Sources for spare / replacement Stax SR-007 sound element + SR-007 Mk1 repair journal

[plaurids]

Hi y'all,

Having a bit of a conundrum with my Stax SR-007 Mk1 (S/N 71169) electrostatic earspeaker. As reported in another HC thread of mine (decided to start a new one here because this was getting quite off-topic there), the right driver's inner dust cover somehow got torn and hence some pretty serious mold damage took place inside. As a result, a rather severe channel imbalance ensued. Opening up the driver for cleaning and assessing the extent of the damage revealed that the diaphragm coating got affected.

After having a look at the Japanese Stax repair page (with the help of Google Translate), I learned that

1. Any international inquiry regarding servicing Stax products must go through the official Stax distributor in one's own country (that was the only piece in English in the whole page, by the way). In other words, my trying to contact Stax directly for a repair quote is a waste of time;
2. The 007 Mk1 can still be serviced by Stax in Japan (through the aforementioned channels) but with possible substitution of parts. This includes the sound elements, which are replaced by current 007 Mk2 transducers.
3. Stax won't sell spare / replacement parts directly to individual customers.

Regarding 1., I've contacted Edifier (the current owner of the Stax brand) here in Brazil. After their contacting Stax in Japan, the answer was that Stax won't accept items for repair through Edifier Brazil unless either they were bought from the latter or, at the very least, I have a receipt from the original owner showing the original place of purchase. Unfortunately, I satisfy neither requirement - my 007 Mk1's former owner also got it used. To sum up, Stax simply won't accept my 007 Mk1 for repair at all 🤬

That leaves me with only two alternatives for repairing my 007 Mk1: either (a) try to get a spare / replacement sound element unofficially elsewhere, or (b) try to open up and repair the driver myself.

Regarding (a), HeyNow HiFi in Australia had these for sale until recently, but they no longer seem to have them. I just couldn't find them anywhere else. Which brings me to my main question: does anyone here at HC know where I can find spare / replacement Stax SR-007 sound elements? I wouldn't mind if they're Mk2 drivers, since this is what Stax would do to replace them anyway. Edit (August 10th, 2023): Second-hand drivers are also acceptable if they are in good condition - if I manage to get one, I might just gut it to get the diaphragm so I can try to keep the tuning of the original driver (as far as its internal geometry goes, at least - see also below). That would also keep the cost down...

Regarding (b), in the last couple of months I've been trying to repair the driver myself with the kind and patient remote help of C. Wachara (HC user chinsettawong), to whom I thank once more. To make a long story short, I was able to replace the torn dust cover membrane and the stators only needed cleaning. However, regarding the diaphragm itself I'm currently facing some difficulties I'm not sure I'll be able to solve - that's why I'm also still trying (a). If the diaphragm repair turns out to be successful after all, I'll update this thread with the exact procedure I used since it might be useful to other SR-007 owners. In the near future I intend nonetheless to describe the repair steps that did work out for me, as time allows.

Thank you in advance for any help you may provide.

Edited August 11, 2023 by plaurids
Added links

[spritzer]

I just used up my last pair of spare drivers for repair and I'm not sure where it is possible to get any more.  Sourcing anything from Stax now appears to be a massive pain as the parts I've been ordering through various distributors, just aren't showing up. 

[jamesmking]

11 hours ago, plaurids said:

 

Regarding (a), HeyNow HiFi in Australia had these for sale until recently, but they no longer seem to have them. I just couldn't find them anywhere else. Which brings me to my main question: does anyone here at HC know where I can find spare / replacement Stax SR-007 sound elements? I wouldn't mind if they're Mk2 drivers, since this is what Stax would do to replace them anyway.

 

In the uk I had a sr007 mk2 cable replacement from electromod (I got the cable caught did not realise stood up and damaged the cable). They may be able to help. Good luck

https://www.electromod.co.uk/stax-spares

 

[plaurids]

7 hours ago, jamesmking said:

In the uk I had a sr007 mk2 cable replacement from electromod (I got the cable caught did not realise stood up and damaged the cable). They may be able to help. Good luck

https://www.electromod.co.uk/stax-spares

Thanks. I've also checked electromod a couple of times. The SR-007 cable is not so difficult to find (yet), but I've never seen electromod having spare SR-007 sound elements for sale. I'll try to contact them directly as you've suggested, but I'm not optimistic...

