HeAudio 1.3, 1.2B and the new JADE Stat Headphones

[Faust2D]

This does not look like a $1000 pair of headphones to me. My 30 years old Lambda is in better shape. So sad that they don't take care making them and QC the replacement pair to make sure simple things like heatshrinking is done properly. Looks like a DIY project not a commercial product.

They better sound very very good to consider buying them, and even then I would be concerned about longevity.

[krmathis]

Originally Posted by Afrikane

A couple of close ups to show fit 'n finish

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/i...EH12B_6984.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/i...EH12B_6995.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/i...EH12B_6985.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/i...EH12B_6988.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/i...EH12B_6999.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/i...EH12B_6997.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/i...EH12B_6998.jpg

Great photos!

[JimP]

Afrikane/Jon L/Yikes (or anyone else receiving latest batch),

Would appreciate any further comments on sound/sonic issues. I believe I'm in the last batch due to ship out.

Less concerned about the 'fit and finish', as this is from a one-man artisan shop vs. Stax the company. Not defending HE, $1k is a lot of money to me, but I'm trying to put it in context. Sonics would over-rule less than perfect finish for me.

For now, intending to go 1.2B - SRD7mkII - Almarro to scratch my 'stat itch.

[Yikes]

people have to realize that they are hand built in China. Expecting the fit and finish of any number of mass produced headphones is frankly unrealistic. If you want fit and finish perhaps you should look elsewhere. I however owned a Set of Lambda Pros in the late 80's, and as far as the sound goes there is absolutely no comparison. The EH-1.2B's with 12 hours on them are already so much better than the Lambdas that a fit and finish comparison to me is just silly.

[JimP]

Yikes, thanks for the comments. I was toying with idea of picking up some Lambda's as an in-between, but I'll just wait for the 1.2B's now.

[braillediver]

"The EH-1.2B's with 12 hours on them are already so much better"

See he hasn't slept yet. The sacrifices’ people make for Head-Fi.


If you think about it- the fit / finish were adequate and appropriate for that headphone at that price point. When properly done- what else could compete with it in the same price range? To get the fit / finish of something like an Omega 2 it will cost about what the Omega 2 costs.

So the manufacturer really has 2 choices:

1) Fix the sound quality / reliability issue, leave the fit / finish about the same and maintain the $1000 price.

Or

2) Fix the sound quality / reliability issue, Perfect the Fit / Finish concerns with better materials, tooling, Quality Control and charge $1800.

If you think #2 is too expensive it isn’t. Tooling, R+D, Design help, tools, prototypes and models all cost money. Then the increased production cost has to be accounted for.


It will be very interesting to see what happens. They’ve proven it does work so with some effort I hope they can resolve all the issues and produce something amazing.


Mitch

[vcoheda]

Originally Posted by Yikes

people have to realize that they are hand built in China. Expecting the fit and finish of any number of mass produced headphones is frankly unrealistic. If you want fit and finish perhaps you should look elsewhere. I however owned a Set of Lambda Pros in the late 80's, and as far as the sound goes there is absolutely no comparison. The EH-1.2B's with 12 hours on them are already so much better than the Lambdas that a fit and finish comparison to me is just silly.

no crackling?

[facelvega]

Originally Posted by Faust2D

This does not look like a $1000 pair of headphones to me. My 30 years old Lambda is in better shape. So sad that they don't take care making them and QC the replacement pair to make sure simple things like heatshrinking is done properly. Looks like a DIY project not a commercial product.

Originally Posted by Yikes

people have to realize that they are hand built in China. Expecting the fit and finish of any number of mass produced headphones is frankly unrealistic. If you want fit and finish perhaps you should look elsewhere.

There are two questions here: is the basic design durable and easy to assemble well, and is the execution of that design happening to an acceptable level of quality control? Not having had a pair of these in my hands, I can only speculate on the first, but it seems that by and large the complaints are focusing on the second. This is something easily and cheaply improved, and really unacceptable for a premium price item, DIY or not. The top end of DIY has better build quality and comparable QC to the biggest mass production-- in headphones, think of the better amp makers, or those flashy darths everyone keeps buying, or Steve's donuts.

[AudioCats]

Originally Posted by Yikes

people have to realize that they are hand built in China. Expecting the fit and finish of any number of mass produced headphones is frankly unrealistic. If you want fit and finish perhaps you should look elsewhere. .

My feel is just the opposite: considering the price of these phones, and they are hand-build in china, they should be as close to perfect as possible. The labor is much less expensive than in Japan, HE can afford to use only highly skilled labor, and since the production is tiny (not even qualifies as small), QC should be rigorous. Unless whoever builds it doesn't care (or is not allowed to care due to the extreme pressure from the investors).

It is very sad to see HE shooting himself in the foot like this. I sure hope this quality control problem gets solved in a timely matter so HE doesn't do too much more damage to the (not even there) reputation of Chinese electrostatic phones.

