Wells Headtrip. So while it make sound ok at first, those capacitors, resistors etc may fail or go out of spec very quickly compared to buying quality parts.

He charges around 2500$~ and the parts cost way less than that.

His business practices is obviously a bit sketchy. I agree with that. I shared the internals of the amp to know if someone can recognize any cheap/dodgy parts inside. I don't trust JR, however myheadfi seemed to me as a trustable guy. The Carbons JR used to build before myheadfi is different than what he is doing now also. The internals of his previous Carbons are different. Not sure, how much of it translates to improvements though. I'll remain skeptical about JR.