Edited August 8, 2023 by plaurids

[jamesmking]

1 hour ago, plaurids said:

Thanks. I've also checked electromod a couple of times. The SR-007 cable is not so difficult to find (yet), but I've never seen electromod having spare SR-007 sound elements for sale. I'll try to contact them directly as you've suggested, but I'm not optimistic...

I wish you good luck. I can't believe how screwed up Stax as a company is. All they have to do is make the sr007a with spares, support and repair, license the blue hawaii and modern T2 from Kevin and maybe a couple of cheaper energizer designs and they would done.

Edited August 8, 2023 by jamesmking

[plaurids]

A short update: Mark from electromod answered (damn they're fast), and he confirmed they don't deal with spare SR-007 sound elements. According to him, it's not worth it to them since they have to buy a matched pair and these would cost them about 3/4 of a brand-new SR-007. He suggested looking for a second-hand spare sound element, which is also kind of what I'm trying to do in this thread... 😔

Edited August 9, 2023 by plaurids

[plaurids]

On 8/8/2023 at 4:05 AM, spritzer said:

I just used up my last pair of spare drivers for repair and I'm not sure where it is possible to get any more.  Sourcing anything from Stax now appears to be a massive pain as the parts I've been ordering through various distributors, just aren't showing up. 

How much did you pay for the pair of spare drivers, btw?

23 hours ago, jamesmking said:

I wish you good luck. I can't believe how screwed up Stax as a company is. All they have to do is make the sr007a with spares, support and repair, license the blue hawaii and modern T2 from Kevin and maybe a couple of cheaper energizer designs and they would done.

One might have hoped that Edifier would provide the resources for Stax to be in a better shape regarding their service / spare parts policy, but it seems they are only getting worse - which is pretty sad, as some of the Stax products are quite serviceable. For one, one can pretty much completely disassemble and reassemble the SR-007 if one wishes to do so.

[spritzer]

12 hours ago, plaurids said:

How much did you pay for the pair of spare drivers, btw?

It's been close to a decade so I just don't remember but well over 1k$. 

Everything under Edifer is getting worse, they should have the resources to do something good but no, performance across the board is just worse and everything is much more expensive. 

[plaurids]

21 hours ago, spritzer said:

It's been close to a decade so I just don't remember but well over 1k$.

Hmm... that might make the second-hand driver route more reasonable cost-wise - if I can find one. I've updated the first post above to account for that. If I can get a second-hand driver, I may just gut it to get the diaphragm and replace the damaged one in my original driver, so I can try to preserve the tuning (Edit: as far as the driver's internal geometry goes, at least - see also below) and store what remains of the former as spare parts.

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by plaurids

[spritzer]

The tuning is in the diaphragms so yeah, that wouldn't work

[plaurids]

9 hours ago, spritzer said:

The tuning is in the diaphragms so yeah, that wouldn't work

Hmm... good point, but the driver's inner geometry (frame, stator hole pattern, spacer distances, etc.) and earpads would also be important, provided the latter has been stretched to some reference tension. Regarding "reference tension", I'd guess that Stax has some sort of fixed spec for that aiming at some target for the fundamental resonance frequency of the diaphragm within the driver in "normal" listening scenarios. In a DIY scenario, one may try instead to calibrate the membrane tension in order to get to at least some reference open-air fundamental resonance frequency.

This should be standardized in the manufacturing process, right? Which brings me to the following question: has anyone measured the fundamental open-air resonance frequency of the diaphragm in the different versions of the SR-007 (Mk1, Mk2, Mk2.5, Mk2.9, etc.)? If the driver's internal geometry has changed through all these, I guess the diaphragm tension would be calibrated for that, yes? If so, then swapping diaphragms between drivers from different versions does become a lottery regarding tuning indeed...

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by plaurids

[billqs]

Don't know if this is helpful, but I had to replace the diaphragms in my old SR-007 and STAX did it for me. I don't have the invoice, but I was able to get it done by the company even though it was Looonngg out of warranty.

[plaurids]

On 9/14/2023 at 12:44 PM, billqs said:

Don't know if this is helpful, but I had to replace the diaphragms in my old SR-007 and STAX did it for me. I don't have the invoice, but I was able to get it done by the company even though it was Looonngg out of warranty.

