The Stax thread (New)

[AudioCats]

30 seconds....

 

[AudioCats]

hmm, so it went for 1.5K

(I know you guys were watching too)

 

[n3rdling]

 

[ericj]

Nah, I have one 'working' E/9 and one gutted E/9.

and i hate my vintage koss 'stats. Which makes me wonder why i bought an esp6 even after i knew i hated my esp9.

(my esp9 does not work properly. it may or may not work properly if i recable it. I no longer care.)

 

[AudioCats]

put the ESP6 drivers into the ESP9 housing, and recable, and mod the E/9 to drive the ESP7.5 ([6+9]/2=7.5).

Should sound about the same as a ESP7.

 

[spritzer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericj /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well, SOMEBODY, who shall remain nameless (you know who you are!), wants me to make him an ESP/7 to Stax Low Bias adapter. He says he has a minty fresh ESP/7 with no energizer, and that he believes that the pinout was the same as the ESP/9. Pleading with him to just rewire them in the earcups proved fruitless. I recall having seen the ESP/9 pinout on headwize back in the day, but headwize is down and the relevant pages don't seem to be in google's cache. Anybody got it handy?

You can't make an adapter from Koss to Stax without hooking the 6core input cable up directly to the drivers first. The Koss phones have a ground connection so plugging them into a Stax amp will have some interesting results. The - stators are driven at a diminished capacity or even at 0v (can't remeber

)) so the phones are operating in push-pull mode but with limited backwave.

 

[Oublie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by malldian /img/forum/go_quote.gif Can someone summarize the recable options for a sr lambda? Mega search didn't find anything promissing..

Germania recabled a set of lambdas with silver plated copper wire rated for 600v. I suppose your options consist of recabling using whatever you can find wire wise that you like and is rated to a high enough voltage.

The alternative would be to use a modern spares stax cable from a 404 and terminating with a normal bias plug. The normal bias plug uses a single bias connection whereas the pro has two but this wont make any difference as long as your plugging into a 230v bias and not 580.

 

[spritzer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oublie /img/forum/go_quote.gif The normal bias plug uses a single bias connection whereas the pro has two but this wont make any difference as long as your plugging into a 230v bias and not 580.

It's the other way around. The best option is to replace the cable with a SR-202 unit since they are identical except for the missing pin. That could always be retrofitted with some epoxy.

 

[edstrelow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AudioCats /img/forum/go_quote.gif hmm, so it went for 1.5K (I know you guys were watching too)

That was a deal - 2 prominent pro phones, 2 good low bias phones, a tube amp, a portable amp and a low bias adpter. I was tempted but didn't need any of the phones, or any more phones. If this lot had been broken up or properly identifed in the heading it could have gone a lot higher.

Even now every now and again you can get a decent buy on ebay.

 

[edstrelow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericj /img/forum/go_quote.gif Nah, I have one 'working' E/9 and one gutted E/9. and i hate my vintage koss 'stats. Which makes me wonder why i bought an esp6 even after i knew i hated my esp9. (my esp9 does not work properly. it may or may not work properly if i recable it. I no longer care.)

I like both my old ESP6 and ESP9. I find them very listenable with a wide variety of music and a good match with my Radio Shack Sherwood amp. The 6 has a more prominent midrange than the 9. The 9 in my opinion needs a midrange boost but is otherwise a better phone.

If you need a half-way decent fully sealed electrostatic these are a good buy, generally less than $100.00 on ebay. However they often need cleaning up. My ESP6 wouldn't run much at all l when I first got them but now are pretty close to original operation (I owned one way back when)

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/kos...tatics-234504/

Their main sonic weakness is a lack of air/ambience. I wonder if this could be improved with some re-wiring, especially of the 9's energizer?

One of these days I must try to again to run my extra 9 phones from a Stax amp.

 

[AudioCats]

one note on the vintage Koss: as far as I can tell from my recabled ESP10, these old phones requires a tremendous amount of power to drive well, you might want to stick with using transformer boxes (well unless you can try them with a BH or something).

The 950, though by itself can be considered as "difficult to push", is actually an easier load than the ESP10.

 

[Keithpgdrb]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lil' Knight /img/forum/go_quote.gif What's the point in recabling the Lambdas? The cable sucks?

the opposite problem actually. its a really nice cord. But mine has a faulty connection on one side. something is happening right at the base of the cans. a broken wire maybe. Replacing it with a probias 202 cable seems the correct way to go, but NO ONE could give me a straight answer on getting one. I tried a long time, to no avail. so I'll wait till the inevitable.

spritzer, if this cord actually fails on my lambdas at the point of entry, could I just cut the cord before the faulty part and resolder? no one has mentioned that option. a whole new cord for one little area seems like overkill. thoughts? what dont I know?

 

[-=Germania=-]

Yeah, you can Keith,

That is whay I did originally, but it was shorter in the Y than I cared for and I had fears that there were faults in other areas of the cable hense the recable.

 

[Oublie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spritzer /img/forum/go_quote.gif It's the other way around. ....

Yeah I knew that I was just testing to make sure you were all paying attention

 

[gjkphd]

I decided to explore the world of electro statics a few months ago to compliment my grado/ATH--Yammie set up. I started with the Koss ESP-950 and paired it with a Stax 717 SS amp. This combo did not do it for me. The Koss sounded dead (vs. lively) with little punch and very weak bass. So before I give up on the electrostatics could you recommend a Stax phone to try, esp one that mates well with the 717, which I have held on to. (I listen to mostly classic rock and jazz)

thanks