[minivan]

dang! i have high hope and confident that this headphone will succeed in the first place, as i had read mr he took 5 years to diy this headphone before he's confident enough to put it in the market.

sound wise, it seem like the headphone pass the test with flying color, judging from most of the people's impressions here. what other diy headphone in the world that has sound quality comparable with the o2 and he90?

quality and reliability wise, i can only speculate that : since this is the first time the product is being commercialized, there's lack on experience on QC and maintain the of consistency.

i do know mr HE monitior this thread closely and take notes comments/feedback from people here. let's hope he got all these issues resolved and made a killer headphone with very competitive price. in the end it will be consumer that benefit the most.

[1UP]

It's easy for me to say as it's not my money, but this thread's been real compelling and I feel it's worth giving these guys more time to iron out the kinks.

The best things are sometimes worth waiting for!

[Jon L]

Originally Posted by JimP

Afrikane/Jon L/Yikes (or anyone else receiving latest batch),

For now, intending to go 1.2B - SRD7mkII - Almarro to scratch my 'stat itch.

Uh, Jim, that would be a no go. 1.2B requires a lot more power than SRD7 MkII/Almarro can provide, requiring at least 7-8 dB more gain than when driving my Sennheiser HE60 out of the same setup.

1.2B also sounds like it has only about half the quantity of upper treble air and upper-midrange compared to HE60, so you will have to amp/tube them accordingly.

*Hmmm Edit*

It looks like my second sample of 1.2B is playing nicer with Almarro/SRD7mkII than the first one, giving me better volume/authority as well as SQ. With proper tube/coupling cap rolling, this combo is sounding pretty good...



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As far as fit-and-finish, I don't care too much about the appearance of some finish, but the cable strain relief is a *HUGE* functional/safety issue. There is literally one solder joint holding together the headphone to the heavy cable assembly, which is carrying high 'stat voltages. I can literally see the solder/wire inside the earcap move up and down as the headphone cable is manipulated..

[Yikes]

No Crackling up to this point. Continuing to play them and break them in, they now have about twenty hours. (Not twenty hours of listening, just playing. I've only had a couple of hours to actually listen.)

All I can say is that if the sound quality meets my expectations (Which are very high) and no technical problems crop up I'll be a happy camper.

My understanding is that up until now the price has been an "introductory price" and that it is going up.

So in a way they have been beta testing on us. I have no problem with this as long as they fix whatever issues may arise. I expect the retail of the EH-1.2B to end up in the $1500-$1800 range. I also expect that ultimately they will end up usually being mated to an upcoming HeAudio Amp. So like most Stax headphones they'll be sold as a system.

I'd expect a Solid State HeAudio 1.2B system will sell for about $2500 and a tubed system at about $3000. This would significantly undercut even heavily discounted pricing of Stax Omega systems, and the competition may spur Stax on to further improve their systems.

[spritzer]

Originally Posted by Jon L

As far as fit-and-finish, I don't care too much about the appearance of some finish, but the cable strain relief is a *HUGE* functional/safety issue. There is literally one solder joint holding together the headphone to the heavy cable assembly, which is carrying high 'stat voltages. I can literally see the solder/wire inside the earcap move up and down as the headphone cable is manipulated..

Given how delicate electrostatic elements are (we are talking about 0.0xmm here) this is simply a recipe for disaster. A single piece of heat shrink that extends some 2" below the housing is a requirement and with the wires held in place with something like zip-ties so that no matter how hard the cable is pulled, that strain will never reach the drivers. Stax even had problems with the cable arrangement on the SR-007 and the Gamma line back in the day and they were much stronger then any heat shrink arrangement can ever be.

Fit fit and finish just looks like they aren't even trying to make them look good. Uneven heat shrink like that should never have shipped out, period. I have a set of custom made headphones from S2Audio which really were prototypes and they are much better made then this. As can be seen in the close up pictures Kane posted the chassis is routed by a CNC machine so the finish could be on par with all the other mass produced wood headphones. I just bought a SR-007A so I'm not joining in on this but they really have to get their act together if the price is going to come close to the 4070 and the SR-007.

I also don't really understand this beta test part. You don't send units half way around the world to users who don't even have a lot of experience with electrostats to tell you something that you could have found out by doing some R&D. I know that electrostatic designers over the years have faced obstacles that they didn't think about such as different moisture levels and how temperature effects that and how the drivers cope with abnormal conditions but all this can be avoided some proper R&D. If you want to test different moisture levels be friendly to you local baker (or own a bakery like me) as most smaller ones have computer controlled proofing rooms where the moisture level and temperature can be controlled at will. To test how the drivers are affected by dust empty a bag from a vacuum cleaner into a small, sealed box with a driver playing inside for a week.

[Faust2D]

Originally Posted by AudioCats

My feel is just the opposite: considering the price of these phones, and they are hand-build in china, they should be as close to perfect as possible. The labor is much less expensive than in Japan, HE can afford to use only highly skilled labor, and since the production is tiny (not even qualifies as small), QC should be rigorous. Unless whoever builds it doesn't care (or is not allowed to care due to the extreme pressure from the investors).

It is very sad to see HE shooting himself in the foot like this. I sure hope this quality control problem gets solved in a timely matter so HE doesn't do too much more damage to the (not even there) reputation of Chinese electrostatic phones.

I agree with this, but the looks and fit are not that important in terms of the appearance. I am concerned with the longevity and quality of the product. It does not look well made to me.