Dear billiqs,

thanks for your message. In which country do you live, and who is the Stax representative there? Did they handle the contact with Stax regarding your repair, or were you able to contact Stax directly about this? I'm asking you all this because Stax has this ironclad rule about not accepting direct inquiries about servicing their products from abroad, they say it this must be done through the Stax representative in the said country. As I wrote in the first post of this thread, this is written (in English) in the Japanese Stax repair Web page - btw, I've just found it as well in the manual of my Lambda SR-407, so they've had that rule for a long time:

The problem is, in my case (Brazil) the parent company Edifier itself is the Stax representative, and they ended up plain refusing to send my SR-007 Mk1 to Stax for repair because the unit was not bought from them and I didn't have the original receipt. At the moment, I'm trying to fix the driver myself because that's the only option I have left, but I'm not sure yet I'll be successful at it because - long story short - I also made a few mistakes along the way and now the right driver's diaphragm is damaged beyond repair, which means I need to make a new diaphragm (a pair of them, actually, since I need to keep the tuning matched on both channels, as spritzer put it above). Currently working on that, it'll take a while...

Speaking of which, did you have just your diaphragms replaced, or the whole drivers? I'm asking you this because by looking at a few of your HC posts on this, it's a bit unclear... More precisely, Stax claims that damaged 007 Mk1 drivers are replaced by current 007 Mk2 drivers, as it can be inferred from your Jan. '19 post, but by looking at the pictures in your Apr. '20 post and the subsequent comments not only does one see that your 007 is a Mk1 like mine but also that Stax kept the original Mk1 port lid (which is attached to the earpad attachment plate by two screws). I believe that the latter is compatible with the current Mk2 drivers, although probably not with the current Mk2 cable, since the Mk1 port lid is also part of the tension relief mechanism of the Mk1 cable and the Mk2 cable uses a different, better tension relief method. That's probably the main reason why the Mk1 port lid had to be kept after the repair, otherwise one is unable to safely keep the Mk1 cable attached to the driver. Anyhow, I couldn't reach a conclusion about what Stax actually did to your 007 Mk1. Finally, you said you no longer have the repair invoice, but do you by any chance remember how much the repair cost to you (shipping costs included)?

Edited September 19, 2023 by plaurids

[billqs]

I'm in the US and I dealt with STAX directly in Japan. This was several years ago and at the time the US Stax Representative situation was a ridiculous mess, but they worked with me. I hope you can get the help you need!

I dealt with a representative from Edifier. They charged $780 to replace both drivers.

 

EDIT #2: It was a big deal that I couldn't locate the serial number and they almost didn't take it, but finally relented. I tracked the previous history of the 007s both the shop and original owner and neither had the information.

EDIT #1:

Here's the email names redacted:

 

 

 

Hi Bill,

 

Kindly note that STAX Japan has accepted your RMA order without SN provided.

The estimated cost of the repair is USD780 including the cost of Sound Elements, Technical Charges, etc.

Please note that this is an estimation only.  The actual cost will be quoted after inspection.

If you are fine with this estimation, please pay attention to the following for product sent to STAX Japan for repair:

• Customer can send faulty unit to STAX Japan at customer's cost.
• A fee of USD 65.- will be charged as inspection fee.
• If the customer DOES accept the repair cost quoted, the inspection fee of USD 65.- will be used to offset the repair costs.
• If the customer DOES NOT accept the repair cost and requests for the faulty unit to be returned, then the inspection fee of USD65.- will be charged by paypal to customer and the unit to customer's address via post will be arranged by Edifier.
• Any additional charges incurred for parts replacement and other requirements will be quoted after inspection for customers' acceptance.

We look forward to  hearing from you on the above.

 

 

Thanks & best regards,

[plaurids]

Dear billiqs,

thanks again for the info. OK, so you did have the whole drivers replaced by Stax.

Your situation closely resembles the one reported in this Head-Fi post. Honestly, I think both of you (supposing you're not the same person) got lucky in a roundabout way, since the US Stax representing company being in disarray allowed you both to bypass it somehow. The Edifier Brazil employee that handled my request tried to make it work in several ways in the course of a few months, but Stax was adamant. The former even tried to talk directly with a Stax manager who happened to come from Japan for an event in São Paulo, to no avail. The serial number (which I do have) is not enough, I do need at least the original buyer's receipt.

It's like I said above - one would think that Edifier acquiring Stax would've given the latter the resources for better servicing their products, but what is happening seems to be the opposite. It's really unnerving.

Edited September 19, 2023 by plaurids

[billqs]

I'm sorry they won't work with you. That really blows! I hope you can get this resolved.