The Stax thread (New) - Page 35

Cool! Any photos possible?

You're not the only one. I've read that they sound worse then the ESP9's but they should be easier to Staxify so I don't care. The ESP9 OTOH just don't want to play nice...

I'm not sure since the owner didn't go into any detail. They might be a bit brighter due to their open design but I'm just speculating here. Only way to be sure is for me to buy them...

The ESP7 is an ESP6 with external transformers and bias supply. I haven't seen a lot of them floating around but I could make my own set with the electronics I removed from the 6's.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who saw it but there's a SRA-12s on ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Stax-SRA-12s-SR5...QQcmdZViewItem

And this is up again...
http://cgi.ebay.com/Stax-ED-1-Diffus...QQcmdZViewItem
I wonder if this seller is bidding himself via different identities, I see a whole lot of Bidder 1, Bidder 2,... in his auctions.

The seller is a Head-fi member who regularly posts in this thread. The bidder 1, bidder 2 stuff is ebay's new 'privacy' measures and automatically kicks in on any auction when it exceeds $200.00. What it does is hide all the bidder's usernames with bidder 1, etc. It doesn't mean that anything untoward is occurring but does make it more difficult to detect shill bidding.

Happy Listening!

Sorry already back together.

That's me and I don't shill bid. The previous listing did not meet the reserve so it's up again.

The ESP-7. There.

The 7 seems to be a rationally-designed 6-- that is, the stepup transformers are in a separate box where they belong. But you're right, there's no excess of information on the 7. The 9 replaced both of them anyway. Cool-looking 'phone, the 7.

Oops, apologies. But why does ebay show the bidders as Bidder 1,2,3 and so on? While others have nicks? Private bidders?

Wow! Don't pay attention around here and all of a sudden the thread's up to 27 pages. No way to catch up.

I'm sure this thread must be seriously derailed by now but there's no way I'm going to go through it all to find out. I'll just operate on that assumption and hope that I'm doing a service by posting a question about my Stax setup.

I've been pretty sure that I could get more out of my rig. Don't get me wrong, after several years of trying to find a headphone that I really liked I came across the Lambda Pros. I've got them running off an AckdAck! 2 and the SRM-1/MKII. You guys know anyway, and besides it's in my sig.

So last Saturday I was at the NYC meet and Mikhail had to go and bring the ES-1. I plugged in the Lambdas and was pretty sure they had turned into O2s. So it's true, the Lambdas are capable of more.

"So Mikhail, what does this thing run?"

"This one's pretty maxxed out"

"So how much is it?"

"It's hard to say"

"Well, what do they run?"

"They get pretty maxxed out at around $8000, but I'm doing a lot at about $6000. That must be the limit of a lot of people's credit cards."

"So what do they start at?"

"$4000, but most people are doing $6000."

So at 4 large to start, there's no way I'm pulling that off under the wife's nose out of the joint bank account and I will not max out my credit card for audio equipment (I will not max out my credit card...I will not max out my credit card...I will not max out my credit card...).

So the question now becomes how can I improve on my system without spending tons? New source, new transport, new amp, new cables, little rubber feet under the transport, Oxyclean for the connections?

I'm really happy with the Ack dAck. I think it sounds really musical. I don't get any of the high end harshness others complain about with the Lambdas. Of course I may also be deaf, which of course would render this post completely useless, but I'll continue anyway.

How important is a transport? I mean I've heard bozebutton's equipment but then again he's got tens of thousands of dollars in equipment so it's all relative, right? Is there something I could use as a transport that's going to be better than my modded Sony universal player?

The amp is kind of important right? Everyone says how the Lambda Pros have great synergy with the SRM-1/MKIII, but I know from listening to the ES-1 that there is room for improvement (although I don't know what the source was with the ES-1). I tried the TS1 tube amp at the meet but apparently it was on the RCA setting and it was running from a balanced source so that kind of rendered that audition useless - I didn't like the sound that much. What are some other amps that might work in this system that are reasonably priced?

Can cables make a difference? I'm currently using some Golden Raincoats. Is there something that will make a significant difference and not cost $1000 and even if I spent $1000 what kind of difference could I actually hear?

Is there anything else I could consider to tweak this system?

Personaly I would go with a nice tube or hybrid active preamp. Something with some 6dj8s (6922s). It will give you some much needed dynamics and the possibility to contour the sound a bit with tube rolling. The Lambda Pros seem to love tubes at least somewhere in the chain.

Ah preamp! Tell me more so this weedhopper can grasp the pebble from your palm. Makes, models, links? Sorry, never thought to much about preamps.