[ESL-1]

Would have to concur. First off, the Shang Sr. should look better for the cost, as should the Susvara, their entire line etc. No doubt about it.

From a reliability standpoint, of all the examples we have out there, especially with the increase of people that have the Shang Sr., it has been FAR more reliable than:

x9000 (major driver imbalance issue, reason I didn't buy a pair again)
CRBN (obvious repeated issues )

And personally, I've sent by HE60 and 007 both overseas for repair--the older stats are far more susceptible to dust and other issues. At the end of the day, reliability is far more important for me than looks are.

I agree with reliability being top of the list. I have had a Focal that lost one channel as a number did and I had worse luck with HiFiMan. My most reliable pieces are the 12 pair of Stax phones (old & new) none of which have ever needed any service and my Grado headphones the same. I do keep the Stax away from dust. I remember the first time I saw the the Shangrala and did not believe it’s price given it’s details.

 

[protoss]

Staxs from 1960-1993 headphones are next to bulletproof.
All the problems started with Omega, 007mk1 cables, 009 drivers but these are somewhat minor beside the 009 debacle.

The best headphone to date with a robust drivers are the HD800. Had 6 pairs with 0 problems and haven't heard or seen any rants about them dying left or right, unless its a freak incident.

 

[mulveling]

X9000 failure reports have absolutely kept me from buying. I got lucky with 2 pairs of 009 (circa 2014) - both are still problem free today - but was antsy about them for several months. My brand new 009S, right upon its release, went bad almost immediately. Replacement unit was fine (sold it a few years ago), but I was rattled.

 

[protoss]

X9000 failure reports have absolutely kept me from buying

Me too! Kind of piss off myself. I was so close in buying one. Good I waited ️

I'm literally going to wait 5 years until they fix this mess or untill they get rid of all their old stocks to unknown buyers

Hopefully by then the tuning is fixed
I heard some mix reactions

 

[ColSaulTigh]

I must be lucky because mine appears to be just fine.

They are definitely resolving, that's for sure!

 

[Chefguru]

My first x9000 had an issue but the replacement has been strong since November. I haven’t seen any reports of new units having issues since Q4 last year.

 

[Velomane]

Received my replacement pair last Monday. My dealer seemed surprised they didn't simply repair the broken pair. Maybe this is Stax's tacit admission that there was a production problem. Thoughts?

 

[bjcwolters]

Hello, i like to ask if you can repair the internal thermal fuse on a Bando trafo of a Stax srm-1 mkII. ore place a fuse Value ? between Yellow and white on the Trafo ?
Thanks for info ?

 

[kevin gilmore]

the only thing you can do is short out the fuse. but if that fuse blew then you have a very serious problem. shorted caps, shorted turns in the transformer etc, or incorrect voltage setup.

i guess that all fuses really are thermal devices, but this one is set to 125F. and is not one of the resettable ones. something is causing the transformer to overheat.

 

[bjcwolters]

Hello ,

Need some help my trafo bando d-25 is dead ;-((
so i need a new one but i think that this will be a problem.
so some tech info ?-0-? volt and Ma . for amp and for bias .

Thanks for held and info.

 

[aokman]

Finally made serious progress on my own Lundahl converter. Gave up trying to find an IFI iESL after a while and decided to take on the challenge of building my own for a video series anyways. Using LL1630 transformers as others have done, biggest change is I have ditched the usual bias setups in favour of an isolated DC-DC source that can be varied up to 700v if needed. No more AC hum! Just a prototype for now until I get a suitable enclosure.

 

[kevin gilmore]

the emco brick is an expensive way to do this, but overall a really nice job.
definitely UL approved.

 

[aokman]

the emco brick is an expensive way to do this, but overall a really nice job.
definitely UL approved.

Definitely not going to argue with you on that one but the Lundahl transformers cost me quite a bit to get to Australia anyway so decided to just go the full hog and take the "safer" route to hopefully not fry anything. I started out with the traditional STAX bias multiplier in my SRD-7's but hum was an issue depending on amplifier if I didn't use an isolation transformer so I wanted to do away with it completely.

Yes completely safe will be in an enclosure once it arrives and I design a proper PCB with some safety to shut down the bias if anything goes wrong

 

[KDS315]

Definitely not going to argue with you on that one but the Lundahl transformers cost me quite a bit to get to Australia anyway so decided to just go the full hog and take the "safer" route to hopefully not fry anything. I started out with the traditional STAX bias multiplier in my SRD-7's but hum was an issue depending on amplifier if I didn't use an isolation transformer so I wanted to do away with it completely.

Yes completely safe will be in an enclosure once it arrives and I design a proper PCB with some safety to shut down the bias if anything goes wrong

Would you mind showing the schematics of this? Thanks, appreciate it!

 

[aokman]

Would you mind showing the schematics of this? Thanks, appreciate it!

For sure, happy to, just need to finish laying out the final design as it was put together on the fly for testing but I will share

If it helps at all starting out I followed most of the data sheets and I'm using an LM317, fed by 12v which regulates to 4.7v currently into the DC-DC converter delivers 580v. Just testing the ballast resistor values and capacitor setup but 0.1uf seems more than adequate with a 2.2meg resistor on the output to keep the converter on a 30% load and bleed the cap. Before I finalise a design I need to add a crowbar to kill the input if the voltage goes too high. Regulation from cold start to warmed up is roughly +-4v

I was evaluating if the LM317 was clean enough initially and all seems perfect so far or its just not that important for bias.