New Arrivals 6. - (special edition)

Today, I only want to write about one thing arrived, as it is a bit special to me and need some more attention.

This is a bit strange, nostalgic story.

In my childhood I was living behind the "iron curtain". There we have very little possibilities to get things from the western part of the world. I had obsession to music, the audio electronics in my teenage years. Even I was "working" as a DJ in the school. I had two cassette decks, built a mixing station for this.

I was eagerly need a headphone. My mother time-to-time had the opportunity to travel to the west. Once she bought a headphone for me (some no-name thing, but I was really happy with it).

Years elapsed, more and more Hi-Fi things arrived to the country. To support the music and Hi-Fi loving audience, a magazin appeared on the local market: http://www.hifimagazin.hu/

Once they was running a headphone test: http://hifimagazin.hu/HFMCD/HFM/CIKKEK/HFM2410.HTM

There were AKGs, Beyerdinamics, Sennheisers, etc. the good big names. Those were first unavailable in the country and also as a moneyless student, I can't afford them even if it would be on sale locally.

I just find the KWH HOK-80 on the list, what got good verdict, was available for the money acceptable to me, so I bought it based on the article.

It had great sound, but you had the feeling when you put it on, like your head would be in a machine vice.

You can't tolerate this "comfort" for a long time.

I was a gadgeteer kind of guy already these days. So I built the orthodynamic panels from this headphone to the one I got from my mother years ago. Case closed, I had a good enough headphone (Also built headphone amp for it).

Few years later after the "iron curtain" fallen, I got other interests, turned to the computers instead of the audio electronics. Once I landed the already unused mixing console and the headphone to a friend.

Never seen them again.

Two-three weeks ago (30 years after the story above) I read an article about some highend Technics loudspeakers https://longkft.hu/audioblog/technics-sb-afp1000/ (it was a repost on the facebook).

The article is talking about the east-german headphone I had previously also as the technology is the same as the one used in the Technics monster.

When I read it, the long forgotten story above pop into my mind.

Looked around on the eBay, and found a HOK-80 for a few bucks. Today arrived.

Even this one arrived in the original box, with the original documentation and warranty card.

What a surprise, the original east-german invoice was also in there.

165 east-german mark. I was looking around the exchange rates. If I'm not mistaken, it would be €33 today.

Nothing changed regarding the comfort. The vice feeling on your head is still there.

My son has a gamer headset. He completely destroyed the cabling, the switch and volume knob of it. Finally I bought a bluetooth one for him (can't hurt the cable). I just throw the headset to a drawer years ago with the thought "I'll repair it later" - never happened.

Now I picked it. It would be a good donor candidate for my new project. I want replicate, what I did in the '80s (sort of).

I will build the orthodynamic drivers into this Gigabyte headset's shell, add a proper, detachable headphone cable and done. This will be one of my next projects.