Digging into the Stax of my music
 

Amazing how a new piece of equipment opens up your music again. See my
other post "What would you give up last?" about what I concluded when I
considered downsizing my hi-fi. About the same time as I was concluding
that I would keep my electrostats above all other speakers, and
suitable amps to drive them would have to be Quad, ditto CD player, I
read Don Pearce writing on UKRA about his earphones, Stax electrostats.
I hadn't used Stax for getting on for thirty years now, the last time I
actively supervised recordings in the studio. I wonder what happened to
my old monitor phones, kept in a locked wooden box when I didn't use
them, with my assistant guarding the key.

Still, since I was thinking about small format music and electrostats
already -- all of this transpired quicker than I can write this down,
while I lay in my bath -- I designed up with the aid of the E6B rotary
slide rule on the bezel of my flying watch (the only one I have that's
truly -- 100m -- waterproof so it goes to the bathroom with me) a
little tube amp to drive electrostatic earphones. This was so inspired
that the only thing I had to adjust when I got to my computer and drew
it, and the next day built it, was the diaphraghm biaswhich on the
paradigm Stax is now 580V rather than 230V as it used to be in my day.
(Actually, in my day I think, though memory is clearly not to be
trusted after so long, that we used closed back electret Staxes with a
permanent charge on the diaphragm, not a bias propagated by the amp.)
In any event, the exact level of the bias wasn't important because I
was planning to build a pair of electrostatic earphones in the shells
of a pair of very smart but monstrously uncomfortable Bang & Olufsen
earphones. Perhaps fortunately -- considering bias of 580V besides my
ears -- the B&O were so uncomfortable that I haven't worn them in years
and couldn't find them. So doing the easy job first, building the amp,
and consequently having run out of time to build earshells and, more
difficult, a headband that is tight enough without being uncomfortable,
and having determined with borrowed Stax earspeakers that modern Stax
are just as good as I remember them (and as Don says they are -- first
really useful thing I've ever heard him say; what else do you know,
Don?), I just ordered up a matched set of cheap Stax earspeakers and
silicon amp (SRS2050 "Basic", consisting of SR-202 earspeakers and
SRM-252 MkII/A dedicated amplifier), to use the SS amp as a baseline
for further development of my tube amp and to replace the cheap
earpspeakers with something of my own manufacture if they were to
inadequate by comparison with the top of the line Omega I had borrowed
for a few weeks.

I've been sitting around with a silly grin on my face ever since. The
Stax Lambda is a sort of mini-Quad ESL. Even the silicon amp that comes
in the "Basic" set sounds super-clean; the specs are excellent, of
course. My tube amp is on test by the fellow who lent me the Stax Omega
and I feel no hardship using the silicon amp.

The amazing thing is my music sounds as fresh as I remember from that
day over forty years ago when as a teenager I bought my first set of
electrostats, which were then just called ESL and which some now call
ESL-57.

Of course, over 800 Euro for a pair of headphones (if you shop in
Europe -- I bought from PriceJapan and paid about two-fifths that much)
at first seems pretty stiff, but the truth is that you don't get much
that is outstanding in audio for less, and nothing I can think of
except the Stax earspeakers that will open your eyes like that anew to
your music.

Played Bach Cantata, of course, and the usual choirs of early sacred
music, and Jacqueline Du Pre in the big EMI France box set, quite a bit
of Harry Christophers and The Sixteen which just happened to be dotted
here and there in the disc stores I had down, and am now playing my way
through the complete Sibelius, which I haven't played in in years,
because I went looking for Schutz's Weinachtshistorie. En Saga in the
original 1892 version, anyone? I bet Iain when he returns from holiday
will tell us he knows the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and their conductor
Osmo Vanska. I now see they're on the BIS label, so that's probably an
easy one.

For those who didn't catch the pun in the thread title (and why should
you unless you're a bookman?): in libraries the books for which they
don't have space on the public shelves are stacked flat on the floor in
the basement, and the space is called "the stacks".

