Some time ago, my Etymotic ER4P cable broke and I needed to find a replacement. After some research, I settled on the following: – This cable from EasyDIY seller on AliExpress: An equivalent one could also work. Anyway, this is what I have, and it is flexible, beautiful, very well made and sturdy. Unfortunately, the… » Read the full article
A few months ago I bought a Stax Lambda, but one side of the cable was faulty at the junction section. I gathered the information necessary (thanks to Head-fi’er padam) to shorten the cable (in order to fix it), and I am sharing it. For the Lambda, a hot air gun will be needed to… » Read the full article
This web page by Rob Robinette gives lots of detailed advice to create balanced headphone cables, or reterminate existing single-ended headphones to balanced.
Lately, after reinstalling Windows 11 from scratch in my Lenovo X280 Laptop, I started hearing stuttering, pops, and clicks in digital audio playback. I noticed that this problem was only occurring with my Xmos XU208-based Topping D10s, which I had bought to use as USB-coax converter for my primary custom DAC. The same problem never… » Read the full article
In this post, I collected information related to a few modifications aimed to improve the Stax SRD-7 family (Stax normal bias transformers, to let us drive the older normal bias Stax headphones out of a speaker amplifier). Disclaimer: these are not step by step instructions. Search the internet in order to find further information related… » Read the full article
This is a very interesting article regarding coaxial cables: Is there Really a True 75 Ohm RCA Plug? The standard impedance on a coaxial cable is 75Ohm. Unfortunately, while widely popular, RCA connectors are not designed for digital application and cannot achieve 75Ohm. For this reason, various RCA cables implement 50Ohm impedance, which generates noises… » Read the full article
Some output current values of amplifiers for electrostatic headphones (which, in turn, help determining how well they can drive hardest to drive headphones, such as Stax SR-007, SR-Omega, Hifiman Shangri-La Jr, Stax SR-009, Stax SR-009S, across the frequency spectrum). Blue Hawaii SE: 15mA Stax T8000: about 8mA KGSSHV: between 6 an 9mA (depending on how… » Read the full article
This is the review of two Dynamique Audio cables, the Shadow 2 interconnects and Shadow 2 power cord. I came across this company (based in UK) and I strongly appreciate the details they provide regarding their design choices. Rather than selling “voodoo” or marketing obscure secrets to audiophiles, everything is explained from an engineering point… » Read the full article
This is a “special” review, where I gather my thoughts about Sennheiser Momentum (over-ear), and at the same time I also talk about Sennheiser HD650, HD600 and their general phylosophy. I have been owning such headphones repeatedly for years, without ever writing a proper review for them. I chose to buy the Sennheiser Momentum after… » Read the full article
Perhaps the most interesting thread on Head-Fi.org is the DIY Electrostatic headphone thread. With cheap DIY CNC equipment now available, a whole world has been opened up. Orthodynamics or electrets could be done DIY’ed as well. The thread creator, Chinsettawong, is very receptive to helping others and sharing his knowledge. DIY CNC machining is an… » Read the full article
