The Stax thread (New) - Page 365

I'm assuming most (if not all) of the stax amps have fixed bias voltages?

Stax srm-t1w has one socket with variable bias voltage.

Exactly what we like to hear!
That you really enjoy the SR-404 / SRM-T1.

Yup, it is variable between 480-580v.

What was the idea behind that on the stax amp?

theoretical question: is it possible to execute an electrostatic driver with anything other than a planar diaphragm, or one with significantly differential thicknesses? Has anyone ever tried? Obviously spacing would be a huge issue.

Didn't Pickering make a curved electrostatic tweeter that was mechanically damped with what was essentially carpet yarn?

I have no idea really. Some users might prefer a slightly softer sound so they could lower the bias accordingly.

In theory you could but it wouldn't be feasible. The electrostatic force is really weak so you would need a high (very high really) bias voltage, much higher then the 12kV Sound Lab uses, to move the mass. This becomes tougher as you need a higher drive voltage as well. It would be better to either use some magnetostatic or a planar driver excited by some other means.

It was something like that. There is a drawing of it in the Quad book as it was included in the original 1955 review. It uses hairs as the suspension network as most ESL's were SE back then even if the superiority of the P-P design was known.

I thought this was important enough to report in this thread too.

I've posted elsewhere that I think something may have been wrong with my SR-001, because for the first 250 hours it had a dome shaped frequency curve with way too prominent mids, but then between 250-300 hours it started to clean up, and by 350 hours the sound was great, and balanced across the board. The SR-001 sound was bad enough at first that I didn't enjoy listening to it, and absolutely needed the SuperFatCat mod if I were going to keep it. Now I like it so much I am planning to buy another SR-001 so I can have a stock one and a modded SuperFatCat.

Nothing else I've had ever showed such a tremendous change with burn-in as did my SR-001 Mk2, so I have to wonder if the cause was a bad part that wasn't working right that finally started to function properly.

So, I got my SR-003 in today. While it doesn't sound anywhere as bad out of the box as my SR-001 Mk2 did, it didn't sound quite as good as my 400+ hour SR-001 Mk2 (SR-001 is still running, but my notes for the running hours are on the other computer). Out of the box the SR-003 has a similar midrange coloration but not to the degree the portable system had at first. In this case, I can enjoy the SR-003 right out of the box, acknowledging that they are not showing neutral tone at this time. This is driving it with a very good amp, my SRM-1 Mk2 Pro, and letting it charge up for half an hour. It was kinda dull and lifeless when I tried it on low-bias.

So, I AM burning-in the SR-003 and keeping it running continuously, and will check it again every 24 hours, to see if I can garner more ridicule in the event that I can report in the other thread that it sounds better over time...

Just a quick uneducated question. Would an SRX MKIII outperform the SR-001 overall? Or are they both better and worse at various things? I've been curious about the vintage stax sound for a while.

Congratulations with the newly acquired SR-003.
I am sure it will improve with burn-in, and close the gap towards your S-001 MK2.

I have the joined the Stax ranks with a SR-001MK2 (office) in December and a 2050II (home) this week. Since there isn't a Cliff Notes version of this War & Peace length thread and the search function hasn't been of much use, I'm asking for some help here.

Any special instructions regarding burn-in -- can I just play pink noise while the
earspeakers sit on the desk?

Any rule of thumb regarding how long the unit should be on before expecting to get the best sound? I was listening last night and all of sudden there seemed to be a sudden improvement of the sound about 30-45 minutes into the listening session.

The SR-003 sounded more open after just 12 hours to loosen them up, and are only slightly better since the 12 hour point, but they do already sound better than the SR-001 Mk2.

Clearly the SR-001 amp is holding them back, yet the SR-001 sound is very close to matching a Livewires Custom IEM through a nice portable amp, but at a cost that is half that of the Livewires/dynamic amp.

I will be doing the Super Fat Cat mod very soon, and then will compare again to my dynamic portable setup, and do a full and long report after that.

Super rig!