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information
for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site
containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review

Digging into the Stax of my music
 

"Andre Jute" wrote in message
oups.com...
The amazing thing is my music sounds as fresh as I remember from that
day over forty years ago when as a teenager I bought my first set of
electrostats, which were then just called ESL and which some now call
ESL-57.

Careful Andre. Phil Allison might just accuse you of having stolen them.
After all, how many teenagers (then) could have afforded to purchase a pair
of Quad ESL57s?

Cheers,
Alan



Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information
for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site
containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review

Digging into the Stax of my music
 

Alan Rutlidge wrote:
"Andre Jute" wrote in message
oups.com...
The amazing thing is my music sounds as fresh as I remember from that
day over forty years ago when as a teenager I bought my first set of
electrostats, which were then just called ESL and which some now call
ESL-57.

Careful Andre. Phil Allison might just accuse you of having stolen
them. After all, how many teenagers (then) could have afforded to
purchase a pair of Quad ESL57s?

Don't understand the title of this thread, unless it's a play on words: Stax
were a well know maker of electrostatic headphones.

Digging into the Stax of my music
 

Alan Rutlidge wrote:


Careful Andre. Phil Allison might just accuse you of having stolen
them. After all, how many teenagers (then) could have afforded to
purchase a pair of Quad ESL57s?

Cheers,
Alan

As a teenager (just 18) I was in the forces and I bought a pair of new 57's
Quad 405 and 44 pre with an LP12

Give most had something like Kenwood or Phillips or even Technics my system
got some strange looks lol

I wish I still had it :-( all paid for with "LOA" local overseas allowance
via a Sparkassa ? bot sure about spelling bank loan

Digging into the Stax of my music
 

jasee wrote:

Alan Rutlidge wrote:
"Andre Jute" wrote in message
oups.com...
The amazing thing is my music sounds as fresh as I remember from that
day over forty years ago when as a teenager I bought my first set of
electrostats, which were then just called ESL and which some now call
ESL-57.

Careful Andre. Phil Allison might just accuse you of having stolen
them. After all, how many teenagers (then) could have afforded to
purchase a pair of Quad ESL57s?

Don't understand the title of this thread, unless it's a play on words: Stax
were a well know maker of electrostatic headphones.

If you read from the beginning of Andre's post you'll see.

Doc

Digging into the Stax of my music
 

"Still, since I was thinking about small format music and electrostats
already -- all of this transpired quicker than I can write this down,
while I lay in my bath -- I designed up with the aid of the E6B rotary
slide rule on the bezel of my flying watch (the only one I have that's
truly -- 100m -- waterproof so it goes to the bathroom with me) a
little tube amp to drive electrostatic earphones."

Twaddle. The full E-6B Flight Confuser is far too large for any
watch. You may well have a circular slide rule with a couple of scales,
but it's no more a E-6B than a grid dip oscillator is a IFR 1200 CSM.

Digging into the Stax of my music
 

jasee wrote:

Don't understand the title of this thread, unless it's a play on words: Stax
were a well know maker of electrostatic headphones.

It's a pun on the name of my new headphones, explained in the last
paragraph of this letter which opened the thread:

*****

Amazing how a new piece of equipment opens up your music again. See my
other post "What would you give up last?" about what I concluded when I
considered downsizing my hi-fi. About the same time as I was concluding
that I would keep my electrostats above all other speakers, and
suitable amps to drive them would have to be Quad, ditto CD player, I
read Don Pearce writing on UKRA about his earphones, Stax electrostats.
I hadn't used Stax for getting on for thirty years now, the last time I
actively supervised recordings in the studio. I wonder what happened to
my old monitor phones, kept in a locked wooden box when I didn't use
them, with my assistant guarding the key.

