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The Headcase Stax thread


thrice

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while i am a dedicated speaker person, i would like to hear some stax, some day. i've heard several sets of 'stat speakers (including classic and new quads, and the ubiquitous martin logans that i don't care for that much), but never a 'stat 'phone.

M-L's are trash these days but the Quad's should have given you an idea of what the technology can do if the speakers were in good condition. As a true planar head I put musicality in first place above all else and any Stax will deliver that in spades and urge you to listen to just one more song. They are brilliant at everything else but this is what truly sets them apart from the dynamics and why I will never go back to moving coils.

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they weren't dynamic enough, loud enough, or bassy enough, for me. *shrug*

Each to own but Quad's are finicky beasts that were never engineered or built well enough to last to. Now sets from the factory today are way off and often need to be refurbished in a few years. I'm not sure about the German units but they should be much better made as they have done some mods to the original design.

Also check out Sound-Lab for the ultimate in size and power if you can find a set local to you. Massive beasts to say the least and a shocking 12kVDC bias...

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Well I finally got to spend a reasonable amount of time with my new Stax SR-44 set. Bear in mind my only speaker amp is a 2 channel Technics home theater receiver fed by a Pioneer DVD player, so I'm not sporting anything special before the electrets.

First thing, these arrived in incredible condition physically. Both the SR-40 headphone and SRD-4 adaptor are in flawless condition. Leather earpads and headband look unused, cable is soft and perfect with the little white markings perfectly intact. Aside from a tiny mark on the left grille, they seem to have been frozen in time since their production date (between 1975 and '80?).

This set has a bit of channel imbalance favoring the left driver, which I can correct with the balance knob, but a downer nonetheless. For sound quality, the bass is pretty rolled off and lacking punchiness, but it is still there and what is there is plenty tight. For mids and treble these are the best headphones I have yet to hear, every instrument is more separated and crisp than I've experienced. The upper extreme end of the highs may be rolled, or maybe I am just sensitive to harsh highs (MS-1's are harsh and fatiguing to my ears), but it is fine with me.

The biggest thing is the separation, I can easily pinpoint every sound in space and nothing pushes anything else out of the way. Very quiet sounds come on earlier in recordings than I was previously aware and new things are jumping out at me. I guess I have never heard anything decent before :)

These headphones do not like metal, or at least I think it sounds like shit on them. It's probably the rolled off bass but heavily distorted/saturated guitars pretty much sound like total ass with these, and some of the poor recording quality makes everything sound very congested.

Well overall I'm really happy with the purchase and would like to build a budget setup to use these with my laptop. I definitely want to move up to one of Stax's more recent offerings in hopes that the positive attributes of the SR-44 will stick around with a little more bass depth. Sorry for the poor audio writing skills, Stereophile writers can sleep safe with me around for sure.

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It certainly looks like you got a pristine set, congrats. Your next task is to find a cheap SR-X Mk3 and SRD-6/7. They are not big bass monsters but boy do they sound good. Mine worked perfectly fine with metal too. They can stand a lot of EQ if you need more bass and they go extremely loud if you want them to. :)

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This set has a bit of channel imbalance favoring the left driver, which I can correct with the balance knob, but a downer nonetheless.

Uh, if you can return these, you should. Channel imbalance is one of the first signs of driver death with electrostats.

...Then get a SR-5NB, they rock, much more so than the SR-Xmk3 :D But the SR-Xmk3 is very good, nevertheless.

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Just picked up two transformers, for $35 shipped:

-Thordarson T22R31 76VA, 360-0-360V 80ma,5V 2A,6.3V 2.5A.

-Stancor P-6170 600-0-600V 200ma,5V 3A,6.3V 3A,6.3V 4A.

hmmm...

Hmmm indeed! What are you planning, a GES or a some of the smaller Stax amps?

..and it's

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I'm thinking about playing around with a hybrid amp with 6S4A outputs and something DHT (non-electrostatic) for the big 1.2kVCT one. It will be a ways off though, I have plenty to work on this year.

Very cool. I wish transformers were in plentiful supply up here... :(

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