Reviewed by Currawong
Pros: Detail, naturalness and resolution on another level above anything else out there.
Cons: You'll never have a good enough source for them and the best rig will cost as much as a quite excellent speaker rig or even a car.
Cons: You'll never have a good enough source for them and the best rig will cost as much as a quite excellent speaker rig or even a car.
Knowing where to begin describing these is hard. The closest I can come is my first experience listening to a pair of full-size swiss Piega loudspeakers. The resolution of those things was so incredible I thought that they reproduced the notes of a double-bass with such amazing resoultion you could hear the detail of the strings vibrating and that's before you get an idea of what their ribbon tweeter could do!
With the Omega IIs, you could make out the form of the studio music was recorded in by the detail of the echo off the walls. You'd hear the full reverb and reflections of instruments in classical concerts. Everything is simply on another level compared to dynamic headphones. Only the more recent high-end orthos, such as the LCD-2s and Hifiman series came close. Now the SR-009 takes all this to yet another level. In the same way the first time I tried Stax and compared them to my regular headphones everything was so much more clear and real, the 009s have achieved this over even the orthos, which I hold in the highest regard.
While Stax will never give quite as much impact, or slam to music as othos can (while maintaining a high level of detail), the orthos, already awesome in this regard, wont give you instruments and voices with as much clarity as 009s. The limits are only set by your source and amp, especially the former. I could easily visualise a $15k system with a pair of these (along with a Blue Hawaii SE and Berkeley Alpha DAC).
Getting into the fine details, tonality-wise they are similar to the old-style Omega I and Lambda, that is, quite a bit brighter than the Omega II, which was always the odd one out in terms of sound.
They are again similar to the Omega I in that they come in an elegant wooden box with the nicest foam of any box I've encountered in recent memory. Opening it up, I was greeted with a "new car" smell, suggesting they source the leather from a factory that makes car seats. The headband has a new 10-click (per side) adjustor, which is quite stiff to adjust but holds firm unlike the old Lambda headbands. Beyond that, the fit is typical Stax -- light and comfortable. The aluminium design is of the highest quality.
So, overall, I believe we now have our king.
With the Omega IIs, you could make out the form of the studio music was recorded in by the detail of the echo off the walls. You'd hear the full reverb and reflections of instruments in classical concerts. Everything is simply on another level compared to dynamic headphones. Only the more recent high-end orthos, such as the LCD-2s and Hifiman series came close. Now the SR-009 takes all this to yet another level. In the same way the first time I tried Stax and compared them to my regular headphones everything was so much more clear and real, the 009s have achieved this over even the orthos, which I hold in the highest regard.
While Stax will never give quite as much impact, or slam to music as othos can (while maintaining a high level of detail), the orthos, already awesome in this regard, wont give you instruments and voices with as much clarity as 009s. The limits are only set by your source and amp, especially the former. I could easily visualise a $15k system with a pair of these (along with a Blue Hawaii SE and Berkeley Alpha DAC).
Getting into the fine details, tonality-wise they are similar to the old-style Omega I and Lambda, that is, quite a bit brighter than the Omega II, which was always the odd one out in terms of sound.
They are again similar to the Omega I in that they come in an elegant wooden box with the nicest foam of any box I've encountered in recent memory. Opening it up, I was greeted with a "new car" smell, suggesting they source the leather from a factory that makes car seats. The headband has a new 10-click (per side) adjustor, which is quite stiff to adjust but holds firm unlike the old Lambda headbands. Beyond that, the fit is typical Stax -- light and comfortable. The aluminium design is of the highest quality.
So, overall, I believe we now have our king.
4 people found this review useful
Comments (3)