Still, since I was thinking about small format music and electrostats
already -- all of this transpired quicker than I can write this down,
while I lay in my bath -- I designed up with the aid of the E6B rotary
slide rule on the bezel of my flying watch (the only one I have that's
truly -- 100m -- waterproof so it goes to the bathroom with me) a
little tube amp to drive electrostatic earphones. This was so inspired
that the only thing I had to adjust when I got to my computer and drew
it, and the next day built it, was the diaphraghm biaswhich on the
paradigm Stax is now 580V rather than 230V as it used to be in my day.
(Actually, in my day I think, though memory is clearly not to be
trusted after so long, that we used closed back electret Staxes with a
permanent charge on the diaphragm, not a bias propagated by the amp.)
In any event, the exact level of the bias wasn't important because I
was planning to build a pair of electrostatic earphones in the shells
of a pair of very smart but monstrously uncomfortable Bang & Olufsen
earphones. Perhaps fortunately -- considering bias of 580V besides my
ears -- the B&O were so uncomfortable that I haven't worn them in years
and couldn't find them. So doing the easy job first, building the amp,
and consequently having run out of time to build earshells and, more
difficult, a headband that is tight enough without being uncomfortable,
and having determined with borrowed Stax earspeakers that modern Stax
are just as good as I remember them (and as Don says they are -- first
really useful thing I've ever heard him say; what else do you know,
Don?), I just ordered up a matched set of cheap Stax earspeakers and
silicon amp (SRS2050 "Basic", consisting of SR-202 earspeakers and
SRM-252 MkII/A dedicated amplifier), to use the SS amp as a baseline
for further development of my tube amp and to replace the cheap
earpspeakers with something of my own manufacture if they were to
inadequate by comparison with the top of the line Omega I had borrowed
for a few weeks.

I've been sitting around with a silly grin on my face ever since. The
Stax Lambda is a sort of mini-Quad ESL. Even the silicon amp that comes
in the "Basic" set sounds super-clean; the specs are excellent, of
course. My tube amp is on test by the fellow who lent me the Stax Omega
and I feel no hardship using the silicon amp.

The amazing thing is my music sounds as fresh as I remember from that
day over forty years ago when as a teenager I bought my first set of
electrostats, which were then just called ESL and which some now call
ESL-57.

Of course, over 800 Euro for a pair of headphones (if you shop in
Europe -- I bought from PriceJapan and paid about two-fifths that much)
at first seems pretty stiff, but the truth is that you don't get much
that is outstanding in audio for less, and nothing I can think of
except the Stax earspeakers that will open your eyes like that anew to
your music.

Played Bach Cantata, of course, and the usual choirs of early sacred
music, and Jacqueline Du Pre in the big EMI France box set, quite a bit
of Harry Christophers and The Sixteen which just happened to be dotted
here and there in the disc stores I had down, and am now playing my way
through the complete Sibelius, which I haven't played in in years,
because I went looking for Schutz's Weinachtshistorie. En Saga in the
original 1892 version, anyone? I bet Iain when he returns from holiday
will tell us he knows the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and their conductor
Osmo Vanska. I now see they're on the BIS label, so that's probably an
easy one.

For those who didn't catch the pun in the thread title (and why should
you unless you're a bookman?): in libraries the books for which they
don't have space on the public shelves are stacked flat on the floor in
the basement, and the space is called "the stacks".

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information
for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site
containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review

Digging into the Stax of my music
 

The thief Bret Ludwig wrote:

Andre Jute wrote:
"Still, since I was thinking about small format music and electrostats
already -- all of this transpired quicker than I can write this down,
while I lay in my bath -- I designed up with the aid of the E6B rotary
slide rule on the bezel of my flying watch (the only one I have that's
truly -- 100m -- waterproof so it goes to the bathroom with me) a
little tube amp to drive electrostatic earphones."

Twaddle. The full E-6B Flight Confuser is far too large for any
watch. You may well have a circular slide rule with a couple of scales,
but it's no more a E-6B than a grid dip oscillator is a IFR 1200 CSM.

You would be less confused, Ludwig, if you didn't use an E6B you got by
return of mail for two buck and six off-brand cola tops.

Whether Citizen or Breitling have a right to call their rotary bezel
flight computers an E-6B, you can take that up with them. For my part,
I am so well satisfied that I have bought several of the products of
each and have no complaints.

More about a couple of my watches on my netsite. I'd write more about
watches but it means sharing with people like Ludwig. On the whole,
better to be silent.

Do you have any musical experiences to share, Ludwig? If not, feel
welcome to bugger off out of my thread.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information
for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site
containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review

Digging into the Stax of my music
 

Dave xxxx wrote:
Alan Rutlidge wrote:


Careful Andre. Phil Allison might just accuse you of having stolen
them. After all, how many teenagers (then) could have afforded to
purchase a pair of Quad ESL57s?

Cheers,
Alan

As a teenager (just 18) I was in the forces and I bought a pair of new 57's
Quad 405 and 44 pre with an LP12

Give most had something like Kenwood or Phillips or even Technics my system
got some strange looks lol

I wish I still had it :-( all paid for with "LOA" local overseas allowance
via a Sparkassa ? bot sure about spelling bank loan

Years ago there was a loud salesman on RAHE called Steve Zipser. His
motto was: You demonstrate your commitment to your sound by how much
you spend. Eventually Zip was disgraced when the took up the challenge
of trying to distinguish cables in a double blind test and,
predictably, failed. I imagine he now sells used cars in Podunk.

Taking a loan as a teenager to buy speakers that cost the price of a
car, now that's real commitment. It's a pity Zip's name is so
discredited or we could have a Zipser Award for someone like you (and
like me at the time) who made a real commitment to serious quality
sound.

In fact, about the same time, having totalled my Porsche dicing in the
storm drains on the way to Bulowayo, to get back to college 1500 miles
away in time for class on Monday morning, I bought an ex-police Jaguar
Mk II at an auction for less than half of what a pair of ESL cost,
never mind the Quad II and 22 I bought at the same time as the
speakers. (The Jag did another 100k miles in my hands as a tow car and
a pace car for longdistance records, before I swapped it for a Healey
3000, so it wasn't rubbish either.)

God, I wish I had that outfit today! But when I had to go into exile in
a hurry, minutes ahead of the Bureau of State Security, I just told the
servants they could take whatever was in the house, and then to set it
alight to add to the confusion in which I hoped to make my escape.
Either some servant scored a fab hi-fi or it burned...

I have some correspondence about one of the ESL (57) that I got in the
1990's. It belonged to an old craftsman whose family said after he died
that he wanted me to have it because he liked my record reviews.
Anyhow, the correspondence includes handwritten letters from Peter
Walker, who clearly took such a major decision as seriously as a guy
who saved up for his speaker (mono is good too!). We should have such
courtesy on the usenet today!

That first series Quad ESL was the greatest speaker ever made, and not
only because I first heard them when my ears were fresh and the world
was young.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information
for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site
containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review

Digging into the Stax of my music
 

"Andre Jute" wrote in message
oups.com
Dave xxxx wrote:
Alan Rutlidge wrote:


Careful Andre. Phil Allison might just accuse you of
having stolen them. After all, how many teenagers
(then) could have afforded to purchase a pair of Quad
ESL57s?

Cheers,
Alan

As a teenager (just 18) I was in the forces and I
bought a pair of new 57's Quad 405 and 44 pre with an
LP12

Give most had something like Kenwood or Phillips or even
Technics my system got some strange looks lol

I wish I still had it :-( all paid for with "LOA" local
overseas allowance via a Sparkassa ? bot sure about
spelling bank loan

Years ago there was a loud salesman on RAHE called Steve
Zipser. His motto was: You demonstrate your commitment to
your sound by how much you spend. Eventually Zip was
disgraced when the took up the challenge of trying to
distinguish cables in a double blind test and,
predictably, failed. I imagine he now sells used cars in
Podunk.

The above contains the usual large number of factual errors that we have
come to expect from Jute posts.

(1) Zipser is the loud salesman who humuliated himself by failing to
distinguish amplifiers, not cables.

(2) Zipser died in bed some years ago, so him selling cars on this side of
the pale is impossible.

(3) The loud salesman who humiliated himself failing to distinguish cables
was named Singh.

(4) All of the above happened on RAO, not RAHE.